4.08.2004
Confessions of a Technocrat: Part 1
Please Note: It's spring break. I'm unemployed, and I am getting my masters degree. I may miss a day or two here and there.
I am most definitely a computer enthusiast. I suppose the first time I showed even a spark of interest in them happened when I was just 4 years old. This was way back in the "dinosaur years" of room-sized servers and dumb terminals. The PC wouldn't arrive for another 10 years at least. The Internet was still a DARPA sponsored experiment between four western universities. Things were indeed at a primitive state compared to today.
I was a veritable dynamo as a child. My mother's hair started turning gray about the time I was born. She would eventually develop very keen "mother senses," but they hadn't had time to fully develop at this point. To say I was a challenging child would be to say Mt. Everest is a "big hill." Keeping up with me was a full-time job in and of itself (Mom, you've got my nomination for sainthood). Let me put it to you this way: I may have been the first kid in America to be fitted with a dog harness and a leash.
So I'm four, and my mom brings me to work at her travel agency one day. Keeping me in a seat wasn't about to work. I don't know what she expected to do with me there. Before long, I found my way into the room with all the big humming machines. Somewhere in this room was the "red button," (and yet another reason why server rooms and network closets should always be locked). The "red button" seems to exist in a lot of places (why I don't know). It's the button that one is NEVER, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, to be pushed. Hah, I couldn't read at 4, and I was only so-so at following verbal directions at best. I bet you can figure out what happened next. Of course I pushed the "red button."
What you probably didn't know is that this had some sort of "cascade effect" over a computer network that affected travel agencies and airlines up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard. In 1974, computer networking was still in its infancy. Most of them had to be built with parts and components that weren't originally designed for that purpose. Nobody gave a moment's thought to network security, or what might happen if button "x" or "y" were pushed. Needless to say, following this incident, my invitation to be with mom at work was revoked for several years to come.
Since then, I have learned to do more useful things with computers and software. In college, I worked in a computer lab for several semesters. I have spent time as a helpdesk technician on the phone for an ISP, for Dell, and for various private industries. I've been a field technician for several companies too. In my last job, I learned how to be a software analyst and a programmer. I guess it would be fair to say I've come a long way in 30 years.
Besides using computers for more productive pursuits, I also enjoy using them for leisure. The realm of computer gaming is one that I am pretty familiar with. I've got an impressive library of computer games that I've beaten over the years. Some of them I've traded in for newer titles, others have become so old that they won't even work on my current PC.
I tend to gravitate towards the Action-Adventure, Strategy, First-Person Shooters, and Role Playing types of games. I never was big into physical sports, so I never really found it all that interesting to play them on a computer. Also, the only console I ever owned was an Atari 2600. Given the choice between a full-fledged PC that can do so much more than play games and a "box" that hooks up to a Television and might also be used to play DVD's, I'd rather have the PC every time. Why spend the extra money for something that only plays games when I can save it to add more to my computer? Admittedly, some pretty spectacular titles are made for consoles, but to me, that is a way of trying to control games. By taking away the computer aspect, players have less control over the games and are more subject to the whims of console manufacturers. But that's just my opinion.
Anyway, my latest obsession has been two Role-Playing Games (called "RPG's") by a company called Bioware. The first one is called Neverwinter Nights and the second Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic. I will deal with these two in order.
Neverwinter Nights is based upon Dungeons and Dragons (known as D&D, or Paper and Pencil - PnP), yet another one of my childhood fascinations. The game is set up so you generate a character, equip them, and do battle with monsters, villains, and other assorted characters. You have a lot of choices concerning how your particular character goes about things. Your character (through you) has to solve a series challenging puzzles, interact with various "virtual" characters, and carefully maneuver through treacherous situations to survive. This is not a "blood and gore" (the term used in the community is: "hack and slash") game, this is a game where the player has to think on his (or her) feet, consider the consequences, and take action accordingly. Bioware to date, has created the Original Neverwinter Nights Campaign, (called NWN OC) and two expansion sets: Shadows of Unrentide, (called SoU) and Hoardes of the Underdark, (called HotU). Each of these campaigns is based upon D&D PnP modules written years before. They take place in a world setting called Forgotten Realms in a land called Faerun. If all of this seems overwhelming and confusing, don't worry. Basically, what we have is a place where people can be things they can't be "in real life" (IRL). It's a totally made-up world that regularly gets filled up with made up characters, adventures, and monsters of every imaginable type.
One plays this sort of game best by being that has various similarities to the player, but also has various differences too. Quite often, I play female elven characters (not going to get into a deep psychological analysis of this) that are generally good, but sometimes "blur the lines a little." To be quite honest, I've never played a "pure evil" character in my life. When talking about what sense of morality and ethics a player has, we are discussing something called "alignment," (sometimes "faction"). Alignments are really basic tendencies of a character. Given a situation, the character will act in accordance with a certain set of principles, or not. Whatever the case may be, there are three primary alignment traits and three secondary alignment traits. The primaries are: Lawful- generally adheres to law in any situation, Chaotic- generally does whatever they feel like regardless, and Neutral- decides on a case-by-case basis when it is appropriate to act and when it is not. The three secondary traits are: Good: cares about others, wants to help and protect those weaker and less fortunate, and despises suffering, treachery, and deceit, Evil: doesn't care about others, uses people to get what they want, and willing to do whatever it takes to further their own objectives and goals, and Neutral: generally seeks to find the balance between the two extremes, cares about others, but recognizes that some amount of suffering is necessary (not to mention inevitable), and that some people cannot (or will not) be helped. My characters tend to be Lawful Neutral, Neutral, or Neutral Good. Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil just tend to be too extreme for me. This is true of my real life tendencies as well (I don't think this makes me a bad person, just a pragmatic one).
To Be Continued.
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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I am most definitely a computer enthusiast. I suppose the first time I showed even a spark of interest in them happened when I was just 4 years old. This was way back in the "dinosaur years" of room-sized servers and dumb terminals. The PC wouldn't arrive for another 10 years at least. The Internet was still a DARPA sponsored experiment between four western universities. Things were indeed at a primitive state compared to today.
I was a veritable dynamo as a child. My mother's hair started turning gray about the time I was born. She would eventually develop very keen "mother senses," but they hadn't had time to fully develop at this point. To say I was a challenging child would be to say Mt. Everest is a "big hill." Keeping up with me was a full-time job in and of itself (Mom, you've got my nomination for sainthood). Let me put it to you this way: I may have been the first kid in America to be fitted with a dog harness and a leash.
So I'm four, and my mom brings me to work at her travel agency one day. Keeping me in a seat wasn't about to work. I don't know what she expected to do with me there. Before long, I found my way into the room with all the big humming machines. Somewhere in this room was the "red button," (and yet another reason why server rooms and network closets should always be locked). The "red button" seems to exist in a lot of places (why I don't know). It's the button that one is NEVER, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, to be pushed. Hah, I couldn't read at 4, and I was only so-so at following verbal directions at best. I bet you can figure out what happened next. Of course I pushed the "red button."
What you probably didn't know is that this had some sort of "cascade effect" over a computer network that affected travel agencies and airlines up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard. In 1974, computer networking was still in its infancy. Most of them had to be built with parts and components that weren't originally designed for that purpose. Nobody gave a moment's thought to network security, or what might happen if button "x" or "y" were pushed. Needless to say, following this incident, my invitation to be with mom at work was revoked for several years to come.
Since then, I have learned to do more useful things with computers and software. In college, I worked in a computer lab for several semesters. I have spent time as a helpdesk technician on the phone for an ISP, for Dell, and for various private industries. I've been a field technician for several companies too. In my last job, I learned how to be a software analyst and a programmer. I guess it would be fair to say I've come a long way in 30 years.
Besides using computers for more productive pursuits, I also enjoy using them for leisure. The realm of computer gaming is one that I am pretty familiar with. I've got an impressive library of computer games that I've beaten over the years. Some of them I've traded in for newer titles, others have become so old that they won't even work on my current PC.
I tend to gravitate towards the Action-Adventure, Strategy, First-Person Shooters, and Role Playing types of games. I never was big into physical sports, so I never really found it all that interesting to play them on a computer. Also, the only console I ever owned was an Atari 2600. Given the choice between a full-fledged PC that can do so much more than play games and a "box" that hooks up to a Television and might also be used to play DVD's, I'd rather have the PC every time. Why spend the extra money for something that only plays games when I can save it to add more to my computer? Admittedly, some pretty spectacular titles are made for consoles, but to me, that is a way of trying to control games. By taking away the computer aspect, players have less control over the games and are more subject to the whims of console manufacturers. But that's just my opinion.
Anyway, my latest obsession has been two Role-Playing Games (called "RPG's") by a company called Bioware. The first one is called Neverwinter Nights and the second Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic. I will deal with these two in order.
Neverwinter Nights is based upon Dungeons and Dragons (known as D&D, or Paper and Pencil - PnP), yet another one of my childhood fascinations. The game is set up so you generate a character, equip them, and do battle with monsters, villains, and other assorted characters. You have a lot of choices concerning how your particular character goes about things. Your character (through you) has to solve a series challenging puzzles, interact with various "virtual" characters, and carefully maneuver through treacherous situations to survive. This is not a "blood and gore" (the term used in the community is: "hack and slash") game, this is a game where the player has to think on his (or her) feet, consider the consequences, and take action accordingly. Bioware to date, has created the Original Neverwinter Nights Campaign, (called NWN OC) and two expansion sets: Shadows of Unrentide, (called SoU) and Hoardes of the Underdark, (called HotU). Each of these campaigns is based upon D&D PnP modules written years before. They take place in a world setting called Forgotten Realms in a land called Faerun. If all of this seems overwhelming and confusing, don't worry. Basically, what we have is a place where people can be things they can't be "in real life" (IRL). It's a totally made-up world that regularly gets filled up with made up characters, adventures, and monsters of every imaginable type.
One plays this sort of game best by being that has various similarities to the player, but also has various differences too. Quite often, I play female elven characters (not going to get into a deep psychological analysis of this) that are generally good, but sometimes "blur the lines a little." To be quite honest, I've never played a "pure evil" character in my life. When talking about what sense of morality and ethics a player has, we are discussing something called "alignment," (sometimes "faction"). Alignments are really basic tendencies of a character. Given a situation, the character will act in accordance with a certain set of principles, or not. Whatever the case may be, there are three primary alignment traits and three secondary alignment traits. The primaries are: Lawful- generally adheres to law in any situation, Chaotic- generally does whatever they feel like regardless, and Neutral- decides on a case-by-case basis when it is appropriate to act and when it is not. The three secondary traits are: Good: cares about others, wants to help and protect those weaker and less fortunate, and despises suffering, treachery, and deceit, Evil: doesn't care about others, uses people to get what they want, and willing to do whatever it takes to further their own objectives and goals, and Neutral: generally seeks to find the balance between the two extremes, cares about others, but recognizes that some amount of suffering is necessary (not to mention inevitable), and that some people cannot (or will not) be helped. My characters tend to be Lawful Neutral, Neutral, or Neutral Good. Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil just tend to be too extreme for me. This is true of my real life tendencies as well (I don't think this makes me a bad person, just a pragmatic one).
To Be Continued.
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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