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Archives For April 2010

Column – Uninformed arguments give views bad name

April 23, 2010 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

On April 15, Tax Day, Conservatives flocked to Washington, D.C., as part of the growing Tea Party movement. Among the protestors, at least one man can be seen in many pictures online (including the Washington City Paper website) carrying a sign that says “God hates taxes.”

But when the Pharisees approached Jesus in Matthew 22 and asked him, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus showed them the image of Caesar that appeared on their coins &- not unlike the American iconography that appears on our own bills and coins &- and said “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Give to God what is God’s.”

Telling people to give Caeser his money doesn’t really seem like an anti-tax message, does it? Quite the opposite, in fact.

Trying to pull the religion card purely to further your agenda is already a shady practice, and many in the anti-religion camp are quick to point out (perhaps not wrongly) that such attitudes are the source of too many of our most horrific wars and events.

Trying to spread what you believe to be God’s message might be one thing. It’s quite another if you’re completely and utterly wrong.

In the aforementioned photograph, the “God hates taxes” sign bearer appears dressed in a monk’s garb and wearing a large wooden cross around his neck. I would imagine this outfit is entirely for show, and that the man has no official affiliation to any church or monastery (though I could be mistaken), but I would still expect someone who is brazen enough to attend a rally in such attire, with such a sign, to be familiar with at least the basic teachings of Christ. And the passage I quoted above seems pretty basic.

I’ve mentioned in previous columns that I’m a Christian. I understand the desire to preach the message of the Bible and to use Scripture to guide your actions. However, if you’re going to go out in public and try to protest your government or preach on a street corner, you should at least have some idea of what the heck you’re talking about.

I confess that I’m not exactly a test case for what an “average” Christian should know. I spend a lot of free time studying philosophy, theology and world religion. I’m far from an expert and farther from a priest, but I can hold my own in a discussion or debate. But Jesus’ message about taxes in Matthew 22 seems pretty rudimentary to me. I’m pretty sure I was aware of his comments at least by high school, if not far earlier.

Everybody is ignorant at some point or another. Ideally, we should leave behind as much ignorance as possible as we grow older, but sometimes we are confronted with new ideas and need to retrain ourselves to think about the world differently. There are certainly people out there, religious and not, who are walking around with false or uninformed ideas in their head, but in some cases it’s understandable; they just don’t know any better.

But if you make it your mission to go on the offensive, to protest and rally and debate, then you need to make sure to hit the books first.

It’s not just religious people who need to worry about this. Political views from both sides of the aisle are often skewed and mutilated until they’re barely recognizable. How many times have you heard a comment (or even read a column) in which the person speaking was obviously ignorant of the views they were presenting?

It’s easy to see when the opinion is in opposition to yours &- it’s much easier to sniff out problems with an argument if it’s one we don’t agree with &- but we sometimes ignore the people on our own side who spread ignorance and lies. Whether it’s a student saying, “Coffee makes you sober,” an atheist saying, “King Solomon cut a baby in half” (a real argument I’ve heard based on a story out of context) or a conservative saying, “God hates taxes,” people spew ignorance everywhere, and it usually makes them look stupid.

I’m personally tired of being a conservative Christian who constantly has to correct the misconceptions others have based on things they’ve heard from other “conservative Christians.” No matter your views, try to be informed about them before you go imposing them on others. Otherwise you just make things harder on your potential allies.

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Review – Splinter Cell Conviction

April 20, 2010 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

The “Splinter Cell” series always has been known for two primary elements: stealth and night-vision goggles. But “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction” contains less of the former and none of the latter.

With “Conviction,” it’s as if the folks at Ubisoft watched a lot of the “Bourne” movies and said, “We need more of this.”

Series protagonist and secret government agent Sam Fisher used to be defined by his high-tech equipment and tendency to move through areas very, very slowly without making a sound. The player, as Sam, would do whatever it took to avoid detection by the enemy, because if they knew you were there, it was usually game over. So the previous “Splinter Cell” games were an exercise in taking your time, shooting out lights and staying in the dark.

“Conviction” doesn’t do away with all of this &- you’ll still want to stay in the dark most of the time, and shooting out lights can still be key &- but enough changed to make this feel almost like an entirely different game. Sam now moves quickly and doesn’t mind shooting anybody who gets in his way. Instead of picking locks, he bashes doors down.

Torn up by the death of his daughter, Sam has left the government group Third Echelon and now is working on his own to find his daughter’s killer. Before long, however, his quest for truth leads him inevitably back to the people who first trained him, and what follows is a tangle of twists and conspiracies that rightly bears the Tom Clancy name (even though the famous author had nothing to do with this plot, despite his name being on the box).

But being separate from his former employers means Sam has to improvise a lot more, and his gear, for the most part, is not nearly as high-tech as before. Early on, Sam even relies on broken glass in order to peak under doors, rather than his handy snake-cam. You still acquire a variety of weapons and devices &- including EMP grenades and sticky cameras &- but Sam definitely packed lighter this time around.

There is one high-tech exception, however. Gone are the series staple night-vision goggles. They’re replaced by higher-tech sonar goggles, allowing Sam to make his way through dark areas and even see enemies through walls.

To take out these enemies, you now have a lot more methods in your disposal. Since stealth is rarely as necessary as before, you can now take on areas with full guns blazing, if you so choose. But you might prefer to be a lot smarter than that, and the game can accommodate your wish.

You might, for instance, allow an enemy to see you, then quickly duck back into the shadows. When your foes come to investigate your last known location, you can flank them and take them out.

You could also take a group out quickly with Sam’s new Mark and Execute ability. When scoping out an area, you can mark a number of enemies (between two and five, depending on your equipped weapon), and when the time is right, quickly and accurately eliminate all of them at the push of a button. This is not only really useful, but also looks really cool &- like something Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer from “24″ might do.

The single-player story doesn’t last extremely long, easily beatable in under 10 hours, but the story is engaging and fun to play through.

The game also boasts a bevy of multiplayer modes for two players, either online or off. This includes a full-fledged co-op prequel to Sam Fisher’s single-player story, featuring two entirely different characters. This mode plays out more like the “Splinter Cell’s” of yore, where stealth is king. The co-op story is even shorter than the single-player campaign, but it’s an extremely fun experience to go through with a friend.

Other modes include Hunter, in which you try to eliminate a group of enemies, and Face Off, a sort of spy vs. spy mode for two players. Some of the modes can be played by solo, such as Infiltration, where being spotted means you instantly fail, but all of them are definitely more fun with a friend.

“Splinter Cell: Conviction” is pretty different from its predecessors, but I would say the changes are for the better. It still feels like a stealth game, with some parts requiring you to go slow and think about your next move, but also feels like a more fast-paced action game. It’s a great experience both alone and with a friend, and should be picked up by fans and newcomers alike.

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Review – WarioWare D.I.Y.

April 14, 2010 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

If you’ve played video games extensively, chances are you’ve at least briefly entertained the idea of learning about game design, perhaps even as a potential career.

Anybody who has ever had such thoughts should strongly consider “WarioWare D.I.Y.” for the Nintendo DS.

You might be familiar with the “WarioWare” series already. The games have entertained gamers from the GameBoy Advance to the Wii with frantic, extremely crazy “microgames,” which typically last between three and five seconds. The games usually involve things such as pressing a button at the right time or using your reflexes in some other way. This might mean quickly tugging at your Wii Remote as if you’re pulling sword out of a stone, or it might mean tapping your DS screen to pick a person’s nose.

To put it simply, the series has banked on absolute insanity, and that’s OK with most gamers.

In “WarioWare D.I.Y.” however, there are only a relative handful of microgames to play (compared to hundreds in previous titles). Instead, you’re supposed to make them yourself.

This may sound daunting to a lot of people, but Nintendo has somehow managed to make an incredibly in-depth system incredibly simple. This might be helped in part by the fact that the games you create will only last a few seconds, but through the creation process you still touch on major, crucial elements of game design.

You start by drawing the art that will go into your game. This was by far the trickiest part for me because I’m a terrible graphic artist in every conceivable way. However, the game’s tools are easy to use, and you can also use assets from other sources, including pre-made games and a variety of stamps. Besides, the sort of half-assed look of my art fit in well with the “WarioWare” vibe.

Using “D.I.Y.’s” graphic tools, you end up creating the background and all objects that the game uses. This includes drawing separate frames for any animation you might require.

Again, the tools make this a simple enough process, and if you’re artistically inclined, you can probably make some really cool stuff.

Next, you’ll probably want to design how the game is actually played, which can be complex, yet easy to understand. Everything operates on if-then statements. For instance, you can tell the game, “If the balloon object is tapped, display the balloon popping animation.” Then, “If all balloons are popped, the player wins the game.”

It’s really that simple, but it still leaves a lot of room open for creativity. Perhaps more importantly, it teaches the basics of programming techniques that are really used in game design.

You’ll probably also want to fill you game with music and sound effects. Like art, I’m not terribly great when it comes to composing music. Thankfully, the in-game composer will auto-generate tunes for you if you tell it what you’re looking for. For example, you can say you want something that sounds 8-bit and frantic, and you’ll hopefully get something that fits. If not, you can keep trying until you like the result.

While the bulk of the game is definitely focused on building microgames from scratch, there’s a little more to do as well. In addition to playing the games that come pre-made on the game card (all made with the same game creation tools you’re given), there are several games that come mostly made, but just need you to create new art for them. For example, you might be tasked with designing enemy spaceships for a game that is already programmed and almost finished.

The game also boasts online features. After you finish a game, you can “ship” it out and either keep it to yourself, or post it online. If your friends have the game and your friend code, they can download and play your masterpiece. You can also download new games weekly, some by other users and some by esteemed game developers, such as one of the creators of “World of Goo” or one of the minds behind “Scribblenauts.”

The only real downside to this package is the online features should be more involved. Other than the featured weekly games, it’s extremely difficult to find new user-generated content, as it requires having friends with the game or searching message boards for people to exchange friend codes with. It would be much nicer if there was an in-game browser where every piece of content is displayed, and users can vote on their favorites. A system similar to that of “LittleBigPlanet” on the PS3 would work great.

This aside, “WarioWare D.I.Y.” is an extremely inventive and addictive piece of software. It’s a lot of fun to simply mess around with casually, but it could also be a fantastic primer on game design if that’s something that interests you at all.

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Review – The Bride Collector

April 13, 2010 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

I love thriller films, but I’m not the always biggest fan of thriller books. It’s hard to scare me with words, and the art of horror fiction seems to be one that few authors have truly mastered throughout the years.

But a friend introduced me to the work of Ted Dekker several years back, and he has quickly become one of my favorite authors. His ability to combine great action with gripping suspense almost always manages to pull me in and not let me go. His track record isn’t perfect (I had to struggle to finish his book “Obsessed,” for example), but he’s earned his recent New York Times bestseller list success.

His latest work, “The Bride Collector,” follows in the fashion of the works he is most known for, straying from his recent dabbling into fantasy territory with his “Circle” series. In fact, if you read Dekker’s other works, the core plot might be extremely familiar to you: A serial killer is running amok, likely with a religious motive in mind, and one man must stop him.

Sure, it’s formulaic, but then so are a lot of Stephen King’s novels. Besides, Dekker apparently still has enough twists in him that he’s able to make it work.

The killer in question this time has been dubbed the Bride Collector, and he is killing women whom he thinks God has chosen to be his bride. He believes himself to be God’s messenger, and won’t stop until he has delivered the seventh and most perfect bride to God.

FBI special agent Brad Raines, on the other hand, is determined to put a stop to him. Not an easy task when the killer decides to make the cat-and-mouse chase a little more personal.

To crack the case and stop the Bride Collector in time, Raines must enlist the help of patients at the Center for Well-being and Intelligence &- a mental institution for exceptionally smart and gifted mentally ill people. It’s almost as if the FBI found a bunch of “Rain Man”-like people and decided to have them help with a case they can’t crack themselves.

This could have been a dangerous move for Dekker, as mental illness isn’t the easiest topic to tastefully cover, but he manages to find a nice balance of having the CWI patients be somewhere between “Rain Man” and “Monk,” and the story benefits well from Dekker’s ability to do so.

Like M. Night Shyamalan for film, Dekker is fairly known for his surprising plot twists.

Unfortunately there’s not much in the way of twists in “The Bride Collector,” but there are still a few surprises. Just don’t expect that “holy crap” moment you might get from watching “The Sixth Sense” or reading Dekker’s novel “Thr3e.”

The plot benefits from its lack of twist, however, as it allows more room for Dekker to do what he does best. He is extremely good at using fiction to explore deep, complex ideas about the world around us. As a Christian, he very often examines God, religion and spirituality, and that’s definitely the case here. However, I do not think non-Christians should shy away from the novel based on this alone. “The Bride Collector” never feels preachy, even at its most theological.

Besides, the plot waxes philosophical about the treatment of mental patients almost as much as it does about God’s love. By diving into the mind of the killer (something Dekker does often), we’re able to look at the world from a different perspective than we usually do, and you may end up sympathizing with The Bride Collector more than you would expect.

“The Bride Collector” may not be Dekker’s absolute best work (if you’ve never read him, I recommend “Thr3e” or the more recent bestseller, “BoneMan’s Daughters”), but it’s definitely quite good. If you’re at all a fan of smart thrillers, you should pick this up. It may keep you up at night for reasons other than being afraid of the dark.

“The Bride Collector” will be released today in hardcover.

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Column – Extra time not enough to improve public schools

April 2, 2010 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

There’s been a fair amount of discussion lately about our public school systems, namely how many (or how few) days or hours per week children should be in school.

According to The Chicago Tribune, the Illinois House “has sent to the Senate a bill that would allow local school board to adopt a four-day week.” The main reasoning for this seems to be budget concerns. Cutting a full day out of the school schedule could save a school board a lot of money, even just in terms of the cost to run buses that cart students to and from school.

Whenever something like this is proposed, opinions seem to be mixed. A lot of people’s first reaction tends to be that this is a bad idea. Our public schools are struggling enough as it is to give the children of our nation the education they need. Cutting a day out of the schedule can only hinder the effort more.

Other people &- especially the children that could be affected, but several educated people as well &- argue that we push children hard enough as it is, and if we push too hard we’re just going to burn them out, resulting in lower grades and higher drop-out rates.

Illinois would be far from the first to implement such a schedule. The aforementioned Tribune editorial notes that 19 other states have at least one four-day-week school district.

It’s important to note that fewer days in school does not necessarily mean fewer hours. Schools could (and do) have longer school days on the days that classes are scheduled.

This means schools can still save money by turning off the heat or not running the cafeteria on one extra day per week, but students would still have the same or similar amount of hours spent in classes.

But some people argue that if anything, children need to spend more time in school. Mike Feinburg, co-founder of the Knowledge Is Power Program, contributed a column on CNN.com that cites reasoning for keeping children in school longer every day and even going to school on more days per month. His KIPP Academy in Houston ran from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., had Saturday classes twice a month and mandated at least three weeks of summer school.

This wasn’t cheap &- Feinburg states such measures cost an additional $1,100 to $1,500 per student &- but the school went on to become the highest performing public middle school in Houston.

Feinburg certainly makes some good points, citing for instance that China’s students spend 300 more hours in school than America’s students, and their schools run for 41 more days per year. It’s easy to wonder whether we want our children competing with that sort of rigorous education system, considering how poor of a job we seem to be doing lately.

However, there was something Feinburg said early on in his column that gave me pause: “I know there is no substitute for the hours a student spends with an effective and inspiring teacher.”

Yes, this is no doubt true. I’ve spent time outside of class here at Tech with professors that I’ve found enlightening and inspiring, and I definitely benefited from the extra time with them. However, I think the bigger problem is not all of our teachers are “effective and inspiring.” If our students aren’t performing as well as they can with the resources they’ve been given, I’m not convinced extra time is enough to change that.

Don’t get me wrong, something certainly needs to be done, and maybe tacking extra class time onto students’ schedules would be a step in the right direction. But maybe we should worry about other aspects of our school system first. If students hate the five-day weeksthey already endure, they’re not exactly going to be inspired by the idea of going to school every other Saturday.

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