Video games and person

This morning I read Alexander Nehamas' opinion piece about Plato and popular media. The piece was comparing the critical analysis of video games to the same sorts of analysis in ancient times. He lumped in video games with other popular media in a way I found to be typical of someone who doesn't play video games. As analysis by non-game players tends to, it failed to note important differences between video games and other forms of media. The most important of which is, IMHO, person.

All traditional media no matter how they are painted, written, acted, or performed are actually in the third-person. Only a psychotic person confuses actions written in a novel as "I ran" or "I said" as actions they, the reader, actually took. No matter how you try to frame a book or movie, you are not confused by who actually took the action. They took the action -- you observed it.

In all video games the opposite is true. No matter how the fiction is presented, it is actually in the first person. Only a psychotic person would say: "And then Pac Man decided to turn left". A rational person says, "I made Pac Man turn left" or more usually, "I turned left" because Pac Man is not your agent but rather your avatar.

Of course literature, movies, etc. can induce sympathy and strong emotions as if the scene were happening to you. Indeed, they are surprisingly capable of making you feel those emotions more intensely then if the situation had actually happened to you. And conversely, just because some video game is in the first person doesn't mean that you must have a deep emotional connection to it -- many video games try and fail to create such a connection.

But that said, there's a dramatic difference between games and narrative. Analysis that doesn't bother to note that games are real actions taken in a simulated world while narrative is simulated action in a simulated world is missing an enormous piece of the critical puzzle. Play is a complicated emotional state where you are taking real (but possibly attenuated) actions while staying aware of the fact that your motivations are pretend.

Regardless of where one stands in terms of video games as art, if one is going to analyze their role in society one one should at least be familiar enough with them to understand that they are a profoundly different form of art. As in the article in question, I find direct comparisons to literature and literary criticism tend to be overly simplistic.

The similarity between New Testament textual analysis and bacterial plasmid phylogeny

In Prof. Bart Ehrman's excellent lecture series from the Teaching Company called "From Jesus to Constantine" he spends some time explaining the history of the documents of the New Testament. He describes various motifs of textual mutation caused by scribes' errors and theological corrections.

I was struck by the similarity between these motifs and the same motifs in biological DNA mutation.

The most obvious are the point mutations. There are many tens of thousands of spelling differences among the Greek and Latin manuscripts. The vast majority of these are irrelevant as they do not change the interpretation of the text. In biological terms, we might call these "point mutations of synonymous coding regions" which is a really fancy way of saying "spelling mistakes" that do not change the interpretation -- the functionality -- of the DNA. Prof. Ehrman points out that, including these textual point mutations, there are more differences in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament than there are words!

The second motif is selection. As theological beliefs wandered throughout the centuries, the scribes forced "corrections" on the text to make it more in line with contemporary thought. One example he mentions is the story in Luke of Jesus and his family visiting Jerusalem. In the story the family accidentally leaves Jesus behind. 3 days later (!) they realize they forgot him and go back to find him in the Temple. In the Greek manuscripts Mary says: "You're father and I have been looking all over for you." But at the time the manuscript was being copied many centuries later, the theological orthodoxy had incorporated the story of the virgin birth so how could this passage be right: "your father and I have been looking..." so it was changed to "we've been looking...". This adaption was more "theological fit" than its cousins and was thus selected for in manuscripts over the ages.

The third -- and most incredible -- is the similarity between bacterial plasmids and marginal insertion mutations. The copied manuscripts were used by teachers and would sometimes end up with marginal notes -- writings in a different hand scribbled in the margins of the book. One example of this is the line in first Corinthians chapter 14:34 that "women should remain silent in the churches". Sometimes a scribe would read these marginal notes and think: "that's a good bit, I will maintain it into the next copy." What begins in separate hand becomes a marginal note now written with the same hand as the main-line text. Another generation or more later another scribe comes along and sees this marginal note and thinks: "What's this doing in the margins?" and inserts it into the main line text.

Similarly, in bacteria and other organisms, there's sometimes extra loops of DNA that are independent of the main-line chromosome called "plasmids". These stand-alone pieces of DNA are copied independently of the main-line but are occasionally inserted into the main-line. Once inserted, like the inserted marginal text, they cannot be distinguished from the original thus they become a permanent part of the main-line code. Because we have the sequences of thousands of bacteria, we can see evidence of this throughout history.

Lego the idea vs. Lego the product

Not Lego
(Absurdly custom modern Lego part from lego.com)

In engineering circles (such as the molecular programming conference where I am today), the word "Lego" is commonly used as a synonym for "an elegant and simple basis set whose parts can be arranged to assemble anything." The Lego company should be proud of the fact that their product has inspired at least three generations of engineers to the point where their name is evoked as the gold-standard of an elegant functional basis set.

However, the irony is that while engineers have adopted Lego as representing platonic perfection of elegant engineering, the Lego company itself has apparently abandoned the idea. Lego's current sets are monstrosities of custom non-interchangeable parts as shown in the picture above. The engineering-driven ethos that encouraged creativity to emerge from the arrangement of simple blocks has been replaced by a marketing-driven ethos of product tie-ins and creativity-free model building. At best, today's Lego users are encouraged to build their super-specific models where practically every piece is custom and then tear them down to reuse some of the pieces in non-intended ways. But, this is a far cry from starting from a bucket of rectangular bricks and then dreaming up one's own creations. As a result, Lego might make more profit, but new generations of engineers will not be inspired in the same way as before.

Other toys, such as the supremely well-designed K*Nex, have tried to fill Lego's lost role but the marketing people there have also apparently taken over the company and have infected K*Nex with the same kind of absurd non-generic parts as demonstrated by this Sesame St. tie I found on their site.


Not K*Nex
(Absurdly specific product tie in from knex.com)

The evolution of these toy companies from pure-nerd-vision to marketing-tie-in-sell-out is a perfect demonstration of how nerd-culture and marketing-culture will forever be in a violent struggle. As far as toys go, we're losing.

Star Trek and Vitalism

I've been watching all of the original series of Star Trek on CBS classics recently. Star Trek is full of conceptual contrivances for the sake of the plot. The list is almost unbounded. Faster than light travel, "humanoids" on every planet, universal English, teleportation, gravity control, etc. I'm willing to forgive most of these as stagecraft -- they either help advance the plot or are needed for obvious production reasons. There's also plenty of just plain silliness such as in Trouble with Tribbles when it is said "Odors can not travel through the vacuum of space" (of course they can) while we hear explosions from blasted space ships (which, of course, you can't).

However, one theme that annoys me constantly, and most certainly is not needed for plot advancement is the incessant evocation of Vitalism.

Vitalism is the idea that there's some sort of "elan vital" that animates the living. The idea seems obvious: living things are so different form non-living things that, surely, there must be some unseen force that defines the state of life. It is a wonderfully intuitive idea; it suffers only from the small problem that it's completely wrong as has been known now for more than a century.

The falsification of Vitalism and the unraveling of the molecular basis of life is certainly the most significant outcome of centuries of biological research. As counter-intuitive as it seems, everything we call living is "merely" chemistry -- made of the same material as dead stuff. We have explored all the way down to the bottom of the phenomenological stack and all that's there is molecules acting like molecules. There's no magic juju, there's no vital essence, there's no "spark" that separates the living from the dead. That said, just because life is made of "mere" molecules, that doesn't make it any less amazing or mysterious. Indeed, to me it makes it much more awesome and magical. I've talked to some people who seem to think that this deconstruction of biology into "mere" chemistry somehow lessens the magic. To me this is as nonsensical as saying that the transcription of poetry into "mere" letters lessens it's emotional impact.

Unfortunately, the news of the great accomplishments of the biological sciences have not infiltrated the consciousness of even the most well-educated. The ideas of Vitalism are just too intuitive to be undone by facts and thus it is still very much alive and well as demonstrated by its casual usage in "science" fiction such Star Trek.

A common example from the bridge of the Enterprise is that Spock will look into his scanner and announce authoritatively that there's only "one life form" on the planet. Inevitably they beam down and the planet is covered in alien plants. Apparently plants are not "life forms".

A more egregious example of Vitalism in Star Trek is the conflation of energy, life, and emotion. In Wolf in the Fold Spock says, "deriving sustenance from emotion is not unknown in the galaxy..." and later adds, "It's consciousness may survive consisting of billions of separate bits of energy floating forever in space, powerless." to which Kirk adds "But it will die, finally". This idea that emotion is some sort of expression of the vital animating spirit is at least as old as ancient Greece and Egypt. So too are the deistic explanations for the presence of this supposed force. And this too infects Star Trek. In Metamorphsis, Spock says to a nebulous "energy" creature called The Companion: "You do not have the ability to create life." and The Companion replies: "That is for the maker of all things." to which everyone seems to agree.

This lack of biological perspective is hardly unique to Star Trek. Pervasive in common knowledge is the idea that only things with "emotion" are "alive". If you ask people to name life forms on Earth, you'll typically get a list of big-eyed mammals. If you push hard you might get a bird. Only upon noting that things also live in the sea will most people remember fish. Forget invertebrates, nobody notices them except when whacking them with a fly swatter. And the most common life on the planet, micro-organisms, are only considered, if ever, under the heading of "nuisance" despite our total dependency on them for, well, basically everything.

Star Trek's lack of biological perspective is a real let down. Its unquestioning and casual acquiescence to Vitalism isn't a forward-looking intellectual challenge like anti-matter engines, teleportation, or sentient robots but rather is a backwards-looking reversion to pre-scientific superstitions.

Apparently I'm everything that's wrong with the world

Good news: the source of everything that's wrong with the world has been located.
Bad news: it's me

For a Christmas eve activity, my neighborhood decided to have an outing in the park directly in front of my house. My contribution was a bonfire. As tends to happen at such gatherings, you meet some of your neighbors for the first time. One neighbor discovers that I'm the owner / builder of the interesting Gaudi-esque house we're standing in front of and proceeds to tell me how much he loves the house and how great it is that I tried something different, etc. After a little while the conversation changes to the historic housing tax exemptions that are common in my neighborhood (for which I, of course, am not eligible since my house is new). They were discussing how much money they would save on taxes by declaring their expensive beautiful houses to be historic. I casually pointed out that while I understoodd their desire for a tax break, and indeed would probably do the same thing if I was in their position, that surely they'd have to understand that I'd be against such tax breaks for obvious reasons. "Oh but what about the character of the neighborhood?" they replied. "Which character would that be?" I replied, "Faux American Colonial? Faux Craftsmen? Faux Gaudi? It's not that I don't like these houses, I do, that's one of the reasons I live here, but let's not pretend that they represent some great monument to human achievement. Again, that said, I totally understand why you guys would want to use the law in your interest and get a tax break. But if it came up for a vote, I'd vote against it."

This was not greeted well. An aggressive: "You don't think we should save historic things?" is quipped back. "I dunno," I mused, "Life includes a lot of change and renewal, sometimes we should embrace it."

And for this bit of shocking opinion on the meaning of life I am met with my neighbor angrily saying: "I can't talk to you anymore." and storming away. At first I thought he was joking because his reaction seems so out of proportion to the topic. Someone else quietly said that they agreed with me and this brought him back angrily shouting: "He said that he wants to destroy all historic things!" I replied calmly, "actually that's not what I said...." but before I could explain my position, he yelled at me while wagging his finger: "You're everything that's wrong with the world. Money! Money! FUCK YOU!!". As he stormed away I quietly replied: "Merry Christmas to you too."

For the record, my full position is that, of course we should save historic things -- I just think that we should do it collectively by purchasing landmarks with public funds and then leasing them out or preserving them. The current method that permits some people to receive a tax break for living in old, beautiful houses strikes me as an extremely inequitable tax reward exclusively benefiting a small cadre of rich people because "historic" homes are almost always in old, nice neighborhoods where the property values are high. Furthermore, the extremely lax standards of what makes something "historic" are capricious. For example, a house around the corner from me has been declared historic because a man who lived in it once was said to be a "prominent doctor" when they found a 1 inch newspaper column about him from the Statesman decades ago. (He's actually still alive so technically he's not quite "historic" yet). By these low standards, every house that has been occupied by a professional (i.e. practically every house in every well-off neighborhood) will become "historic" eventually.

The absurdity of this to me is that after I die my unique house will probably become "historic" and the owner after me will get a big fat tax break. But I, who actually did all the work to create this unique house, who literally hurt his back laying the bricks, who spent a great deal of money and effort to create something interesting that might be appreciated into the future, I get nothing. Meanwhile, my neighbor who hypocritically likes my new house yet has forgotten that something had to be torn down to build it will get a tax break for living in and maintaining a house that is supposedly in the "character of the neighborhood" despite the fact that his house is only one of maybe two or three adobe-style houses in this supposedly "historic" neighborhood.

Absurd NY Times headline...

"Obama Tells Bankers That Lending Can Spur Economy"

In other news,

Cheney tells plumbers that pipes help keep people hydrated.
Clinton tells IT departments that working computers increase productivity.
Bush tells football players that scoring points increases odds of winning games.
Gore tells doctors that curing disease makes people healthier.
Pelosi tells real estate agents that houses may keep roof over people's heads.
McCain tells rodeo clowns that deflecting bulls' attention may improve rodeo riders' safety.

Software prototypes

(Images adapted from flickr users Duke TIP and Patrick Beeson)

One way in which software engineering differs from other engineering disciplines is that in software the prototype is often confused with the real thing.

Nobody looks upon a prototype 1/50th scale model of a bridge and says "Looks done, let's drive trucks across it now." Yet in software development such sentiment is commonplace -- "Looks like it's working, all we have to do is clean up the bugs and ship it!"

If this were merely a misunderstanding between the programmers and the business-types it would be understandable, but the unfortunate fact is that it's often the programmers themselves who believe this. This attitude of hack-and-patch contributes to the general lack of quality of software compared to other engineering disciplines and this is compounded by the perceived low-cost of failure. Structural engineers don't say to themselves: "If it doesn't work we'll just patch it in the field." Electrical engineers don't say: "Ahh, sort of works... we'll upgrade it after tape-out." It has never occurred to a mechanical engineer that they could hide their lack of quality control by creating an automatic update system that secretly updates their wares behind their customer's backs.

For software engineering to be done right -- like in every other creative discipline -- time and space have to be allocated for building *disposable* prototypes. There is no progress without failure, but you don't have to subject your customers to your failures either.

A month of web coding

(Clever mug from stevenfrank)

I haven't posted anything in the last month as I've been on a web-coding sprint for our new bioinformatic enterprise: "Traitwise". This was the first time I've done any serious web-based development since about 1997. It hasn't changed much -- it's still a disaster.

The list of things that are wrong with web development would fill a book so here's my really short summary.

D/HTML is a disaster. It made a tiny bit of sense in 1994 when pages were, briefly, 99% text and 1% mark up. But now, even reasonably simple pages turn into 99% inefficient layout gibberish and 1% content. So the semantic premise of a web page has been inverted. Sarah told me that I should switch to the meta markup languages like HAML and she's probably right, but I didn't find out about that until too late.

CSS is a disaster. Obviously a committee with no programming experience and little vision of where the web was going came up CSS because only those ignorant of programming would be dumb enough to use "-" as a delimiter. But that's just a trivial gripe: the entire design of CSS is flawed. The base HTML semantic tags "p", "a", etc are not useful, only were for about 6 months in 1994, and now every page devolves into zillions of divs and spans each with a specific class moniker so you end up with a flat CSS "hierarchy" thus nullifying the CSS design and turning every page into a giant, un-readable mess.

JavaScript is a disaster. Actually, the core language is mostly OK but the portability -- the thing that really matters -- is a disaster. Thanks Microsoft! Oh, and also thanks to Google -- Chrome has broken JS even more. Chrome is the first product from Google that really pisses me off in a Microsoftian kind of way -- making the world a WORSE place instead of a better place. Attention Google, we don't need any more non-standard changes to the JS API. Please, just back away slowly from the browser market and let Firefox and the Internet standards committees lead the way. You're not going to profit from it anyway so please, just say no.

SQL is a (continuing) disaster. The inefficient mapping of the most rudimentary problems onto the relational database model is just plain wrong. The world needs a standard simpler transactional hash object that would do most of what you want as a web developer and be a lot simpler and faster. This is especially relevant given that environments like RoR are just building and mapping all these relationships internally thus nullifying the point of a relational database. RoR might as well just abandon the database and use its own transactional hash-oriented file system. The only reason they don't do so, one assumes, is the momentum of legacy databases.

Flash/Flex/AS3/MXML is a disaster. Let's sart with the marketing. What is the name of this product? Flash became Flex but is wrapped in MXML? Or is it AS3? Or is Flash the cleint-side run-time? Why do you compile .as3 files with an MXML compiler? WTF guys, how about version numbers, try them, they're great. I'm sitting next to Rob, a former Adobe developer, and even he doesn't understand the names -- we had a 15 minute argument sorting out which part of this product line is named what. There's so many confusing and broken things in Flash/Flex/As3/MXML/WhateverItsCalled I could go on for hours. I wasted untold days sorting out the simplest, stupidest things. I put "FLEXHACK" in my code next to every work-around or counter-intutive hack (like putting +5 on every textWidth) there must be 100 of those tags in my code and I got tired of putting them in after a while. Really basic concepts of object oriented programming are just flat out violated by their awful Flex design, for example the unclear dynamic typing, the UIComponent mess, and the lack of deep object duplication. But really, I could go on and on.... Like, how about the secret *deleting* of subversion controlled files off my hard-drive that the IDE didn't own -- that was just great! Or the secret deleting of comment lines at the top of the files in the IDE. Or the screwed up caching of a SWF in the wrong folder that frustrated me for several painful hours.)

The only thing that isn't a development disaster in my month-long experience was Ruby on Rails. There were a few odd things about it that threw me off (it was much stricter about type casting than I assumed it would be) but mostly it made perfect sense and Rails is obviously the work of a professional. Everything about Rails from the docs to the API's demonstrated that the author(s) knew what they were doing. I was impressed.

Belief in torture's efficacy = Belief in witchcraft

This piece on Slate about the history of witch hysteria demonstrates to me the absolute absurdity of torture. Anyone who thinks that torture techniques such as waterboarding are effective tools of interrogation must also believe in witches. Why? Because throughout history (and into the present day) people have confessed to being witches under torture. Therefore, if you believe that torture works to "extract the truth" then all those people who confessed must really have been witches!

This demonstrates the insidious evil nature of torture. Not only can the torturer come to a false conclusion -- the one they want -- but even the tortured can come to hold the same false ideas. In other words, torture isn't merely morally reprehensible, but it doesn't even work!

Indeed, suppose you were "the Devil" and your goal was to explicitly foil legitimate interrogations because, as the devil, you had a sick desire to ensure chaos reigns throughout the world. As such, you couldn't come up with a "better" interrogation technique than torture. The questioner ends up reinforcing the ideas they started with and thereby ignores possibly valid alternative leads and the suspect may end up believing the planted ideas thereby reinforcing the incorrect assumptions of the torturer. If it weren't horrific, it would be the plot of a goofball comedy where two characters engage in a circular conversation convincing themselves of something absurd like up is down or love is hate. A "real" malevolent Devil would watch humans engaged in such cruel pointless floundering and be amused to no end. Will we stupid humans ever stop entertaining "the Devil" by engaging in this ghastly charade given the obvious pointlessness and immorality of it? Signs are not hopeful.