The Future of Computer Games

AI, Computer Games, Game design

NOTE: This article was supposed to appear in a Gaming related website (one more prominent than this) but due to certain re-arrangements concerning the operation behind the website, this plan has been (now finally) abandoned. Cheers and all the best to Nick.

We are peering in to a crystal ball to see what kind of developments we might see in gaming in the next 10-30 years. Usually when people make predictions they tend to exaggerate the short term development but underestimate the long term development. I take 10-30 to be short term so I’m taking the safe route proposing that things will stay mostly the same. We wont have the “holodeck” or “brain-computer -interfaces”. The computers we use will look mostly like the ones we use today. Perhaps they will be smaller, quieter but not light-based or quantum-anything. Programming of sort will still be required, Artificial Intelligence (AI) won’t be doing the job of game development for us, and cars will, for the most part, stay in the ground.
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1st Month in Helsinki

Current Matters, personal, Weather

I am still very much in the process of getting my life together. I have all of my earthly belongings with me now, which is important for nostalgics. I still don’t have a net-access at home, so I am writing this at a coffee shop. I had to come all the way to the centre to find one that was open on a Sunday and with a WLAN.

My only furniture at the moment is my sofa which doubles as a bed and a small table I made myself close to 20 years ago. I have practically no cash, but luck has it that I have a credit card, issued by my employer. I struggled this log without plastic money. I have yet to restart my Aikido practice, but it’s not for lack of dedicated clubs.

My short term plans are to buy a desk, a new harddrive and something of a bookstand. I have scores of plastic bags filled with books lying around. I also need a valuecard to be able to take advantage of the complementary washing machine in our building. The weather is nothing but wintery.  I blame pirates. I have seen Katja Tukiainen at my local shop (for local people). We exchanged glances.

Just so nobody gets me wrong: I’m doing good and I am happy.

Soon to come in this Blog: The Future of Computer Games!

First Week in Helsinki

Current Matters, personal

My first week in Helsinki sees the gradual dissipation of the beginnings-panic. I have pretty much settled in, although th bulk of my belongings still sit in Tampere waiting to get hauled here. I have some cashflow problems because I didn’t supply my tax-card in time. That was 60% off my salary which was already only 3/4 of a pay since I started the 7th. My rent lease, however, began in 1. January. And I have to pay for the move as well… When I’m done with moving, I have to start thinking about how to buy more stuff into my illustrious apartment, currently all I have is a sofa (which unfolds into a bed) and a small self-made table.

No fear! I’ll manage. I’ll be spending one week in Riga as a part of my training, which should be interesting. I’m expecting conflicting schedules, missed dead-lines, un-announced meetings you need to attend to and so on. Just like in reality!

I’m almost done with adjusting to my new sleep schedule. I have found a working cycle-route to and fro my workplace (which is subject to change in few weeks) . The very nice aspect of all this is that the days are rapidly getting longer and temperature has been generally temperate.

First Day in Helsinki

Current Matters, personal

My new life in Helsinki begins humbly. The bulk of my belongings still wait in Tampere to be moved. I took only what I could carry. That means sleeping on the floor and every now and then wondering why didn’t I bring this-and-that -thing with me.

I’m writing this in a cafe, it will be weeks before I get net connection to home. Money will be short for awhile too, so I have to resist all the urges that this city offers… I live in Kallio, a somewhat infamous former, now retiring working class homestead. It has slightly rowdy reputation, there are sex shops in every corner and if your thai-muscles ache you can get limbered up in several thai-massage-parlor. One of the streets even had a sign saying it was under polices technical supervision. I feel safer already.

I like the way Kallio looks though, it has that kind of charm that a place that has been as urban as you can get in Finland for closer to 70 years. My apartment is in one of those 70 year old buildings, it has plank floors and a very well equiped kitchen. If I ever come to possess more than one plate, I never have to wash it myself!

Studying Pays Off!

Current Matters, personal

Right, I’m taking off. I am glad to announce my recent deunemployency. I am heading to the south coast of Finland, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They seduced me with title and money. I couldn’t have refused the offer otherwise either since it was the only offer I’ve received.

I’ll be doing programming in a big international service (among others) house. I am feeling like a cow in the spring being released to the meadows for the first time after winter… You can leave your well-wishings, words of infinite wisdom and confessions of infatuation in the comments!

/me continues Victory Dance.

Useful Everyday Indexes and Guidelines

Economics, Social

The Busstop-queue -index

The busstop-queue -index gives you an approximation of the time you have to wait for the bus. If there are already people on the busstop when you arrive, it is safe to bet that you won’t have to wait for too long. This holds true regardless the people are aware of busschedules, which I am usually. If there are no people on the busstop as you arrive, it might mean that you have to wait for a longer time, but it is not that certain. In my neck of the woods busses drive right after each other, sometimes in line, which is a by-product of having three different companys running approximately the same route.

Popularity -index

The ratio between sent personal emails to received personal emails implys how popular you are. If you send out more personal emails than you receive, you can’t consider yourself to be that popular. Usually communication like this isn’t symmetrical, it often follows the form: 1.) Query of some kind to person A from person B, 2.) Answer from person A to person B 3.) Acknowledgement of message from person A to person B. In this situation person A is one down and this situation is usually mirrored in all communication situations, he/she who initiates it will be one down. You have to be popular enough for people wanting to proactively engage in communications with you.

When To Sell Your Stock -Guideline

Simply when everybody tells you to buy.

Who’s Fault Is It -Guideline

It’s probably your fault, it might be somebody elses fault but it probably isn’t.

How to Find Out If You Are a ‘Brain In a Vat’

Concepts

The brain-in-a-vat -concept points to the question, how do you know that you are not really living in a awfully sophisticated virtual reality? You have no direct access to the universe itself, you have to experience it through your sense and those can be fooled. This is an ancient old question debated in Philosophy in many forms since at least Descartes. Matrix has made this idea ‘pop’ in recent years.

If you are a brain-in-a-vat how could I find something like that out? Of course, without direct access to the outside world, you can’t know anything about it, but there are ways to suggest that the reality you think is real is not. Of course these ways come in different degrees of certainty and you can never be absolutely sure, but absolute certainty is rarely an requirement outside philosophers, others are usually content with bloody damn sure.

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On Cute

Concepts, Nature, Social

Cute is something that seems to have found a perfect way to propagate itself in the Internet. There are websites such as cuteroverload and lolcats that are especially catering for peoples need for cute. In the Internet, cuteness is usually associated with animals, but also on inanimate objects, like toys. The defining quality in cute is not the object matter but that it somehow possesses some human qualities such as sadness, vulnerability, guilt, speaking, stealing etc. When a duck has learned to steal packs of crisps from a store, it’s cute. When a cuttlefish appears to be sad, exhibited by its (apparent) droopy eyelids, its cute, nevermind that a cuttlefish has no eyelids. If a cats mouth seems to portray a smile (preferably in a manga style) thats cute. You get the point.

Sometimes this humanizing animals for cute has its drawbacks. If a pomeranian lets out something that sounds like a human giggle, is it really enjoying the “tickleing” administered by its (apparent) mistress? Some of the viewers don’t seem to think so.

As a petless person, this tendency to see human qualities in animals is quite, should I say puzzling? It clearly gets it wrong in many occasions and therefore the whole meaningfulness of this tendency becomes questionable. Afterall we are talking about mostly people who claim to be animal-lovers who administer procedures on their pets based on their loaded view of their pets. It has been said that a dog understands its owner better than its owner understands it.

If I Had Billion Euros

Economics, Social

This entry is represents a play on numbers, it assumes that you can get a 5% annual interest for your euro adjusted for inflation, which is quite a reasonable assumption. I also submit to you that you can get a very decent living in Finland for 50.000€ a year.

One billion euros is 1.000.000.000€.  With 5% annual interest you are looking 50 million € in interests every year for those billion euros. So, every year your capital grows with 50 million. One million euros carries an interest of 50.000 euros a year, which, as mentioned, secures one person a very decent living in Finland. Every year your billion euros interests interest could provide for 50 people a steady income for the rest of their lives. The next year for another 50 people, and so on.

All this without ever needing to touch your initial capital of one billion euros, or without the fear of it losing its value. The money it would earn wouldn’t be ‘free’ money, it would be only distributing the generated wealth of those billion euros in a manner most would find unfair and surrendering. With one billion dollars you could, every year, for the foreseeable future, turn 50 people financially independent.

That’s exactly what I would do if I had billion euros.

Pick Your Place

Social

There are places in the world, coffee shops in general and some coffee shops in Tampere in particular where an unescorted adult male (UAM) is not welcome. He will be queried:”Are you here all by yourself!?” Nobody will sit with him if there’s shortage of available seats. Women will sit with other women, or in some cases, with couples, but not with an UAM. Couples will sit with other couples or with single women. UAM are shady.

Women are usually present in packs, but if there are single women present, they will be engaged in some meaningful activity such as writing. They are not to be disturbed. If you are an UAM and you attend the lavatory, reserve your place carefully. Leave at least a jacket and a backpack on your seat, otherwise it will be taken.

I guess you are looking for trouble if you’re an UAM and not a bar-dwelling creature…