Stupid and Pointless 500 Index

This is a customer review on the Apple iTunes store for Meshlab's iOS application. Meshlab is described thusly: 

MeshLab for iOS is an advanced 3D model viewer. MeshLab for iOS has been designed to be able to display complex 3D models in a simple and intuitive way, allowing the accurate inspection of a 3D model through a precise yet straightforward navigation. 

I've used the desktop version of Meshlab off and on for a few months, and it's pretty handy. I was looking to get the iPad version so if I wanted to show off a model before printing it, I'd have options beyond e-mail, flash drives, or Dropbox. 

"When you open the game,"

It's not a game, it's a productivity app. It's a minor point, and I'm sure he meant to say "app", but it helps establish a pattern that's worth noting.

"there are a few models to choose from. It wouldn't let me change or edit them in any way besides changing the light effect. There wasn't a color button a shape button, nothing!"

This is almost a fair point, as the desktop version does allow you to paint the imported models, albeit crudely and with some questionable export settings. As for the shapes button, once again we're back to the main issue that this program is a viewer. It is not full-fledged modeling software. It never proclaims to be anything more than that, thus setting expectations by which it should be judged. Does it perform as advertised? If not, then that's a bad product. If it does, then it's ample, serviceable, adequate... etc.. If it has features beyond those advertised that are competently executed, then that's a fantastic app. If I expected you to fly by flapping your arms while thinking happy thoughts, would that make my criticism that you are a worthless person no one should ever have to deal with valid? 

"So I tried deleting all the models to see if i would then be able to create a new one. Nope."

You didn't try looking on the website or finding any information on how to use the app? You didn't think to look in the app's Help menu to see if the feature was even available? What makes more sense from a design perspective, hide the "new" button until all documents are deleted (especially considering there are only 4 default models in a drop-down menu that goes all the way to the bottom of the screen), or keep the button visible but display an error message that there is not enough room? Imagine if the fuel gauge of a car disappeared until the needle approached empty. 

"I couldn't even do anything because I didn't have any models to edit. There wasn't a plus button to make a new model."

A typical setup for a VIEWER. 

"so that basically made the app useless!"

As useless as a bicycle is for climbing Mt. Everest... As useless as a Jeep is for entering a low earth orbit... As useless as a can opener is for removing a computer virus... as useless as wishful thinking is for overturning DNA evidence... 

"Look, I'm not an app inventor."

Indeed.

"And I'm sure it's harder than it may seem. But seriously! You can do better than this!"

Yes, there are tablet-friendly 3D modeling programs out there, though their numbers are significantly fewer since Autodesk axed the better part of the 123D repertoire, but that doesn't change the fact that Meshlab is a VIEWER and not an EDITOR. 

I know I'm likely blowing this out of proportion; the app is doing well and this little one-star diatribe isn't going to hurt that for an instant. Also, it's certainly not as big a display of ignorance is the yahoo from a few months back who paid ten dollars for the SketchUP Viewer app ("viewer" is in the name) and complained that he couldn't edit anything. 

Half a Mind to Have and Have Not

Let's talk about grammar, spelling, and an overall command of punctuation for a moment. There's a possibility I've gone over most of this before, so if you think you already know where this is going, you won't be missing anything.

The Gadget Guy asked why I don't ridicule the grammar of people who agree with my views meanwhile it's somewhat the focus of my caricatures of him.

Short version: I don't honestly believe there is any such thing as perfect grammar, not in English, anyway. The language is too big a mashup for anything to mesh properly. Still, while I let out the odd "teh" or "lead" when I mean "led", some people have a batting average so much lower than mine, so much than the rest of the team in fact, the other team throws the game out of sympathy.

ShortER version: You're just that bad.

Now, as for why I seem to play favorites:

The reason has to do with the definition of pretentious.

"attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed."

To that end, if you're going to claim to be intelligent, observant, and articulate, or otherwise having an inside track on some unknown truth, it's not unreasonable to expect you to demonstrate the skills necessary to understand this information in the first place.

If you've ever seen Apocalypse Now, you might remember that journalist who basically thought Marlon Brando was the second coming. One of his lines about "reality" goes something like this: You can't go into space with fractions.

This line sums up exactly how The Gadget Guy "thinks". While it's true mathematics in and of itself can't help anyone achieve anything, it's application does. When Galileo said, "Math is the language in which God has written the universe." he wasn't being literal. He was saying that merely using philosophy and direct observation was not enough to understand the world around us. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with it, simply that it was misapplied. Mathematics and the scientific method provided a mechanism to prove hypotheses and spot any falsifiable aspects. Consider the moon, how eclipses were seen as ill omens by primitive folk, while those who knew better not only knew there was nothing to fear, but could even predict their occurrences. In fact, it can be used to one's advantage, such as Christopher Columbus using it to convince the Native Americans he was god-like. Arthur C. Clarke illustrates this in his Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This all finally brings us to Friedrich Nietzsche's master-slave morality, wherein the values of "haves" are judged by "have-nots" as having evil intentions by default, a resentment of other's sentiments. In a roundabout way, it's envy. Worse, rather than the type of envy that may motivate people to transcend their betters (inspiration), it's the type that takes its bat and ball and goes home... after setting fire to the field and bludgeoning the other players unconscious.

Reverse Cryptomnesia?

Also, an inadvertent monograph on the Quinnspiracy and TvW at the UN because that's what happens when you get into a flow talking about programming... 

I talked years ago about the embarrassment of coming up with an idea only to find not only does it already exist, but it's so immensely commonplace and ubiquitous in your own life that it probably took more mental energy to forget it exists than for you to come up with it. This is putting a twist on that idea. 

I don't know programming. I don't know programming at all. I understand some of the ideas around it, but the leap from text in C++ to HD graphics is almost abstract for me. I've tried writing text adventures, but HTML is about the best I can do, and Depression Quest* is pretty much the kind of game I would want to create, though not nearly as pro-social or insightful... or worth playing. 

At one point, after hearing about all the various tools available, I had an idea to use one of these drag-and-drop interfaces to put together the laziest, most bare minimum "Hello, World"-shaming programs and then charge an absurd amount of money for it. Of course, I'm not saying I'm any kind of genius, much less that there's anything more than petty and opportunistic about such a venture, but I figure it's like snuff films; just because the idea is simple and plausible enough doesn't mean anyone's taken it all the way to reality. I know there's a proper name or attribution to the notion of, "if you've imagined it, someone else has likely made it" a more Zen-like perspective on the patent joke "anything that could be invented already has been". As for my "invention": 

Even the most expensive Android app, which is capped at 200USD (but is available as a six app set), is at least a set of desktop themes. I wouldn't call that essential, but at least the developer has enough skill to not look like a shameless opportunist. Meanwhile, one of the most expensive apps on Windows phones is only a mere half-step above the app that I would create. Mine would even be called "the 1000 dollar app that does nothing" (this was before I found out about the price cap) along with a myriad of disclaimers in the description that this is literally a kind of half-hearted social experiment/get-rich-quick scheme. My thinking was that, by the law of averages, I have the power someone would buy it just to burn money and have the dubious honor of having spent a ludicrous amount on a frivolity. 

*For the record, I have no problem with Zoe Quinn. I think the controversy around her has been absurdly blown out of proportion. It did turn my stomach a bit to see her alongside Anita Sarkeesian at the United Nations. As I've said about Sarkeesian, and as much as I legitimately like some of her videos such as the Lego one and even Ms. Male Character, she completely lost my respect with the Women as Background videos with their embarrassingly transparent misrepresentations of the games in question on top of the absurd premise of connecting real-world behaviors to in-game violence. Put simply, she's the worst person to champion her own cause, and while she certainly does not deserve death threats, I feel as though her issues overshadow Quinn's, who has been the victim of a massive, coordinated cyber attack and been accused of attempting to profit from the suicide of Robin Williams. To make matters worse, while I may not care about her personal life, the fact that there are so few women in the games industry does put her in an awkward position where her every inconsequential action carries absolutely onerous consequences. She shouldn't have to be an example, yet I don't think her position is discussed nearly enough. 

I guess you could say the reason I care more about Quinn than Sarkeesian is that Quinn is making legitimate efforts to enact changes in the games industry, blazing trails between the paths less-traveled while Sarkeesian is a bloody backseat driver. 

To put another way: 

If a film critic and a filmmaker were drowning and I could only save one of them... Well, I like The Island and even Age of Extinction had its moments. Sorry, Leonard. 

Final note: double-checking the definition of monograph to make sure I was using it right (you tell me), led me to this site which seems pretty damn awesome at first impression. 

Sophomoric Semaphore

I just don't understand people, sometimes.
Normally, this doesn't bother me, but when it's someone I used to be able to read like a book, it makes me wonder what changed. When you're in a relationship with someone that you care deeply for, you get to a point where the slightest twitch at the corner of the mouth speaks volumes not in the slightest bit cacophonous or overbearing, but instead perfectly coherent. Maybe it's just familiarity and observation, but what does it say when that breaks down or, in my case, completely disappears? My only real guesses are it's either some kind of defense mechanism, or that you maybe weren't really reading them all that well in the first place and you've only just now worked it out. What's worse is that even when they're just speaking to you as they normally would, you wonder how you ever understood anything they said at all.
This particular person whose actions (and, most importantly, words) have led me to write this (after a few very stiff drinks... but that's another matter) has an almost schizophrenic approach to daily life, without actually having the condition. She doesn't communicate very well, and always has a ready excuse. To her credit, the last incident of note was because she had a cat in her lap that she'd just rescued from some negligent owners en route to the pound. Even still, her thoughts were elsewhere:

She: Busy? Have you ate?
Me: Yes, I just got back from eating. What's up?
She: Oh. 

These were text messages, and after sending that "Oh." the next line got its own text message barely thirty seconds later while I debated whether or not to answer or just wait for her to give me more information regarding whether or not I was busy:

She: Cause I'm hungry and mom's not stopping. 

Seven minutes later, again as I try to debate answering her. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Why is this suddenly my responsibility? Was it selfish of me to eat while she was out spending the day with her mom and sister (which I only learned of when I got home from work that day). Why am I supposed to pick up the slack for that? If that's not the case, then why am I being told this?

She: what do you get me from Hardee's? 

Then, while I'm typing the reply, working out that she convinced her mom to stop for food:

She: [my sister] and I are gonna stop there. 

Here's what gets me: she's in the same car with her mom and sister. If I wasn't trying to maintain what little patience I have left for her (things have not been going well for a few months, but I've tried to make the best of things), my reply would have been along the lines of, "No kidding." but with more colorful language. The issue is essentially one of either not getting enough information or getting so much that it's impossible to get a word in edgewise and move the situation forwards. I have to drag essentials out of her only to get multiple and fragmented messages about the logistics of satisfying impulses while carpooling. This brings us to today, as I'm driving home from work, having stopped briefly to gas up my car:

She: You have any cash? I need stuff from the store
Me: Like what?
She: Gallon of tea, [my sister's] coming over tomorrow, apricot scrub... something for dinner. 

So I get an appointment in the middle of a grocery list. Logically, I think this holds relevance, but the place it's wedged into immediately trumps that logic. Thus, I ask:

Me: So, should what I pick up for dinner be for tonight or for when [she] comes over tomorrow?
She: Tonight. 

Then why bring it up, least of all in the middle of a list of things to get? Whether or not she comes over has no bearing on what I do when I get home from work. Maybe there's a little bit of time spent on catching up with what's been happening with the family or some useless piece of trivia that turns out to be wrong

Short story: I have a blue light bulb on our porch because I like the color and it stands out, she tells me it's to signify a gay residence, I do research and find at least six "meanings" to blue outdoor lights, NONE of which have anything to do with the gay community apart from transvestites in Amsterdam. 

I just don't get how someone's mind can work this way when writing out a message. In casual speech, sure, it's easy to insert some random piece of information, but when writing a list...? Like I said, there are always excuses when I get messages like this, most of them having to do with being in the middle of an online multiplayer game and talking to at least one other person via Skype. Others often just have to do with not giving a damn about being understood, which wouldn't even be so bad if she didn't spew bile and rage when asked for clarification. Yes, it can be annoying to repeat one's self, but getting mad at someone else for not being able to understand you when you're barely trying to be coherent is like being mad at yourself for having your hands over your eyes and thus not being able to see in front of you.

All I want is some damn forethought.
All I want is some effort to at least give something a once-over before hitting "send."
All I want is a single, complete thought presented in one singular message.
All I want is the understanding that I'm not able to read minds.
All I want is to not to be treated like an interruption by the very person making the request of me.
All I want is to not have to answer 8 ultimately inconsequential questions before someone gets to the point and asks what they really want to know.
All I want is to not have to end an otherwise-constant string of second-guesses with, "BECAUSE I'M A STUPID F----ING MORON!" in order to make someone drop the issue of how I can make so many "mistakes" in responding to their own words.

Apparently the moon and Belgium are more readily available as a bundle than any one of these simple wishes.

I give up. I give the Hell up. I'm through being a remedial English teacher to a native speaker who throws a temper tantrum at 3 in the morning because their "grammar check" plug-in won't work with their browser. That statement is equally metaphorical and literal.

Good night, and good luck.

Is Master's Voice

I've had a few entries on the back burner for some time, at least three in the past week that have been relegated to "drafts" for various reasons, mostly refinement and fact-checking. I realize it's a bit lazy, even unprofessional from certain perspectives, to then post an entry practically made up on the spot. However, even with that spontaneity which leaves other and more refined projects in the wings, somehow I can't help but feel like I've lapped 90% of the world's population at least twice in a sack race where my sack is the only one made of chainmail instead of burlap. In other words, I still feel superior when I look around and see remarks like this:

In the interest of full disclosure, I was one of those lucky little boys who had teachers for parents. In fact, one of them is an English teacher, so I'm used to hearing terms like "Grammar Nazi" hurled in my direction. As such, I have to respect that not everyone had the kind of background I did where re-reading and double-checking what I'd written became an almost unconscious habit. I also have to respect that lingering on someone's lack of articulation is a bit of a straw man situation which might ultimately undermine any credibility I'd otherwise have in the discussion. That said, when someone is talking about being mis(understood/interpreted/quoted) or chastising others for how they speak or write when they themselves can't rise to the level they claim to champion, how they handle themselves at a keyboard should be fair game.
In this case, it's especially fair game considering the overall length of the phrase. I can forgive a typo in a novel or even a somewhat lengthy weblog entry, but this is just incompetent.

To his credit, he starts off well enough from a technical point of view, his only real misstep being that he doesn't back up his assessment of the video's "dumb and stupid" narration with specific points of observation, but then we get to the third sentence. Verbosity can't be spelled without "bore," it's true, but sometimes the pursuit of conciseness is equally overbearing and tedious. Moreover, in addition to the uncapitalized abbreviation for "by the way," he forgets part of his own hyperbolic metaphor; what is he speculating being put down the reviewer's throat? He's not even leaving it open to interpretation with an all-purpose placeholder like "something." It's not just bad grammar, it's bad writing full stop.

The final straw is the last sentence, where he remembers to capitalize the first word of the sentence, but forgets how to spell the first word itself, carrying over the same spelling error as the sentence containing a missing word. It's not just incompetence, it's committed incompetence.

Quartet of Qontent... Content.

A curious thing happened this past week; not only did I produce a video, I produced four in about as many days. It all started with me getting ready for a sketchbook project that's nearing completion whereupon I'll film the final product as opposed to scanning it. Next, I came upon a video of Mike Matei demonstrating the painfully meticulous inking process for the title card of the Angry Video Game Nerd's Star Wars episode. Someone in the comments cheekily asked about the potential of making a mistake, and that led to me making the first video Ink is My Pal. It was the first time I'd ever filmed myself with my Sony Cybershot H55, and I realized just what a complete technical moron I can be at times*. As such, I turned the trials and tribulations into the next three videos so that not only will I not repeat the mistakes I made, but others can hopefully learn from them as well.
Fair warning/cop-out: These are rather "quick & dirty" as videos go; they're rushed, half-scripted/half-improvised, and edited entirely using YouTube's new built-in editor, which essentially stands somewhere between a typical Linux video editor and iMovie. Polish wasn't the point, however; it was making as many videos as I could in a short amount of time and getting past my usual meticulousness and perfectionism in favor of just making some damn content. My more fiction/narrative/abstract works, by contrast, I hope will be a little more refined and at least look like more effort's been put into them.



*See, I've made videos since at least high school, where I worked on the morning's televised announcements and produced a number of news stories and sketches. However, while that may sound like a robust regimen of working experience, the fact is that I left all the technical stuff to other people. Instead, I focused on scripting, storyboarding, and (minimally) editing. I ended up acting a little more than I wanted to (thankfully in Voiceover, with which I'm far more comfortable given my radio-face), and rarely operated the camera beyond simply pushing the record button every now and then. 

Final Word On The Problem.

Okay, so I can get the missing icons back if I just use the new interface, which I don't really have a problem with save that every time I open it, I get this banner up top telling me my browser isn't supported and I should try Chrome.
As I've said, I don't use Chrome because of a conflict that causes my PC to randomly restart. Evidence to prove this: Once I uninstalled Chrome, it never happened again. Correlation isn't causation, true, but a quick search in the forums showed I'm not alone in this; XP does not get along with Chrome, and random restarts are among the side effects.
Apart from that, though, why wouldn't the latest version of Opera be supported?

In any case, the time seems to have definitely come for me to do something about my PC situation. As of now, I'm still running XP on a rig I've had since 2005 with no real updates or upgrades beyond a new graphics card and a second disc drive. The biggest problem I'm having is that apart  from Opera and Skype, no application that requires an internet connection will work, including other web browsers. I think that, with all the Linux distros I've experimented with, on top of everything else I've used this computer for, the hard drive has simply had enough and needs to be replaced. I get error messages, but any attempts to fix them turn up negative, so I think we're dealing with an outright hardware failing. The same thing happened to my iMac once upon a time. It was funny when I took it in to get repaired; it had a 10GB hard drive and the store said the smallest drive they could replace it with (and not charge me an upgrade fee) was 30GB.

Anyway, the plan now is that I'll be replacing my hard drive and maybe even upgrading to Windows 7, but since it will most likely be the starter edition, I'll also re-install Jolicloud and switch between the two as needed. For some strange reason (upsell, upsell, upsell) the starter edition of Windows 7 does not allow you to set your own desktop wallpaper, but Jolicloud can. I intend to only use Windows 7 for non-web related activities, such as editing audio (and maybe video) and using my scanner. Jolicloud will be used entirely for running Opera and maybe Chrome (in case Blogger decides it doesn't like Opera, the uncultured swine that it is). I may also be upgrading the motherboard with one I've had lying around for a while (long story, don't ask). I've been planning at least one aspect of this plan for some time, but I've never gotten around to it. Instead, I've just been cautious about saving things and backing up my data whenever I think to. In any case, if I do replace my hard drive, it'll just be for safety sake as I intend to store most of my stuff onto flash drives, as I've done for years. When I was using my little Linux computer Sophia (also a long story not worth asking about), I had an 8GB thumb drive in the USB port at all times, only using the onboard hard drive (which was actually a compactflash card with a special adapter, something I may employ for this upgrade) for applications.

In the end, for as mad as I was, it wasn't so much at Blogger or Google as much as it was the fact that I don't like being told to make upgrades that I already intend to do regardless. Speaking of journals, though, we'll end this on something slightly different:

DeviantART's new journal feature just annoys me. They've essentially turned journals into literature uploads, complete with being able to give favorites and share options. My question, what about all those losers (they know who they are) who just post song lyrics or other things like that? Journals aren't art, they're a means for artists to talk to their audience, whether to give them important updates or just to shoot the breeze, they're not things to be placed in frames and hung upon the wall. The point of journals was that DeviantART users could essentially say anything they wanted with no fear of getting taken down, suspended, or even banned because the journal was just a kind of soapbox for people to have their little say in whatever they were on about. Now, by putting them on the same level as works of art, they're going to take away that relative safety. Journals can now get popular the same way paintings can, and that's not a good thing.

I know whenever DeviantART makes a change, there's always some huffing and puffing and melodrama about getting used to the change, and in the end, we get used to them, but this time, I think they may seriously have done something wrong, and I don't think they can undo it. We'll see.

Good night, and good luck.

Two Random Thoughts About Batman

Not much of a Christmas present, I know, but I've got half an hour, and there's a distinct possibility I've had too much to drink, so while this entry is significantly less refined than previous, I won't even request that you take it with a grain of salt due to the circumstances. After all, the first thought is just something I've noticed now re-watching Batman, and the second is an idea that's been kicking around in my head for a few weeks.

1. Stairs seem to be a rather crucial motif in the first Batman film. Consider, for instance, the gunfight at Axis Chemicals at the beginning. Napier keeps climbing higher and higher, only to fall that much farther when he's scarred and disoriented I(symbolic of his rise to power, maybe?). There's also the odd, though clearly intentional, parallel of the "after dinner" segment of Vicki Vale's date with Bruce Wayne and her eventual abduction by the Joker, him leading her up the stairs of the cathedral. In the first case, she's clearly on the offensive, actively pursuing Wayne, just shy of outright seducing him. In the second instance, the roles are reversed and given a distinctly darker twist, and with Bruce replaced by the Joker, previously shown to be clearly obsessed with Vicki. One could probably write a book or two on the gender-role subtext of this motif, but it makes for a far more interesting meditation on the notion and dangers of obsession.

2. I won't go into it full-force here, but my biggest problem with The Dark Knight is that the overall plot feels like it's a string of loosely-connected vignettes whose only common thread is that they're all schemes by the Joker to cause chaos. Granted, that's the idea, and there's obviously still plenty to like in the film in spite of this, but cohesiveness is an essential strength to any movie, regardless of the volumes of established lore behind its source material.
Put simply, if I were in charge of making The Dark Knight, entailing that I'd have to tackle getting The Clown Prince of Crime onto the big screen with all the menace he's thus far conveyed on the small screen and comic book page, I would essentially reduce the Joker to his core concept and spread it as thinly as I could. In essence, I'd take a cue from Batman Beyond and make the Joker a "Gang" of sorts. Actually, it would be more a "successive collection," but in a more abstract sense than something literal like the film Fallen where a consciousness is transferred physically from person to person.
The pitch, in a nutshell, is thus: by the time the film opens, the Joker is already either dead and buried, or incarcerated with absolutely no chance of escape. However, the whole rest of the film would boil down to Batman dealing with copycats, all very different from one another in terms of M.O.s and patterns, but all sporting the same makeup and reckless abandon for life and morality. The resolution of Batman's character arc would therefore be the realization that he will never truly defeat his longtime foe or crime in general for that matter. Of course, he'll decide to fight in spite of the attrition, but the agony could still surely be felt.
To put it in another and even smaller nutshell: I'd have multiple actors playing the Joker.
If the whole notion sounds silly and far-fetched to the point of completely straying from the path, it really isn't. The concept of a "foe of many faces" has been done before; the villain known as The Red Hood historically was comprised of only one Real McCoy, with a series of copycats following thereafter, the Joker and even a former Robin ironically among them.