Internet reviewers

At least once a week I sit down and watch a new episode or review posted by any of my favourite internet reviewers. These people have gone from being nobodies to be recognised as internet phenomenons. Most of them first posted their review clips on youtube as a joke. But more and more people watched and requested new clips. As the view count exponentially grew to a notable level by youtube-standards, the smell of “money opportunity” started to spread. Eventually the smell reached the noses of internet publishers who gladly would invite them to the family. And so was the missing links in the world of reviewing found. Their names will be remembered by many. They will not forget “The Angry videogame nerd”, “The escapist” and the “Nostalgia critic”.

These reviewers are not the regular stale and formal people who usually work as reviewers. The have gotten to the point where they are today by being different. They don’t follow the formal guidelines that the televised movie- and game-reviewers have to do. They take reviewing to a new level. A level where foul language and graphic nastiness is the way to go. When they think something is wrong they express their feelings without the boundaries of family values and proper manners. When something sucks they say it sucks, if it sucks a*s they say it sucks a*s. That’s the way it should be.

The three reviewers that I mentioned have their own style and genre. The angry videogame nerd reviews old Nintendo games, the escapist dose new games and the nostalgia critic reviews movies and cartoons. All different, all brilliant. If you haven’t seen them and have that special type of humour, get your butt to google and search them up!

Writing for Posterity

Blogs, graffiti, inscriptions, paintings, monuments and so on has one main purpose. To distribute the thoughts of the persons who felt that they needed to share their revelations and experiences with more people than themselves. From the first cave paintings to the internet blogs of our time the purpose is basically the same, sharing. But why do we humans feel the need to share our thoughts and experiences with other people (or being in some cases, religion you know…)? Well, I guess it’s just human to have that feeling. The feeling of unaccomplishment, the felling that your life and actions has to make a difference. And the best way of doing that is to compile whatever you wish to share onto something that people unmistakably will se in one way or another. Luckily there are several ways of doing this and some of the most common methods are already mentioned in the beginning of this text.

The cavemen who lived tens of thousands of years ago used paint to illustrate the thing they experienced on the walls in caves. No one really knows the purpose of the paintings and maybe there isn’t any except the wandering mind of a caveman. If that’s the case us humans haven’t changed much in 30 000 years. We just swapped the cave wall for a computer and the paint for a keyboard.

Will We Be Known?

In the far away future I think there will be a lot of information available from our time. The advances in technology will make information storage easier and more reliable. Important information will be backed up on new technology as time progresses and very little will be lost. Today’s state of the art technology will be completely outdated in 10 years time and the people of the future will look at the blue ray disc similarly to the way that we look at the first audio recording that Thomas Edison made in 1877.

If we look back 150 years and compare the technology of that time with our present technology we will se that the number of techniques to preserve information has multiplied by a huge number. Back in those days they could either write on a paper or carve information that they wanted to share into basic material. Today we can store information using sound waves, mechanics, nanotechnology, digital technology an more. Storing information in DNA is even theoretically possible today.

So if technology have grown from zero to where we are today in 150 years, imagine what is possible in a thousand years time. The complete encyclopaedia of the life on earth can probably be stored on a human hair in 3008.

Seen Any Good Films Lately?

One week ago when I moved some stuff out of my room I found and old VHS tape which I haven’t seen in many years. On the tape was a recorded copy of True Lies, an action/comedy/romance film by James Cameron starring (mainly) Arnold Schwarzenegger. The plot is that Harry (Arnold) works as an agent for the US government and his mission it to track down some stolen nuclear warheads while his wife is having an unknown affair with another man. Harry fights the terrorists and solves his family problem in a very fascinating and entertaining way, where both separated story’s get weaved together at the end.

This movie is easily one of my top three action movies of all time. The action scenes are pure gold and the humour is great. Arnold probably makes one of his best acting performances in this film. Usually he is just a 120 kilo lump of unemotional killing, but in this movie he’s on several occasions funny and the rest of the time his just hardcore. The movie don’t have any slow-parts at all, witch makes it feel a lot shorter than it is. A combination of action and comedy is always lurking around the corner. Sure the action is “over the top” and the plot is quite weak but the way that it is presented is excellent. Plenty of cliffhangers keep you on edge and innovative fighting scenes convince you that this is no ordinary “no brains” action. This film will show you how a real action movie should be. And if you like hi-pulse action I can definitely recommend this movie. It’s great!

The State of the Planet

I believe that the global warming issue is on of the most wired up discussions the world have ever seen. Almost every week there is something in the newspaper concerning the climate change. And the article is often containing pleadings to the public to reduce their carbon footprint by any means necessary. Witch is good if there really is danger of a global climate catastrophe. The forecasts made by “people in white coats with nametags” say that the earth’s temperature will rise another 5 degrees centigrade in the next hundred years. Very intimidating you might think. But do we really know that the climate is changing just because of the harm made by us humans? The simple answer to that question is that we really don’t know. The scientists are just guessing. In the same way that the oil industry speculates that the worlds oil reserves will dry out in 20 years time. Or the prediction that there will be a global resource crisis when earth’s population reaches the 10 billion mark. We have evidence that the planet is getting warmer but we don’t know if its singlehandedly caused by us humans.

Some facts that I have read and heard about the environmental hysteria that have occurred during the 20’Th century are quite funny. In the 1970’s studies showed that the earth was cooling down. And the public and media went crazy. People from all over the world protested against this “global cooling” witch was caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Today thirty years later other studies show that the world is getting hotter at a disastrous rate because of the use of fossil fuels. And of course the media and public start to wave their arms around just like they did before, Make up your mind people! Are we going to die freezing or will we be cocked to death on this planet? However the culprit to the shifting climate (whether it’s getting hot or cold) seems to be the fossil fuel. So the remedy would be to use other sources of heat and propellant than fossil fuel in the future.

But if the oil and coal runs out in about 20 years time like the oil-people predicts, the problem will be solved and the temperature will be stabilised. The planet will be maybe 1 degree centigrade warmer but I couldn’t care less. And if the global warming doesn’t stop at that point, ooh boy will Al Gore look stupid.

More stupid than before that is…

Video game addiction

Video games have been a part of our society for almost half a century. Because of my age I weren’t there to experience the first games and consoles that started the multi billion dollar market that it is today. The first videogame that I was introduced to was the Nintendo 8-bit console. But the first console I actually bought was a Playstation 1 console and it really mesmerized me and I spent a lot of time playing it. But it never became addicting, maybe because you can save the game and then start playing from where you where the next time. In about the same time that I bought my Playstation we (my family) got a computer witch became an excellent gaming tool. As the years flew by the Playstation became outdated but we kept updating the computer and soon it became the golden orb of gaming. Today I still use my computer to play games but I have never boarded the SS Addiction to nerdtown.

A couple of years ago I played World of warcraft but only a short period of time and only because I was given a 10-day free trail of the game. A friend of mine gave me the free trail “card” whom himself where a dedicated player of the game. After finishing the free trail I made a summary of the ten days of gaming in my head and it sounded something like this: Really nice game but who the would buy a game and then pay more money to play it and then spend a lot of hours, days or weeks playing it? Not me that’s for sure. The friend of mine whom I just mentioned played the game at an additional level for two years. It started when we both where in senior high and by the second year he started playing “wow” at a moderate level. By the third year he became addicted and started to cut classes and when he showed up in class he looked like a wreck. He’s grades started falling and eventually he dropped out. The only thing he could think about was the game. I remember one time when we watched a film at his place on his computer. He stopped the film before the ending and said that I had to go home because he needed to play at that very moment. The game ruled his life.

I have never been addicted to any form of video game in my life and I feel very fortunate considering what I have seen happen to my friend. Cases of video game addiction increases year after year as more people join into the world of video games. In my opinion video game addiction is placed in the same category as gambling addiction. I can also compare people who are addicted to video games to “adrenaline junkies” who place them selves in situations where they feel the most alive. Maybe it is the same with video game addiction? The players put themselves in a new exciting world where they can relax and express themselves in a completely different way compared to normal life.