Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

This is an extension of something I was writing about on my other blog on Friday, January 25th, 2008. Here is the youtube video again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYD_-A_X5E

I love this video so much. It makes me so happy when I watch it.

Why? Well... it's cool. First of all, it's cool, it looks genuinely hard to do, so I respect the two girls that are doing it. If you watch related videos, there are other similar videos, maybe not with people dancing but with people writing stuff on their hands, but overall this dancing one is probably one of the best.

They are robots, that are girls, that are dancing. How awesome is that? I could imagine, if it was a pair of guys, no robot heads, I could imagine me not liking it. I could imagine if it was two girls, no robot heads, it still wouldn't be as special as this. These are two humans, that are like robots. It's almost as if they are scripted to dance like that, as the words go on in the song, but of course we know they had to work hard to do it.

Part of the charm is that we know they are humans. During the part in the beginning, or in the very middle, when they are relaxing, you can see they are humans having fun. They act like robots, but during the intermission part, you can see them doing the robot and doing a fun dance, and when they do the "high five", that's pretty human like. You can imagine them laughing inside, it's amazing.

The female body is also nice to look at and see it move. An additional charm is that it's women doing it, and we all believe that guys are the crazier people on youtube, so it's a nice change. Anyway, back to the movement... I think my favourite part, the part that makes me think this is the coolest thing, is around 2:20-2:26, when the girl on the left is moving so fluidly, and her body curves like only a woman can curve... and I love the part around 2:25, when she does the transition through "More Than" so fluidly without stopping, as if she's actually dancing with free form. It's so beautiful.

That's probably my favourite part. My second favourite part is the beginning when the lady on the left does "Stronger" for the first time and she plays around with it. Anyway, I really like this video. It makes me so happy, seeing the robot girls dance. Music is good too. Catchy.

On another note, I had two stressful dreams this morning! (or do they say last night? or yesterday? hmm) . One was about this music video. I woke up to show Duy the music video from my favourites, but it turned out to be some American version - like this daft punk thing was the Canadian version, and this American version was totally different, it had a panel of judges and they played a totally different song. It was a nightmare trying to find this beautiful video to show you guys, and eventually I found it somehow.

Another dream (same night) dealt with this weekend... so originally we were going to go to Truffles with Ambrose et al, but then we are going on this skiing trip instead. So in my dream, apparently me, Duy, Ray, and Geoff (the same 4 for the China trip, Ambrose was involved in this part too) apparently we planned a week-long trip to Edmonton, and our flight was on Sunday, January 27th, so it was all mixed up because we're going on this skiing trip, so... that totally messed up our schedule.

It kinda reminded me of the time for the China trip, where we started planning the trip a few months before the date, but we didn't actually make rock-solid decisions until near the end. It felt like this, it's like we forgot about the Edmonton trip so we didn't really plan for it properly.

And... that's that.

A Discussion comparing Internet Internet and Internet Real

So recently, partly because I'm sick (so I'm spending more time in front of the computer doing almost nothing), I starting posting on message boards again... and then last night as I was going to bed, I made up these terms, Internet Internet (I:I) and Internet Real (I:R) and started thinking about them and how I should change how much I do of either. Additionally, we can expand I:I and I:R to Something:NotReal and Something:Real, but for now we'll talk about I:I and I:R.

The first I stands for Internet, and it represents the activities we do on the internet. Things like that are checking e-mail, writing blog posts, msning people, reading and writing on message boards, reading reviews for games, writing reviews for games, buying things, etc. As I said, you can expand this I into S, which is something, which just signifies any activity, anywhere.

The second I or R (or in the expanded version, Real and not Real) is a categorization of the activity, and what it creates, or how it is helpful. More concretely, here are some examples.

So let's say you're on msn, and you message Ambrose, and you ask him "wanna do something later?" And then there's a discussion about dinner and going out or whatever. This would fit into I:R, Internet -> Real, because it's an event on the internet, and the outcome is that it produces something in real life. You are talking to Ambrose on msn, which is an Internet event, and it produces a plan for what will happen in real life soon. Similarly, buying something online is I:R, and more often than not, reading a review of a movie online or of a product, would also affect you nicely in real life.

However, let's say you're on a random message board, and someone writes a post like, "on a scale of 1-10, how hot is this girl?" and they post a picture of a girl. So you're reading the thread, you see other random people have answers and comments, and then you yourself rate the girl. This is an I:I event. You're doing stuff on the internet, and you are just contributing to the internet. Clicking on the thread, reading the post, saving the picture of the girl to your computer... it doesn't do anything for you in real life, you're just spending time on the internet, doing stuff for the internet.

There are some things in life that are more I:R or S:R than others, and I'd like to call them... the ones that create resources for you. By resources, I mean things that help you out... the most common resources are money, time, some sort of health resource, and perhaps some sort of skill resource. Working gives you money, doing sports gives you health, learning to program gives you skill, eating gives you energy, etc...

So, the next thing that naturally should come out of my mouth is: I:I stuff is useless. To go more extreme, you would also say that things that do not produce resources are also useless. It's not entirely true, but you get the point. It gets a bit more confusing when you add the word "PLAY". By definition, playing is intrinsically fun, and does not produce anything but we still do it because it's fun. Okay, so I don't like to throw entertainment out the window, but we can definitely have less of it.

Then there's the ... "contribution" / "volunteer" aspect. As I said, reading a movie review is an I:R event, but I think WRITING a movie review is an I:I event. You write the review, not generally for real life, but because you want to help others. It doesn't really bring you a resource either. I would classify it as an I:I event, but it is a "contribution" / "volunteer" event, which means you contribute something meaningful or ... you just want to contribute it anyway, so... it might be an exception. Similarly, reading blog posts miight be I:R, writing them is typically I:I, although some of my blog posts have call-to-actions, like "do you want to do stuff this weekend?", but the rest of the blog post is typically I:I.

So... let's analyze me, since that's why I wrote this. I find that a lot of the activity I do is I:I (or more generally, S:NR), and additionally, not resource producing. While I was doing the message board thing this weekend, too much of it is I:I. Reading random things, writing and responding to random topics, nothing really worthy to learn from. There might be a thread on there, like, a person is having trouble with his girlfriend. For that person, it might be an I:R event (if it is indeed real), for everyone else responding, it's an I:I event, or in some cases, it's an I:I:contribute event.

That said, I should probably stop doing the message board thing. It's not bringing in money, it's not bringing in anything real, and in terms of intrinsic fun... it's not that fun.

I like to play games or watch movies. These are the intrinsic fun things, which means I can cut some of them out. People might argue that playing games gives you some sort of hand-eye co-ordination skill, but we all know that's a bunch of bullcrap. Movies enrich your mind, but... far too often they don't.

Creating videos, and putting them up on youtube/etc. This is a hobby, once again, intrinsic. I might say that it builds toward some career, or it's useful for portfolio/resume... and in some cases it is, but in general it's just fun. Building flash games though, that might be better portfolio/resume oriented.

I should exercise more. It's a resource gaining activity. I should eat better food, so it also gains better resources. I know, these are all things that I already tell myself, but now I'm doing it in a different way, kind of. So maybe later today when I'm bored, then instead of visiting some message boards or playing Call of Duty 4, I should just do some pushups or exercise, and see how far I can go. Who knows. Maybe exercise can become fun!

Anyway, that's this post. I'm not going to cut out too many fun things yet, except maybe the message boards thing, that's pretty useless. Maybe I'll make more flash games... or something.... Also, this may be a reason why people don't post in their blogs as often as they want to.

Drumming and PGR/Smarty Pants

I'd like to address the difference between Drummania and Rock Band, and also ask a question about the feeling goodness of achievements, and complain about PGR's medal system.

Drummania is the Drum-arcade machine by Konami that you can find in places like the Waterloo Cove. On a sidenote, I think this game is superior to the Drumming in Rockband, but we're not going to discuss that today. Today we're discussing the main difference between Drummania and Rockband (drums).

I made a term a long time ago for games like Drummania, which I like to call the "Infinite Octopus". Drummania is an "Infinite Octopus" game, and Rock Band is not. I don't remember, but older versions of DDR may also be Infinite Octopus games. I remember on one of the easier songs of Drummania, there would be a pattern that was like red, pause, yellow, pause, red, pause, yellow pause... so sometimes for fun I would play
red, pause, yellow, pause
red, pause, yellow, pause
red, red, yellow, yellow
red, red, yellow, yellow

So I'll add in an extra beat there, for fun. Or, let's pretend in hard mode, that extra beat actually exists there, but it's not mandatory in easy mode. You can hit it if you want, but you don't see it, and you won't get points for hitting it or lose points for not hitting it, since it's not there.

So basically, you are allowed to hit the drums anytime, and you won't lose points for it, but you will gain points and keep your combo up if you hit the particular notes that appear, and if you don't hit them you'll lose points and life and whatever. If you were an Octopus and you had a drumstick in each hand (minus the one hitting the footpedal), and you hit each drum an infinite # of times per second, you will be able to pass each and every single song in Drummania. That's why Drummania is an Infinite Octopus game.

I think DDR might be one too... if a left arrow appears, and you jump and hit left and right at the same time (or in that matter, left, right, up, and down at the same time), do you get the point or not? If you do, then DDR is also an infinite octopus game. I mention older versions because in newer versions there are hold-notes, which an infinite octopus can't handle.

Guitar Hero and Rockband (minus voice?) are not Infinite Octopus Games. You cannot strum notes randomly when notes aren't there. If you do, you lose your combo and life. In easy modes of Guitar Hero, you might hear 16 notes go by but you only have to (and only can) strum 2. If you try to strum more, you'll lose points and life. People therefore love hard mode and expert mode because they can play with every note they see, rather than the limited weirdness of easy mode.

The same is true for Drumming in Rock Band. At some points in medium you might hear 6 beats, whereas you can only strum 2. The opportunity of hitting those 6 beats creates a lot more fun, which is why hard mode is more fun.

But it's harder. Much harder. But the opportunity to hit those 6 notes... well, it's well worth it. So In a free-style sort of way, easier levels of Drummania are more fun than easier-levels of Rock Band, since you can hit notes that aren't there. And in that way, Rock Band is soo much more strict, you have to hit the notes that are there, and only those notes, nothing more, and preferably, nothing less.

Also, I noticed the other day there are some Xbox360 achievements for "completing the drum career on expert 100%"... hahaha, like I'll ever achieve that. Or we'll see...

Drumming is hard because of the footpedal. It does add a little bit of interestingness, since the foot does so little in regular videogames... but it's hard to use! It's a totally different limb not used too often... also, on another note, there are many songs in Rock Band that have a similar beat, so your hands and feet get into a sort of rhythm... and when another song comes along and has something totally different, it's hard to break away from the mold! and sentence over?

Anyway, more on Drums maybe later, if requested. For now, I need to post about Smarty Pants and PGR. Maybe just Smarty Pants, and PGR as a side note.

The other day my sister and I got into a small argument about Smarty Pants. So in Family Mode, you co-operatively try to answer as many questions as you can in a certain time limit. At the beginning of the game, you select how many questions you want to try to answer. If you answer enough questions in the time given, the game stops and congratulates you; if you fail, the game stops when you run out of time and it makes you feel bad, and tells you how many questions you got and how many you need more to reach your goal.

So for example, let's say in a 5 minute period, you select that you want to answer 20 questions. So let's say after 5 minutes are over, you only did 19, and then it will say "aww, you did 19, you only had 1 more to go! Try harder next time, k?"

And then you try again, and this time you do answer 20 questions, and you have 1 minute remaining (so you spent 4 of the 5 minutes) - and then it says "congratulations! you've reached your goal!"

Okay, everyone still with me? Good, because this is where the argument comes in. Now, for something like Smarty Pants, it's a petty little thing, so it's not too important, but for something as frustrating as PGR (Project Gotham Racing), it's quite annoying, and it's similar to this argument that I'm having here.

So back to the 20 questions - yay, you did it, but you have 1 minute remaining! The game just stops and brings you back to the beginning. Do you wonder about the 1 minute? Wouldn't you feel better if you did 22 questions in those 5 minutes? Because, well, you probably could've!

The only thing is, well, you don't know! You THINK you could've done 22 questions, or 24, since you had a whole minute left - but you just don't know! In other words, you had 1 minute left, but you did not do anything with it. 20 questions was not your highest potential, and I think that would make you feel bad.

So let's say you try again, this time you choose your goal to be 22 questions. And at the end, you fail, and you get 19 questions after the 5 minutes. Does that mean you can't get 22 questions? No! Maybe you could've gotten 22 questions last time, but you couldn't, because your goal was 20 and you've reached it, and the game stops there. Let's say you get a medal for having done 22 questions... but more on that later in the PGR argument.

So, I think my sister gets her pleasure from knowing she reached the goal, or she gets the pleasure from the process as she reaches her goal. "aww, you were 2 away, try harder!" "aww, you were 1 away, try harder!", ... "yay, you did it, you reached your goal" - of course, she had 20 seconds left, so there's some potential that wasn't used up. My sister would be happy that she reached her goal, I would feel bad because we didn't use up all our resources to the best of our ability.

And that's my problem - whenever you reached your goal, it means you didn't use up your fullest potential. For me, I would rather have messages like

"Aww, you only got 21 answers, you need 879 to go!" "Aww, you only got 22 answers, you need 878 to go!" "Aww, you only got 23 answers, you only need 877 to go!" "Aww, you only got 24 answers, you only need 876 to go!" So, my sister doesn't feel happy about this, because she never gets her achievement of reaching the goal, and it's quite discouraging looking at such high numbers. like "1 more to go" and "2 more to go", those are achievable and gives her a sense of purpose and a challenge, but "879 to go" - well, she might as well just give up, she'll never reach it.

But, each time you go, you'll keep getting higher. I'd rather have "Aww, only 24 answers, 876 to go" than "congrats, 23 done, but 20 seconds left". And that's what we argued about.

Onto the PGR argument, which follows the same principle. Let's say there's this event, where you had to rack up a certain number of points in a time limit. There are 5 medals, um, copper, bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Okay, the PGR system really sucks, which is why I'm complaining about it. Moving on... so let's say you need 10,000 points for silver and 25,000 points for gold. Usually in any other game, you'd do the event, and based on the number of points you get, you get a certain medal for it.

In PGR, you choose the medal which you want to go for first, and then you do the event. So, let's say it's my first time doing this event, so I play it safe and I choose a Silver Medal, so I'm going for 10,000 points. Anyway, so I do the event, and I'm racing the course, drifting, doing some awesome precision work, and I end up with 26,000 points.

So of course, PGR being retarded, gives me the silver medal, because I got over the 10,000 points that I needed. So, I say, "umm, I'm good at this, let's go for gold" and I go for Gold, since I exceeded the 25,000 points I need for gold. So I do the course again, this time a bit more sloppy, and I get 19,000 points. And of course, I don't get the gold medal.

Which is totally retarded, because I so deserve the gold medal! I got the 25,000 points, which means I deserve the gold medal! Yet the game doesn't give it to me, which is totally retarded, and I totally hate the PGR system for that. The next 10 times I try, I get 18,000-24,000 points, which is so frustrating because we all know I deserve this gold medal.

And that's what I hate about PGR.