Back in my day....

So as i was going through my Creative Cloud account to check up on a few things, i stopped and looked at the list of software that i have at my fingertips. For a short moment i think about how my 18 year old self would have felt knowing what toys that lay in his future. Sure we had Dreamweaver and Photoshop back then too. But compared to the things something like Photoshop is today... It was about a step above hacking lines in to stone. But unlike some people who only can see the saturation of a crowded market and a march of technology that slowly leaves them behind i am really glad for this. Not only does it make my life a lot easier as tools get better and become more affordable, but it acts as a equalizer. 

You see when i was young... Pretty much the only way to get Photoshop was to pirate the living shit out of it. Why... Cost... The product it self was aimed at a professional market and priced as such. At around 10-15.000 SEK it was not only a pipe dream, it was beyond reality. Me and others did reason that pirating it was a victim less crime. It was not like we took away sales from Adobe since we could not even buy the software even if we pooled together. 

Now i like to say that this does not excuse what we did, nor does it actually creates a moral ledge for us to stand on. Now the thing was ofc that outside of Paintshop Pro, Coral Draw and Photoshop there was not much to work with. So we simply did not give a fuck. We where young and brash. Not saying that renting your software from Adobe for a few hundred a month is all that much better. But going by the price of Adobe software in the past the pack i currently have active would run me in the hundred of thousands SEK range, and that is one torture i prefer to have delivered one needle prick at the time. 

Anyway... As i said it is a equalizer because today pretty much anyone can get a computer and a software package that let them work with digital art, and pretty much every smartphone have a camera good enough to at least start out as a photographer och video photographer. The gatekeepers are fading away and that in my mind is a good thing. Sure it is getting harder to stand out and it becomes much more about marketing your self and creating a brand. But at least you do not have to work with stone age tools or steal to get going. Heck you do not even have to bow down to the likes of Adobe, Free software like GIMP and the fairly cheap Clip Studio paint offer really good places to start with digital art and for video and audio there is a plethora of tools. 

I look forward to see what the future holds and i wish the kids of today the best of luck as they try their own wings creating the most amazing things. 

Not particularly much meat in this post, but what is a personal blog worth if one can not indulge in the fancy of thought every now and then. 

Until next time

Stay safe, be kind and play fair. 

Bye.

The working gamers dilemma.

So i was thinking about what to put my limited gaming time budget in to. While i now have the funds to get the games i want (not all at the same time.. but you know.) and also have a computer that can play them i have been putting some serious thinking time in to what game to get. While i still tend to put in a match or a few of OverWatch and i keep a subscription to WoW running for my own amusement.

But beyond that i am for all intents undecided. With the current Humble monthly offering Total War:Warhammer for a really good price. But it eats a lot of time and i am not sure i have what it takes to actually enjoy the game. Heck if i can not find time to sit down with the sims... Total War i think is a bit outside of my league. That is what i really like with Overwatch, casually playing quick matches demands no time from me. Just pop in... bang bang.. shut down.

But looking forward there is of course the next Mass Effect game, i have played through the original trilogy and i am looking forward to this one. But again.. time. It is a must play for me so time will have to be made i guess.

Beyond that it is mostly "older" games, as in games that have been released in the past year or so that simply kicked the arse of my old computer. I have been doing some the Division as i really enjoy the SP part of the game, shallow and not very complex as it is. This does lean me towards looking to pick up Watchdogs2 and while even older still i am really thinking about getting the final installment of the Witcher series again.. solid stuff.

and still i come back to the same old chestnut... time.

It is that old catch 22 like position that you only have the money to play games when you do not have the time... and vice versa. But since i can not live of casually playing the games i want to play... Heck even if i would make a career of Youtube would i have the time to play the games i like to play. That would also in way be to taint the well, as i would be making my poison of choice my job. Not sure how well that would turn out.

But that is i guess what getting older is, the dividing of time and resources. In that way life becomes a most harsh
resource management game. One without save files or resets.

But that is what it is.

Until next time
stay safe, be kind and play fair.

So 2016... People seem to be upset with you.

This year the tune in my social feed pretty much went like this "Hey 2016.. Why did you do X" with the implication that it has been a shit year. This i think says more about my age than it does anything else. You see the way i look at it is that my generation have been getting its first real taste of A: mortality and B: reality.

You see everything is cyclic, and much like the sweet summers children that we are we have been riding one such cycle that we now see coming to a close. All the "greats" are dying and the world is hitting "the shitter". Only that if we compare this to many other years in western society's long and storied past, 2016 have been a fairly good year. But that is of course  besides the point, after all compared to the black plague this year have been one of blissful bathing in milk and honey.

But the sheer naked fear that have been the reaction to the world (and by world i am talking about the US and north + central Europe... you know.. the world) changing. That is what has sort of taken me aback. Now i saw my fair share of bullying back in school and i am no real stranger to people being irrationally cruel or spiteful. But Jesus fucking Christ in a playpen.... The unstable nutjobs that usually occupy the sort of fringe where people have relatives who in the 50´s moved from Germany to Argentina or enjoy dressing up in white sheets and pointy hats, these people have not moved in to center stage and they look like a mix between a smug Garfield and Jimmy Cricket after a week on acid... Worst of course is that they infect the general population with their own brand of paranoia. This in turn makes things look a lot more shit than it really is. This in turn leads to things like the Swedish Democrats or Trump in politics and violence in the society.

Personally i used to give these fringe elements and the people they inspire a bit of slack, understanding that for many it is just a matter of society changing to fast for them... And in all honesty most people do not have the flexibility to constantly re-evaluate their morals and values. But i have had fucking enough. 2017 will be a year of me leveraging all my education, ability to do research and.. well... intelligence to grind people like that in to paste. I´l take every last shred of foul play and suppression techniques i know to run them in to the ground. They have had about 5 years to get their shit in order and if they refuse to do that... Why should i be the nice and polite one trying to cushion their emotional fallout as i deconstruct their arguments.

Not so much any more. I have spent 5+ years at a university learning how to look at the world from outside my little box, i do not demand that you do that.... But using Google and some common sense is not to much to ask.

Anyway... Next week we will be looking at my top picks from the entertainment media for 2016.

cheers