Ernest Alba's Blog

Limbo resolved. We're going off the air.

My blog has been in a state of limbo for a while now. I have been unable to post frequently or even regularly to it for several weeks now. I've wondered whether to continue posting to it. I think I'm in a place in my life where I no longer have the time or the need to release my thoughts upon a blog. I have written small essays whenever something interests me, but nothing compels me anymore to fashion them into a presentable text in order to share them with others.

This blog has been successful in many ways. First and foremost, it has allowed me to express myself. That was the original intent of the site, and it has been at the core of the reason for its existence. It has also helped me develop my writing skills and to develop my voice as a writer. It has taught me the value of being consistent in whatever I do - my blog has been most successful when I have most diligently applied myself to it. You will see this in more detail (with numbers!) below. I know the importance of creativity and hard work. A blog post sloppily written is a blog post not worth reading. And mark my words: people can tell when your post has not been finely tuned and edited to perfection. It's the difference between an enjoyable read accompanied by a willingness to return and a disappointing read accompanied by displeasure at the thought of returning.

If you are thinking about keeping a blog, here are some things I have learned that I believe are key to having a successful blog:

• Be consistent in your writing. I wrote my first blog post on January 4, 2005. To this day, it has received 921 views. It took more than a 100 posts and more than a year of writing to regularly get at least 2 or 3 thousand views.
  
• Write about things that get a lot of publicity outside of your blog. My film reviews were by far the most popular posts on my blog. They regularly got eight to ten thousand views after coming out - four times as many views as my other posts on my life, music, etc.
• Sex sells. Actually, only one type of sex sells - the kind that caters to middle-aged, white men. On the few occasions when I put up pictures of women (admittedly, women that fit one mold - not at all a feminist thing to do in many ways), I was surprised at how quickly views shot up. I am not so surprised anymore. The blog post that received the most views (more than 133,000 views) is one of Morgan Webb, for which I didn't write anything except an introductory sentence. Figures.
  
• Be topical. Film reviews that came out immediately were more likely to be seen. Avoid writing about events after people stopped caring. Like, I wouldn't write a critique of John Edwards's stances on the issues right now. Soon, it won't be important to write about Hillary Clinton's either.
• Don't follow your passions unless you're willing to take the hit. Views for my posts went back down below the one thousand mark once I veered off of films and women and started talking about classical music and feminist topics. Maybe you will continue to have interests that are common to many other people, but if not, you will likely have to re-evaluate your original reasons for maintaining a blog before making a choice about changing the trajectory of your blog content.

Well, that's all I have. Thank you (at this point, it's probably best to assume the singular pronoun "you") for reading. It's been wonderful.

ernest alba

Happy Birthday Utada Hikaru

I've been so caught up in work that I forgot that Hikki turned 25 yesterday. Here's to several more years of brilliant music making.

Where did the baby come from?

First of all, I can't believe I haven't written in almost a month. More than a month. I've been writing a lot of other things lately, though, and I'm still not close to being done. This, however, deserved some attention. Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman is one of the greatest adaptations of the Superman story that I've seen. It succeeds because it focuses on the relationship between Lois and Clark more than the escapades of Superman, which can get tedious after a while. Unfortunately, for reasons that are too complicated to explain here, it was canceled after only four seasons. However, it has developed a strong cult following and for better or worse my sister has roped me into the cult.

The final episode of the fourth season and, unbeknownst to the writers at the time, of the entire show ended in somewhat of a cliffhanger. Lois and Clark are unable to conceive but in the final minutes of the episode they find a child in their living room. No one knows where it came from. Obviously, there has been a lot of speculation over what are possible explanations. The one that most everyone has agreed on is that H.G. Wells, who made occasional appearances on the show brought them one of their own children from the future. I disagree with this theory, and here I present an alternate theory that I think will prove convincing.

There are only three clues in that final episode to go on.

Clue 1: Lois and Clark are in bed. Clark hears something. Lois asks him what it is. He says, "I'm not sure." She asks him what it sounds like, and he responds, "I can't actually believe what it sounds like." He immediately goes downstairs and comes upon the baby in the crib, wrapped in a blue blanket.

Clue 2: The accompanying note: "Lois and Clark, this child belongs to you."

Clue 3: The blue blanket has the Superman symbol on it.

From the first clue, it's clear that what Clark heard was the sound of a baby. There is no sound of a time machine. There is only silence and the sound that is always made when Superman hears something using his superhearing. We are supposed to understand that Clark is hearing something, but, unlike most other times, this time we are unable to hear it. But the fact that he says "I can't actually believe what it sounds like" indicates that he is hearing a sound he is familiar with, but not in the context of his life as Clark Kent/Superman. Time machines in his living room? That's believable. A child? Not so much. Hence, "I can't actually believe what it sounds like." So, it appears that H.G. Wells is out. But let's move on.

The note can be interpreted any number of ways. The child could literally "belong" to them, meaning that it is a mixture of their genes that created the child. That would mean that the child would have had to come from the future, since no technology has been invented to allow them to procreate yet. However, it is unlikely that it could be from the future for two reasons. First, only H.G. Wells is known to be able to travel in time. And it is reasonable that Clark would have heard him downstairs. Hell, even Lois would have heard that. And we already know that what Clark heard was not a time machine. Second, the note says "this child belongs to you." The way the phrase is worded seems to indicate that someone is giving them the child. Ownership has been transferred. The child now BELONGS to them. It doesn't say "the child IS yours" which would indicate strongly that the child both belongs to them and is their creation. It only says that the child "belongs" to them.

The final clue is the biggest one. This is the same marking that was on Clark's mini-ship when he crashed into earth. This is his sign of nobility. This is his Kryptonian seal. No one could or would just stitch one together for effect. It firmly establishes a connection between this child and Krypton. And since Lois would die on Krypton, we know that there is no future in which she would have traveled to Krypton, had a child there, or anything like that.

So, we can conclude that Lois and Clark's child was born in the present, not the future. We can further conclude that the child is not their offspring. We know that they will eventually have their "own" children in the future, but for now, they have an adopted child, whether they know it or not.

We are now faced with the question: if this child isn't theirs, whose is it? We will never know. The clues don't tell us, but I have a theory. Zara and Ching were expecting a child on New Krypton. But, like old Krypton, it was fated to be destroyed. In the days before the extinction of their planet, Zara had this child. To save their child, they decided to send it to Earth, and Zara knowing that Lois and Clark would provide a good home for it, left it for them in the crib in their living room. She then returned to Ching on New Krypton where they died together. In a proper episodic story arc, this truth would eventually be revealed to Lois and Clark, prompting them to think critically about their relationship, their child, and the love and sacrifice of Zara and Ching.

If you're still not convinced, there is one final piece of evidence that suggests this is the most likely story line. Everything about this event - a baby mysteriously appearing with a cryptic note and an "S" symbol to a young couple unable to conceive - parallels the story of Clark's own parents back in Smallville when they found him in the field.  How fitting that Clark's first experience as a father should be the experience of his own adoptive father, Jonathan. And how fitting for the child, that his actual father Ching's story should parallel the story of Kal-El's real father, Jor-El. Both sent their sons to Earth, likely for the same reasons (our capacity for good), and died before seeing their children grow up. The symmetries are too poetic to not be true!

no rainbows and sprinkles on this cupcake

Second update: It seems like I have been given a second chance. I've got until the end of January to fix my paper and pass the class. Whaddya know - people at MIT are alright.

Update: I might be given a second chance to turn this baby around during the break. More later.

I've been getting a lot of congratulations for my last post. But things aren't all rosy.

I received a brutally terse email from my TA in Research Scopes & Methods - a tedious class on carrying out a political science research experiment.
"Ernest, Your submission under no circumstances meets the minimum requirements for the Final Paper."

That paper constitutes most of the course grade, so, in effect, I've failed the class. I expected as much, having told this to Joshua a couple of days ago. That 20-page final paper was intensely hard to write, and the 10 pages I turned in ultimately amounted to little more than a feeble attempt at engaging the material.

ahhh sweet ego stroking

The misery of this weekend paid off. I got an email from my lit professor about an hour after I submitted my ethnographic study. All it said was PS - great paper. That she would take the time to send a congratulatory email when she has to finish reading all of the papers by 4:30 today, I was taken aback. I queried her for more details and she sent me her comments on the paper:

Dear Ernest – Great work. I hope you present this at a conference soon – perhaps next year’s Convergence Culture Consortium (C3) at MIT? If you want to practice delivering it, I’ll help. Thinking about a publication is also a good idea. Grade: A+

Publication? Presenting at a conference? Oh, this was sooo worth it!

Word Fixes

As my mind turns to mush, I find inane things more and more interesting. This is a sentence I just wrote and the loop Microsoft Word took me through to finally make it "right."

Sentence: It is a more well-known expression for intelligence.
\/
well-known - problem with grammar
\/
It is a more well known expression for intelligence.
\/
more well - problem with grammar
\/
It is a better known expression for intelligence.
\/
better known - problem with grammar
\/
It is a better-known expression for intelligence.

Jeez.

Tycho's "My Belruel"

(from left to right: Gabe, Tycho)

I've been working with very little sleep since Friday and the only thing that has gotten me through is occasionally writing on this blog and this song.

Tycho is a great blog writer. That much is obvious to Penny-Arcade readers. But as a writer of lyrical prose, his skill is fearsome. The lyrics are here.

Masculinity and the NYSOftPDV

We who claim to be men define masculinity. No one else. What are we going to teach our children about what masculinity means? Respecting women is at the core of a feminist's definition of what it means to be a strong, good, and honorable man. It looks like more people are beginning to agree. These posters are part of a new ad campaign by the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence.

Domestic violence is a serious issue that poses severe threats to the lives of women across the world. Statistics show that 1 in every 5 American women and likely even more than that have been violently abused in their lifetime. Including all women across the world, the stat rises to 1 in 3 women.

Superhumans don't exist.

It's so comforting to know that people are never as great as we think they are. That is, even the greatest humans are still just human. There is a student in my globalization class who is well-spoken, knowledgeable, and persuasive. In a class of twenty-something students, she stands out above and beyond the rest. This, despite the fact that we have philosophy graduate students from France, Harvard graduate students, and even a government official taking this class - people whom you would expect to have insight into globalization and economic liberalization and to lead the conversations. But, no. This graduate student, named Gabi, with whom I had previously taken another class and looks to be no more than 23 or 24 years old is the star of the show.

I decided to look her up on Google. At first, I was impressed because the first link that came up was an Amazon link to a book, in which an article of hers has been published. Then, I saw other links to newspapers and journals in which she has been interviewed. In my head, Gabi was rapidly becoming a superhero. How could a graduate student already be able to impart such wisdom? I decided to get to the bottom of the whole thing and dredged up her curriculum vitae (her academic resume). It turns out she is no younger than 29, she has a Master's Degree in City Planning, and she began her Doctoral Studies only after spending several years working in the field. Everything made much more sense now. Her alertness, her poise, her hand gestures all were indicative of someone who knew what she was talking about. Now that I think about her in this new context, she really isn't as impressive as I had imagined, though she remains a person I respect for all the reasons I just described. Nevertheless, I hope that by the time I'm her age I'll be much better at what I do then she is at what she does. I can imagine that when she was an undergrad she was worse off than me. Not talkative at all. Shy. Dutifully doing work, but not wanting to create a network of business friends. Yet, she managed to get where she is now. With my not completely anti-social nature, always improving, and real determination to create something out of myself, I really hope to be at the point she is within the next three or four years.

Holiday Spending

 

OK, I need to take a break from writing about globalization. How are you spending money this holiday season? How much is going to treat yourself? How much to friends? How much to charity?

I usually spend money on myself during the year. This year, I bought some books, some films, and some music for myself. Bigger items that I bought were a TV tuner ($150) and a DS ($125) and a few DS games ($80).

Each year, I give between $25 and $75 to Penny-Arcade's Child's Play. Any respectable gamer should give at least a little bit of money to Child's Play, I think. However, a new website on my donation list is Feministing. This is a great blog for anyone interested in race and gender politics. Interestingly, I found out about this site through Tycho of Penny-Arcade who apparently reads (or has read) it, too.

MIT:

IHTFP. and it hates me.

Film Review: The Golden Compass

Along with Watership Down, Redwall, and The Hobbit, The Golden Compass and the rest of the books in Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy formed some of the best memories of my childhood. Getting to see the magic on screen should have been as much a magical experience as reading the books. It wasn't. The reason boils down to a problem of medium. Films cannot convey information in the same compact way that text can. The adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is less true than it seems. Two hours can't provide nearly enough images to retell the wondrous story of the Golden Compass. The result is that the film has to use tricks to convey the gravity of certain elements of the story. Without giving too much away, the act of intercision is a horrible, penetrative act - equivalent to rape in its seriousness. The film utterly fails to capture the egregiousness of the act.

What's fun about this film? Certainly the race of polar bears is awesome, but I vividly remember the polar bears from the book as much more mysterious, more powerful, and more intelligent. These polar bears were portrayed as dumb ruffians. Also, the North Pole is not nearly as beautiful and enigmatic as I remember it from the book. The one question I have for the movie is where has all the magic gone?

The film succeeds on a couple of points. First, the girl Lyra is wonderfully developed and portrayed by the English actor Dakota Blue Richards. She precisely fits the bold, brilliant, and inquisitive character I remember from the book. Second, the special effects are first rate. I have never been convinced by CGI animals, though Peter Jackson's King Kong came close. The CGI daemons are unbelievably realistic, especially Lyra's daemon. Certainly, it looks better than Aslan from Chronicles of Narnia. Beyond that, the cityscapes, the vehicles, and the buildings all look spectacular.

The music is a bit intrusive and at times heavy handed. Sometimes it can be uplifting, but in general it adds to the feeling that the director is trying too hard to please.

The nature of the books yields inevitable comparisons to two other heavyweights in children's literature brought to the big screen - Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia. Interestingly enough, all three come from Britain. In terms of literary merit, there is little dispute among academics that Pullman's series is miles above and beyond the works of Rowling and Lewis. The profundity of the novels is something to behold. Sadly, this profundity has been stripped almost entirely from the film. Except for a couple of awkward conversations in which the reasons for the occurrence of all of these events are hurriedly described before moving onto a new piece of artistry, little of the books' real issues are raised. The reason is quite obvious. In fact, the creators have specifically mentioned the reason - fear of alienating Christians. Though it is probably not something that children can glean from the novels (as I didn't when I read them), it is probably clear to adults that these books attempt to create a world in which religion is the "bad guy" and the religious only desire power. Pullman wrote the books in large part to counterbalance the unbridled Christianosity of the Chronicles of Narnia. All of that is gone from the film version, and as a result it suffers. How much gutsier - and how much better - would it have been to include all of the anti-Christian rhetoric? Much, much better.

My Apple fails me, or I fail it.

My Macbook, one year ago.

Last week, I put my Macbook to sleep by closing the screen. The next morning, I opened the screen and rubbed the touchpad to wake the computer up. It never woke up. Well, I shouldn't say never. It woke up days later, after I took it to the Mac store to get fixed. But, that day, even after doing all of the main troubleshooting procedures, I was unable to wake it up myself.

This had happened on a Friday, and the next day I went to the Apple store to have them look at it. Unforunately, they couldn't fit me into their schedule until Monday. I nearly went mad with despair. How could a computer that I had bought a little over one year ago already be failing? More importantly, how could an Apple computer be failing me? I had placed so much faith in this company, and now this is how they were repaying me? I silently brought the curses of the gods down on the heads of those in charge of this treasonous company. What poorly constructed part built by the lowest bidding manufacturer was malfunctioning in my laptop? What corner that Apple had cut to reduce overhead was making me now pay the consequences?

Turns out, this was anyone's fault but Apple's. I took it in Monday morning and was promptly attended to. After performing essentially the same preliminary troubleshooting procedures I had done, the Apple guy told me that they would repair it and I would have it back, good as new, in 3-5 days. That timeline posed a problem for me. See, because of all the faith I had placed in Apple, I had neglected to backup my files. Precious school documents that had to be turned in that week were trapped inside the hard drive. They offered me a $100 Pro Care plan to ensure a 72 hour turn-around. I agreed to the ransom demand and left my laptop with them.

Two hours later, sitting in class, I got a phone call. Since I couldn't answer it, I let the machine pick up. As soon as I got out of class, I checked my messages. It was the Apple Store. My computer was fixed and ready to be picked up. The woman who left the message seemed pissed. I later found out why. See, when I bought my Macbook, it came standard with 512 mb of memory. That's not much RAM. So, like most, I wanted to expand my memory. The problem is that each 1gb stick that Apple offers costs almost $200. That's an insane price for memory. So, like most, I bought third-party memory for a quarter of the cost. Instead of paying Apple $400 to upgrade to 2gb, I paid Fry's $90 to upgrade to 2gb.

The problem with buying third-party memory is that it might not work and you have to install it yourself. The first risk is one worth taking. Apparently, the second one isn't. When I got to the Apple store, they told me that I had improperly installed the memory, and it had come loose. Clearly, they were pissed that I hadn't told them about the third-party memory. They said that they normally charge an $80 fee for even touching third party products, but since I had paid $100 for the Pro Care, they'd let it slide. How gracious of them.

So, for a few days, I thought my Macbook and Apple, by extension, had failed me. My faith in them is now fully restored. Of course, it is annoying that they take such an elitist stance on third party materials, but I suppose that is their right. Most importantly, I can continue to say that neither my iPod nor my Macbook have ever failed me. Though I've dropped and scraped my iPod tons of times and have subjected my Macbook to third party materials, both work as perfectly as they ever did. It's good to be a Mac user.

P.S. I don't think I've ever written about my history with Macs. That would be a good post. It might surprise you, unless you're someone that knows me well, that, for most of my life, I have hated Macs with a passion. It sometimes surprises me (like right now) that I've so completely changed my stance. Then I think about the complete change in Apple's trajectory over the past years, and I see why it actually isn't that surprising.

In short

Lots of things to talk about (as soon as I get some time):

• Futures of Entertainment Conference
• Cafe Tacvba concert
• My Mac failing me (turns out I failed it)
  
• Wookieepedia ethnographic study

This and more in the very near future!

Games as Art: Shadow's Role in the Battle

This is a recent email I wrote to my cousin, another avid gamer, after I found out that he had put down Shadow of the Colossus after the first boss battle. This was my attempt to convince him to pick it back up:

I'm sure you're at least partly aware of the hostile debates over video games as a potential medium for art. Roger Ebert and Clive Barker have most prominently chimed in with diverging opinions. Even professors at universities have made their case. Obviously, video game fans have been vociferous on the blogs. They tend to come down hard on the side of video games as art. Unfortunately, their views are constrained by an inconsistent definition of art. Others see the video game debate as meaningless because video games are not intended to be art; they are purely intended to be entertainment.

If we take art to be the highest form of human expression, embodied in the works of Shakespeare, Picasso, Michelangelo, Beethoven, and, more recently, the works of Toni Morrison, Philip Glass, I.M. Pei, and Jackson Pollock, then clearly video games have yet to produce a formidable candidate. In any debate, this should be the opening remark. Video games have not come close to producing Art with a capital A. Most of the intelligent commentators realize that. I do, too. Within that subsection of the larger debate, the real question becomes, have video games shown potential to produce Art. The one game that comes up most often as an answer to that question is Shadow of the Colossus.

Though there are many reasons for that, the main reason is that this game lives and breathes without you. Playing, you get the feeling that you really aren't influencing anything. You are merely observing a single, crystallized idea that slowly reveals itself as a thing of absolute beauty. The only way this game could be any different is if you stopped playing. This game creates the same feeling of being dispossessed of one's control over one's mind/soul. It's the same feeling as viewing a Dali painting. Or hearing a Beethoven symphony. Work goes into taking in all three pieces of art. One must find the time and patience to sit in front of a Dali painting and study it. One must find the time and patience to sit down and listen to a Beethoven symphony. One must find the time and patience to press the correct buttons on the controller to experience Shadow. The work one must do in each of these is only essential in that it allows you to absorb the creator's vision. The argument that because one is able to influence a game, it is no longer capable of presenting an untainted artistic expression becomes incorrect when one realizes that no influence is going on beyond deciding to follow the plan laid out by the creator to experience, in this case his, work of art.

Tycho had a big problem with the camera movement and controls. Most reviewers and players didn't. I didn't. Tycho has this to say about it though, "The game needs to be seen by every conscious organism on planet Earth. And if that means that you must play it in order to do so, that is your cross to bear." Pick up your cross, Marc! Play the game that has shot like a bolt of lightning through the game industry and see how video games can approach the realm of eternal, classic Art. (ok, this is definitely becoming a post.)

Resources:

Reactions from across the industry
http://gamasutra.com/features/20070316/ochalla_01.shtml

Discusses Shadow and gender/race issues- one of the best articles:
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2006/04/21/games_art_why_bother.html

Kotaku feature
http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/what-for-art-thou-283021.php

Ebert's response to Clive Barker
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001

Clive Barker's response to Ebert
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=26131

Ebert's original inflammatory statement
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN&date=20051127

Defense of Ebert and his definition of art
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/07/roger-ebert-g-1.html

Prominently features Shadow
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/23/ebert-admits-games-can-be-art-but-not-high-art/

Kojima has an opinion
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2098&Itemid=2

Joystiq's original article
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/30/ebert-video-games-inherently-inferior-to-film-and-literature/

MIT's Henry Jenkins! recently featured in Game Informer and Wired
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/07/are_games_art_wii_i_mean_oui_1.html

More discussion:
http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/357698.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/good-game-but-is-it-art/2006/09/03/1157222003715.html
http://blogs.starwars.com/RyanKaufman/49
Mentions shadow:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/masterpiece-theater/zelnick--manhunt-2-a-work-of-art-270905.php