Trying to break into any type of job is difficult. I mean, I have prospects (some quite obvious and some unbelievably private that I would never tell anyone) but the real problem I have is finding a steady job to start cashflow. So what if I’ve never worked a day in my life? I’m nearing the end of getting a college education. It’s safe to say I’m not slow when it comes to mental processing or anything. The world of work is getting very fierce these days due to the state of the economy (I won’t use the term “credit crunch” because it makes me want to destroy things) but the way the world works today is that having experience is more important than intelligence. I understand the reason why. It costs considerably less to hire someone and not have to train them. That is fair. This is where my argument comes in. I don’t really reveal that much about my life. I’m willing to tell you some things. I’m a big fan of The Beatles, I find tall, redhead women attractive (within reason), and I don’t like Twilight (state the obvious, why don’t-cha?). I also like to admit that I couldn’t even get a job at ASDA as a team member working the shop floor. How bad must I be in order to be told “No” by fucking ASDA? In this world, it is not about your intelligence. People only care about whether you’ve been doing this job all your life. Again, I understand that people want a safe bet when it comes to hiring someone, but when it comes to September there will tens of thousands of people coming out of schools and colleges and universities looking for work. You heard it here folks! It doesn’t matter that you have been University educated and finished with honours because Dave who worked at Carphone Warehouse for six years and pissed everybody off has more chance of getting a job in retail than you.

I’m well aware of such a pathetic argument as this isn’t going to win any awards but the frustration is incredibly irritating when employers are citing “experience” as a valid point for rejection. We then run into the eternal loop of “no experience means no job and no job means no experience”. I’m not saying that people with some serious experience should really be discounted all together. All I am saying is that people should really have more faith in the younger generation. We wear hoodies, but it doesn’t mean we want to stab you. We don’t drive as well as older people, but we aren’t all racers who like to drive to the soundtrack of “The Blackout Crew” thumping in our ears. I raised this on one of my older articles. Just because most people act a certain way does not mean that all act a certain way. There are some genuinely good people out there. People just need faith in younger people. I cannot emphasise this enough. I’m 18, and I’m a fan of The Beatles. I’m a teenage male, and I don’t think blonde bimbos with “confidence enhancers” are attractive in the slightest. I’m a movie fanboy, but I don’t like Twilight. Just because I don’t live up to a stereotype does not mean that I do. People just need to finally understand that subcultures are breaking down. People who enjoy physical activity can be utter nerds too. We have reached the stage where this is seen as acceptable for people to start taking from other stereotypes and sub-cultural groups to construct their own identities. It’s petty, it’s old and it’s very backward.

This isn’t going to change any time soon but the day will come. People often refer to the elimination of racism and homophobia as things that will take an extremely long time to take effect. You know who say that? Racists and homophobes. Telling people that it will take a while so people will slow down and not bother as much about raising awareness? I see what you did there, you cockjuggling thundercunt. Racism and homophobia can be eliminated in a period of one generation for the reason that if everyone of a younger generation is taught that it is bad, they will not pass it on to future generations. This is the same with sexism. When the time finally comes for the ignorant, those left will be those with respect. I have extremely strong views on homosexuality (no. I’m not gay), feminism and racism and I’m looking to see my ideas, values and beliefs be accepted as the norm. As of right now, this is still not fully the case and it is such a destructive and terrifying thought that in 2010, this is still going on.

This is possibly the most I have poked at ideas, attitudes, values, beliefs and general dominant ideology, and I normally tip-toe around sexism, racism and homophobia, but this is something I am extremely passionate about seeing results in. Various members of the older generation (ironically) are mostly to blame for this. I must say that this is not fully the case but it is safe to say that there are still very backward people living here and it makes me sad to even think this still happens. We still have men AND women not getting equals rights and equal pay, we have various races and religions still being oppressed and seen negatively and we still see intolerance toward homosexuality. I said something to one of my females friends a while back that went along the lines of “It doesn’t matter how similar or different you are to your boyfriend. It doesn’t matter about age, race or religion. In the end, it is about how they make you feel”. Isn’t that the truth though? If they make you happy, then that is all that matters in the end. This can be applied to same-sex relationships as well. If they are in love and they are happy, then that is all that matters in the end. Because, as the Beatles once told us, “and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”.

I hope at least some people have stuck with me through this. Articles are now coming back. The first one will arrive on Friday and will be an actual review of something (as promised a while back).

Thanks, and I hope you guys continue to support me in the future because it really does make me happy to see people visiting the site and commenting. I do take into account all feedback and I feel that I can now make more direct articles that provoke discussion and really stay focused. Hopefully they will be stronger too.

- Aaron

Why is it that the media is finally starting to take podcasting seriously? I mean, since three fat blokes and another bloke with an awesome beard sat in a crowded room in Stourbridge and recorded what is considered to be the very first podcast nearly six years ago now, everyone seems to finally now be taking notice and have start making their own. Stephen Fry has one, Ricky Gervais has one, and even Aleksandr Orlov (the founder of CompareTheMeerkat.com) has one. Seriously. This is slightly perplexing but is understandable considering the connotations. Making a podcast a few years ago is basically a giant sign hanging over your head saying “I am a nerd with absolutely no social life or people skills”. I should know. I was one of those nerds! You understand what I’m saying though. Whenever I told someone I was a podcaster a couple of years ago, they usually “see their friend across the room” or “have to go because they forgot they were moving to Brazil today”. People hated nerds. Luckily I’m not really much of a nerd now and I turned out alright and I seemed to have gained a sense of maturity about myself that my friend Mr. Podcast also gained at around the same time. So now the podcast is all cool and “down with the kids”, right? Unfortunately, something went wrong.

Why is it that morons have to ruin it for everyone else? We have something good that makes us well known (at least in our small communities, and in basements all across Stereotype-land) and then you have to come along and spoil it! Yes! I’m looking at you again, iTunes! Podcasts before iTunes were a sort-of underground style of thing. Podcast communities only existed in real life after the secret handshake was given (such as the mentioning of an in-joke). iTunes was the single thing that killed it by the introduction of a single library of podcasts that was powered by the very people that made this original content. Some of you may turn to me and think “I do believe that this man is a hypocrite! Where are the Simpleton Police Department?”. Just listen a second before you section me under the Mental Health Act of 1983. I do not have the problem with iTunes. I’ve already riffed on iTunes enough in my Spotify review and have gotten shouted at enough for it. Also I don’t think it is necessary to say what has already been said about it. The problem I see is that now there is a central database for every podcast on Earth. This means that we are more likely to find some good podcasts on there such as Control Point and Australian Gamer. This is a core part in reaching a wider audience and to help build a stronger community. I believe that this could constitute to an entirely new article altogether so I think the community article idea can sit in my “Magical Hat of Terrible Ideas” which I keep next to my self-esteem and my trust of Simon Cowell to make an entertaining television programme. I’m not here to talk about the essentials to building a community in here. I’m here to get you all to hate me to your very cores from the second paragraph, and then for you all to see my point in the final paragraph. But I seriously digress here. The problem I have with a central database that anyone can add to is its own premise (i.e.: it’s a central database that anyone can add to).

It is a fact of life. Anyone who is a jerk has it written in their nature that they will be jerks. If they see a child with a rubber ball, they will burst it. If they see someone driving slightly slower than them, they will cut them up. If they see someone beaten within an inch of their life on the street, they will get out their camera phones and upload it to Youtube. Why are we in an age where this is normal? This is actually quite perplexing. Now when I walk the streets, I am seen as “that guy”. You know who I mean. “That guy” who drives down the street in a crapped-out white Fiesta with terrible blue tints and horrible neon lights at two in the morning waking people up with his shit music blasting at approximately thirty-thousand decibels. “That guy” who goes to the pub and gets wasted with his “mates” on a Saturday night, comes home completely destroyed, puts on cheap porn and jerks off until five in the morning before getting up at two in the afternoon on Monday to go and collect the dole money. These are the very people who go around making life hard for everyone else, which makes the good and decent eighteen year olds look like trash. Now I know why my best friend doesn’t trust me and why I’ve never had a relationship with anyone. Sorry. Lost my train of thought. You understand what I am trying to say though. There will always be jerks that make it crap for everyone else. The same applies for the uninteresting. Now I am talking about the people who have podcasts about custard and about twentieth-century telegraph poles (yes. Thank you Red Dwarf fans for getting that reference. Good to see both of you still read this). With no type of filter to keep control over what stays and what doesn’t we get a database of podcasts where ninety percent of your time is spent trying to find the interesting ones. We will always have pure “uninterestingness” that will plague the system until the end of time.

I don’t have a problem, however, with having crap in the database. That really isn’t a problem. People are interested in different things and that is good. The problem I have is that they all think that their podcast is the most important podcast that exists. They think that because everyone is on the same database, everyone is equal. This has never been the case (with the exception of X Factor where anyone who has the whitest teeth and wears pretty dresses can be as successful as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones). This is the problem I have with celebrity podcasts. Celebrities seem to create these podcasts that flood iTunes, and their entire appeal is based upon their brand: their name. If you went onto iTunes and saw “The Aaron Fowkes Podcast” and “The Ricky Gervais Podcast”, which one would you go for? It doesn’t matter about the type of content that is being given to the actual listeners every week. It is purely based on the appearance of a celebrity’s name on a page that makes anyone zap to it. My podcast could be the funniest podcast in human history (it wouldn’t, but shut up. I’m trying to make a point here!) and Ricky’s podcast could be a bland piece of mediocrity (it probably isn’t. I don’t subscribe) but the person who would get more subscribers would always be Ricky Gervais. The problem with creating a system where everyone is equal and it is down to the content of the actual show is that Apple are assuming that everyone is unbiased and will give everything a fair try. They also trust them to be impartial. They also want magical fairies to appear from the sky and give them free blowjobs and beer. You can’t have everything, because Apple certainly don’t. They seem to think that because they designed a system for fairness that people will be fair. That is as valid as saying that if cut a hole in my neck then I will breathe better because the air gets in quicker. The idea was nice, but it was executed poorly. Good job Apple. +1 for messing something else up.

Twitter has the same problem. Despite only having updated Twitter 188 times, Ashton Kutcher is the most popular person on the site. In between not acting his own age and uploading pictures of his wife’s ass, he is apparently commanding a Tweet-Army of over 4.3 million followers. The man hardly talks but seems to still get away with being more popular than a bottle of Budweiser at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. This is what the problem is with iTunes and podcasts on iTunes. The celebrities can be thrown onto the front page to attract attention and to make themselves look unbelievably smug when they are talking to their friends at garden parties. Whilst this is going on, the Average Joes and the hard-workers stay at the bottom of the ladder hoping that one day they may be as smug as the celebrities on the front page.

I’ve already talked about the power of the media being slowly taken away by the power of Twitter and blogs, and how the dominant discourse are clawing back ground in the world of social media but podcasts seemed to be different. Emphasis on seemed. Podcasts were another way of which Mr. A. Joe could create a piece of interesting content using his own intelligence that could appeal to a mass audience, possibly leading to an uprising against the dominant discourse from the lower classes (i.e.: those people who value their object of desire to be an iPod). Any medium where dominant ideology control the masses will have some way of the lower classes trying to exploit this to stand up against them. Flipping something around and using it against them is something that is not only clever, but also the trademark of any good villain (read: The Joker). Rather than restrict the geeks and their access over this market, they have decided to declare that podcasts are now “cool” and not just for geeks, and have decided pump the directories full of their own podcasts from their own “people” (celebrities) and to have these podcasts being the most popular by force (and the power of the name). The people who wanted the power in the Web 2.0 world are back in their place. Again, a medium that gives people some kind of control over what happens in popular culture is fundamentally destroyed by the original concept: anyone can make anything.

I know I’ve overrun but I haven’t written an article since last decade so I feel I have the right to an extra few hundred words. Ready? Sit right there and let’s go.

The podcast was originally coined as the name “Internet Radio Show” because that is fundamentally what it was. It was a pre-recorded radio programme with general banter that often vaguely points toward one subject. With LUGRadio, it was Linux. With Control Point, it was Team Fortress 2. With the Best of Chris Moyles, it is the Chris Moyles show. With The Best of Youtube, it is about a twenty year old man with a voice changer being more rich than you. Before this, we had the traditional media of the FM radio. They also tended to have precisely the same type of conversations (but without excessive swearing or irrelevant in-jokes to clog up the time between records). One of these mediums is controlled by dominant ideology. The other is in the hands of the people to make their own relevant entertainment. Which one is policed? Which one isn’t? Which one is becoming more popular? Which one isn’t as much? Radio is slowly starting to die on its feet. The solution to this was to “rain on the parades” of those people who feel that having free speech is a privilege and not a right, and here come the Radio Podcasts from the BBC. This gives you the ability to clog up your iPods with stuff that you could have listened to for free with a 25p radio and an AA battery. These make it onto the front page of iTunes. The dominant discourse control the radio, so they control the radio podcasts, so they further push the independent podcasts into obscurity and have their “controlled podcasts” for all to see. Seeing the word “Free” next to your favourite podcast sounds quite oxymoronic now, doesn’t it? Mind soup fed through our eardrums and into our celebrity-obsessed minds. Think of that next time you listen to Chris Evans.

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I was recently running my way through music television, which is currently one of my biggest pet peeves at the moment as I feel that music has gone past the point where it can be saved and is now, in fact, dead. When the only good thing I found on that browsing session was Lady GaGa then you know that something is definitely wrong with modern music (note: “Bad Romance” is actually a pretty good song and is her best work to date. It is also good to note that the video kicks ass). So I thought that today I would look back on what I have previously classified as crap and what I have classified as good and have a clear out of what I have previously said here. But I think that will be left until next time because there is a certain issue with the music industry that still keeps popping up. Namely, a certain song that has been pissing me off. This song passed under my radar for a little while, to be perfectly honest. The main reason was that I first heard it on BBC Radio 1 whilst I was on vacation (via Sirius Satellite Radio, who are awesome for getting Radio 1 to America). Over there I heard some good stuff, such as “The Captain” by Biffy Clyro (yes, I had to look up the spelling) and even, the aforementioned, Lady GaGa. But this just annoyed me to the point of insanity when it kept popping up again and again on my radar. With that said, let’s take a look at why this song sucks. This is “I Got Soul” by the Young Soul Rebels, or, as I like to call it We Have No Careers with their song: “Let’s Drag the Killers Down With Us”. Why? Because this song utterly sucks donkey balls. Don’t take my word for it though! Let’s take a look.

First off some of you are probably saying, why is he making fun of a charity song? The cause is worthy. True. But here is my arguement. Just because you are a charity song does not mean you are exempt from being critiqued.  Just because you say “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” does not mean you can get away with anything. Band Aid 20 showed us this. You can give as much money as you like to charities. If I think you are a douche, you are still a douche.

As you may have probably guessed, this is a cover of “I Got Soul” by the Killers. No… wait… It’s a cover of “All These Things That I’ve Done” by the Killers. So, you are doing a cover without actually referencing in the title what you are covering? Seriously? I guess the only excuse to this is if they have completely changed the lyrics from the original. The answer to this is: of course they have! “What a shock(!)”, he lied. Do you all remember the original? It was a song that had a similar message to Everybody Hurts by REM (“If you can’t hold on, hold on” (from “All These Things That I’ve Done”)).What do you think those bastards over at The Young Soul Rebels did? They took a minor line, took it out of context and turned into the hook for the entire song. God this really sucks. I mean, this certain line gets repeated throughout and ruins the effect of the original song. By taking the line “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier” and turning it into a song about war children, you apparently have an instant hit. No you don’t! You have a hack job. It’s like taking the Ghostbusters theme song and slipping in stuff about paedophilia (“If there’s someONE strange / In your neighbourhood / Who ya gonna’ call? / 911!”). It doesn’t make it a good song. It makes it idiotic. So, these people have the power to take a great song and turn it into crap by taking it out of context. Next point!

The next thing to address are the artists involved. Here are a full list:

• VV Brown
• Pixie Lott
• Tinchy Stryder
• N-Dubz
• Frankmusik
• Kid British
• Chipmunk
• MPHO
• Ironik
• Bashy
• McLean
• Egypt
• Domino Go

You don’t need a degree to tell that these artists suck. These are all at the cutting edge of “modern British R&B”, apparently. But they suck. Don’t get me started on N-Dubz. Or Tinchy Stryder. I mean, what the hell kind of a name is that? But, I seriously digress. These are terrible artists when they aren’t all working together, and they are even worse when they are together. I seriously am wishing that the Zimmers would have done this song instead after this monstrosity that these guys created. I mean, the only saviours for this whole collaboration are Chipmunk, was is OK, and Dappy from N-Dubz, and only because he has an awesome hat. And that is so unbelievably annoying. I mean, I have a better singing voice than half of these bozos. Trust me. If you don’t believe me, listen to Control Point in a few episodes time; I have a parody coming (shameless plug is obvious).

The final point is this: which version was better? The original (and awesome) Killers version? Or the terrible remix version dubbed as a cover? Obvious. The crappy cover. Wait, what?

Seriously, according to the “Official UK Singles Chart”, or “Simon Cowell’s Best Friends” as it is dubbed by me (this is evident around Christmas time when the X Factor single that isn’t a Christmas song, but a crappy cover with opera singers in the background, gets to number one but I seriously digress), “I Got Soul” is the better song. It reached number 10 in the charts, whereas the original got to number 18. This proves one thing: The music listening audience of today are taking the piss. I mean, these people do not understand what good music is. It seems that if a lot of artists that chavs seem to like whilst “pimping it up around town” and mugging old ladies come together to make a song together, it will sell like Paris Hilton in an all-male prison. This is regardless of whether the song is actually good or not. This is getting utterly ridiculous. It seems that the people who are deciding what music is popular now are the most disrespected members of society who like anything with a crappy baseline to annoy people and Ironik “rapping” (read: fucking rhyming!) in the background with some whore from the Pussy-twat Dolls. I mean, I think I am giving the public too much credit these days. These are the same people who buy fucking Cascada singles and call it music. Putting a techno beat in the background of a song from the 1980s and singing the original lyrics over the top does not make it a cover. It makes it over-glorified karaoke. Running around your music video in a glittery corset also does not make a music video. It makes it soft-core porn, but I seriously digress again.

There is a problem with the modern youth. They have been brainwashed into thinking crap music is better than it is, and I am taking a stand against poor quality music by linking this post to the “I Got Soul” website and I honestly hope they read it. I suggest we all make a stand against poor quality music. I mean, don’t take it out on “I Got Soul” anymore. I have already done it to death. That is why the theme to this article’s comments is “Bad Artists”. Name your most loathed artist and why and I will do the same in a follow-up in the couple of articles time.

To summerise: just because you are making a charity single does NOT mean that you can put any crap together and expect us to accept it. Put some effort in next time! F minus, “Young Soul Rebels”! See me after class!

Until I can get some new content out (it is hard to do whilst being 4800 miles away from home), here is the article that I wrote that got me the gig to do some writing for ubercharged.net.

According to the server tracking site ‘Game Monitor’, at the moment of writing this there are sixty-nine Team Fortress 2 servers that all have something special in common. What might that be? Well, these servers are the aftermath from the result of an ill-thought out reward system from Valve in order to fix an ever lingering problem that has plagued the community for many months. Valve have gone on record several times and have said that the biggest amount of negative feedback received from players regarding class packs are achievements tied to items and have looked to change it. However, this has opened the floodgates to an entirely different type of Team Fortress player. This has opened the floodgates to an entirely different type of Team Fortress server. I am talking, of course, about a certain type of server specifically made to mess up your stats and to give everyone around thirty million Force-A-Natures in the process. All of these sixty-nine Team Fortress 2 servers that I have been talking about are running some sort of derivative of an idle map (whether it be achievement_idle, or something similar). Idling seems to have come out of nowhere and has split the Team Fortress 2 community into two factions; a good analogy for this would be the “Heals for Halos” controversy that is still happening on servers to this day. I often see people (read: ignorant) still calling Halo wearers “Halo F**s”. This is interesting as there was not half as much controversy with the Gentle Manne fiasco that happened with the Classless Update, and I feel that this was more unfair than the halo system; this could be because I have seen NO ONE wearing a service medal since they were given out.

I could go on about the ethics of idling, but luckily I don’t have to. Go to Google or the Wayback Machine, wind the Steam Powered forums back around two weeks and you can read all about it until you get that nineteenth Sandman that you have been sitting around for three days to get…

And you probably have your own ideas about the ethics of idling and I don’t want to make enemies within the first four hundred words.

I could use this whole thing to talk about whether idling counts as cheating the system because it gives you weapons, or whether it doesn’t because it doesn’t cheat the system and the goal of said person is to get a cosmetic hat that serves no purpose. I could argue about such a thing until the cows come home and there will always be a group arguing the wrong way to what I am saying. The problem with a drop system for items, or any system for that matter that rewards people in any way, is that people will try to beat such a system. And the problem with arguing with people on the Internet is that few admit that they are wrong and instead turn to insulting our mother for the umpteen-millionth time. I don’t feel that this thing will go away until Valve implement a system that takes control away from a computer-generated dice roll and gives players more control (i.e.: players actually have to play well to get the chance of earning items). I think someone who plays every day for one hour has more right to items than someone who only logs in for one hour per week. This is the problem with idle servers. People can join a server, leave their computer, go and play Rock Band for a little while, watch a few movies and have a full three-course-meal and then come back and still have the same chance of getting items than a person who has been playing competitive TF2 all day and topping the scoreboards. This system will never be fixed overnight and the quicker item trading comes, the quicker we can dismiss this whole silly argument about idling. But discussing idling is not why I am here.

Nope. The reason is this: idle servers are probably the most fun servers that you will ever see in Team Fortress. That sound was the sound of my inbox getting filled up by angry but loyal Ubercharged readers saying that I am talking out of my Axtinguisher. Hear me out, readers! What does Idling have that regular servers don’t?

A: They are almost always full of random people.
B: All of these people are working toward a common goal.
C: It is literally impossible to grief.

A big problem with Team Fortress is that people will go out of their way to annoy other players; it is human nature. This causes a large amount of negative atmosphere around a community of people. People start whining, and then their ability to play the game starts to become inhibited due to excess rage and the distraction of people constantly trying to make their game a living hell. The worst thing that can happen is that the person starts to become the thing that they hate and starts to grief themselves; they think that “getting even” is a desired behaviour and, rather and shoot down the negative behaviour, they become griefers themselves. The simple thing is that people will go out of their way to annoy one another and the reason for this is that they see the people that stand around erectin’ dispensers as just pieces of code being sent to a grey box in the middle of nowhere that then gets sent to you. It is actually quite depressing. This does not happen to such an extent on an idle server, as the person either doesn’t care (because there is no actual goal other than to sit around the base and act like a lemon) or the person is AFK anyway.

Another point about idling is that it is simple to do. The maps are simple, the objective is simple, and anything else is a bonus. The whole point of an idle map is to sit in spawn and do nothing, or go into spectator and do nothing. The maps don’t have five point contraptions that open and close certain areas when capped, or it doesn’t have a twenty-five mile long set of track to send a spy to his death to. The gameplay is simple and clean and it is amazing as to what people do. It is literally  a black canvas for any player to do what they please. Here is a list of everything I have seen on idle servers.

People being idle.
People with scripts that make them move and shoot.
People who constantly taunt.

OK. Now I have the boring stuff out of the way:

Spy vs Spy battles.
Pyros disguising as barrels.
Taunt kill duels.
Traitorous medics using spies to kill their own team.
Jarate Wars.
Scout vs Heavy.
Engineers building teleporters into their own bases for spies to go and kill idle players.

And the list goes on…

One thing may have occurred to you here. All of these events NEVER happen in normal play. There is no point to capture. There is no cart to push. There is no dispenser to erect. This whole thing is just pure and honest fun.

The problem with Team Fortress is that people no longer see the game as fun. The whole introduction of hats is a system similar to WoW; keep playing, and you will get a chance to randomly win desirable and rare items. This hooks people into playing. Suddenly, they forget that they are playing for fun and to go out and see things like people throwing jars of urine, or people eating sandwiches or drinking soda in the middle of a battlefield. They are more obsessed about the need for greed. Idle servers, ironically, don’t have this problem. The need for greed is overtaken by pure, honest fun when you press the ‘comma’ key, followed by the number ’1′ on your keyboard and actually start playing the map. As soon as you step from behind the glass and onto the solitary locked control point, it suddenly becomes much more than some entities thrown into a stone box in five minutes in order to satisfy the wants of the greedy, the poor, and the Irish. It strangely starts to become more than that.

It is difficult to explain. Imagine buying a shiny new mirror from a store. Imagine you moving house, not finding a place for the mirror and putting it in an attic. Imagine climbing into the attic two years later to find this old, neglected mirror. When you start to wipe away the dust and dirt, it starts to shine through once more. This is the feeling I get from idle maps. This is a feeling from Team Fortress that I haven’t felt for months. This is random people (no clan stacking, usually) from around the world with a common goal to go into a small room with each other to have good, old-fashioned fun. I’ve seen treachery, truce-breaking, and a little telefragging, but it has never stopped being fun. People need to see that idle maps aren’t destroying Team Fortress; they are saving it. Fifteen minutes of idle server play has given me more of a fun factor than two years worth of playtime. And it took a crummy little map with absolutely no point and no story and no effort to help me see that.

I’ve wrote a small review for the CMGC forums at deadworkers.com/community on the opening two episodes of House.

This is not part of the main ‘opinion’ series thing that is on here and is not a real showcase of my work. This is just something I quickly wrote on there and it is just a go between between my last article and the next.

Well, here it is!

Ooops! Owwww! I seem to have stumbled into a foreign forum. Can anyone tell me the directions back to Control Point?

Errr…. House Series 6?

OK! My opinion: Such a strong opening to the season. The first episode was seriously made with the first minute or so being completely absent of any dialogue and with Radiohead in the background, which leads to House shouting for help. I felt that this really showed the kind of situation that House found himself him, with a literal metaphor for his scrambled and confused (and detoxing) mind being represented by the corridor being filmed with the differentiating shutter speeds and flashes of light that flood the screen for the effect of disorientation. I also feel that the titles not flooding the screen, as in traditional episodes, and fading into the scene before fading out really help to not break the flow of the mood. Radiohead followed by Massive Attack really would have spoiled the mood, but this was not the case and it was handled perfectly.

The characters were surprisingly well developed for an episode that was really meant to be glanced over. The ‘one off’ setting of the institution feels slightly redundant at the start of the episode as I feel that the asylum itself has very little opportunity for any kind of development past 2 or so episodes (especially with House being trapped in there). I was wrong, however. The characters in there were surprisingly developed and I found some of them really likeable. The first episode was handled perfectly and is one of the best House episodes to date.

I was slightly disappointed with episode 2. I admit that it opens up opportunities and I like how the good ship ‘Diagnostic Medicine’ is quickly sinking under the control of Foreman and the potential it has of bringing out the “real” Foreman instead of the passive-aggressive Foreman that we have seen for the last few series. I am also perfectly happy with the official split of 13 and Foreman as I feel that this was too much of a focus point of the show and it was making it more into a soap opera than a real drama. The split was a good thing for the series and I am interested as to how House picks up the pieces when he inevitably goes back to Princeton Plainsboro to repair his decimated department under the hands of Foreman.

As for the episode itself, the hallucinogenic scene in the lobby was strong and incredibly well executed. The special effects left an impression on me as to how the patient felt overwhelmed by his surroundings. I feel that the ‘asking for help on the Internet’ thing was not as well shown as it could have been. They could have shown some ‘Anonymous’ responses for comedic effect, but a lack of humour in this story left a lot to be desired.

And, I have not watched the third episode yet.

Ah! There’s the Control Point forums!

I’m going to go back to the world of Chiefs and Kukris now…

I have already glanced over the Guitar Hero franchise in the very first article that I made before I committed to saying why a lot of things in general are crap, and it was a direct response to a Freky’s Fantastical Facts episode but don’t be fooled by me going back and treading old ground. I still can talk about Guitar Hero well enough to sprout a conversation and I feel that I can make a good point so sit right there.

People often say that Guitar Hero is one of the main things killing the real life music industry; that people will no longer learn to play real instruments, get famous and earn their record labels lots of blood money, and instead learn how to press coloured buttons. Well, that’s not fair. You can hit pads with those same colours on too… However, I don’t feel that Guitar Hero is necessarily a bad thing. I myself own a copy of Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock for my Playstation 3 and I still play this game to this day. Maybe I should elaborate on why people think Guitar Hero is bad. I do feel that some people will do exactly what I said above, obsess over coloured buttons and dedicate a vast amount of their lives to that. That is fine. If they like a game that much then I don’t have a problem with that. Some feel the same way about Halo or Counter-Strike. BAD EXAMPLES!

Anyway, you get what I am trying to say. The problem with Guitar Hero is not that it is killing the music industry (read: isn’t). The problem with Guitar Hero is that it is building up a bad reputation to be associated with ‘foaming at the mouth’ people with three hands (similar to the obsession seen with games such as Microsoft’s Halo or Valve’s Counter-Strike). In the news, all we hear from Guitar Hero is about a 9 year old 5 starring Cliffs of Dover on Expert on Hyperspeed 35, or something, and the public believing that that is the whole idea of the franchise (i.e.: To show how quick you can move your fingers up and down a molten piece of plastic). Like I said, this is similar to people believing that all Counter-Strike is about is speaking in ‘l33tsp3ak’ and being 8 years old.  Allow me to explain how the Guitar Hero franchise actually works.

The whole idea of Guitar Hero is to introduce people to new types of music that they may not have otherwise known about. Before I picked up Guitar Hero in HMV, I had not heard of the likes of Eric Johnson or Social Distortion, and now I enjoy playing the songs and they have made the exodus over to my iPod. People seem to fall under the false pretence that Guitar Hero is all about who can wave their cock in front of other people’s faces the best but I feel that this is unfair. This is another classic case of games being ‘put down’ by ‘The Man’ which is kind of ironic because, according to Jack Black in School of Rock, rock and roll was all about sticking it to ‘the Man’. But also like he said, it was ruined by a little thing called MTV and I guess he is sort of right. Music television has made an easier transition into the public eye than games and I feel that we still have a little way to go before it becomes accepted by society. Maybe the release of Beatles: Rock Band may help as there are a lot of Beatles fans out there. And now we link very nicely to the next point in two ways. A: I mentioned Rock Band which is Guitar Hero’s biggest rival and B: MTV was one of the companies that brought Rock Band to us in the first place.

Rock Band broke the mould for rhythm games on the console. Harmonix started off with a budget of $100 thousand dollars and decided that they were going to make a video game. That later became Guitar Hero. They then went off and made Rock Band by taking the Guitar Hero formula and really turning it up to 11. They took the vocals of Singstar, the guitar from Guitar Hero and the drums from Drummania, threw them into a blender, added great graphics and an amazing DLC system and made Rock Band. Now, after Guitar Hero came Rock Band for me and I got it for my 17th birthday, and I am still playing it and having fun. I’m even still getting DLC for it right as I write this article (The Jam Pack 2 in case you were wondering). I do feel that Rock Band is stronger than Guitar Hero.

No. I will not tell you where I live. Just hear me out people. All will become clear.

Guitar Hero created the scene for casual rhythm games on the home console (note: they didn’t make the scene in general. That was done by Drummania). They have done an incredible service to gaming; trying to make games acceptable in modern culture. They chipped away at it and have done a good effort, but no cigar. Rock Band blew the bloody doors off with it however. More wide song choices (from big names such as Kings of Leon, to independent artists such as Jonathan Coulton being in the same marketplace as each other) and more realistic charts to name just two things. But the biggest thing is interactivity. With Guitar Hero, it is only you and a friend at the most, and you are either doing completely different charts to each other or trying to beat the shit out of each other. Rock Band adds emphasis to co-operative play. Having 4 people play through the epic 7 minute and 47 second Foreplay/Long Time never gets boring when you have your friends around you, getting unison bonuses together, complaining about why the singer doesn’t get to do anything for the first 2 minutes and 25 seconds of the song, all turning to the guitarist during the epic acoustic guitar sections in the bridges…

Guitar Hero is flawed for one big reason: It is made to be played on your own. Rock Band emphasises that friends make it the best experience that it possibly can. Even at the end of the Solo Career in the first Rock Band you told to get some friends together and make a band. The reason Guitar Hero failed in the first article is because they don’t listen to their fan base. The reason why it fails here is because they try to separate their fan base. And this is a problem. Rock Band isn’t like this. They have lively forums online, there are many many many different genres of music in their store so no one is left out (and each song costs the same in the UK as the same song in the iTunes store) and even Rock Band alows you to use your Guitar Hero controllers and almost any USB microphone to play. They seem to be more concerned about the community than their profits and that is a rare thing.

Ever since Rock Band was released, Guitar Hero has been playing catchup. Trying to ‘tack on’ a real multiplayer did not work well, their DLC is slow coming out and not that good, and you get the feeling that the game was taken from an accounts book than a dream factory. Rock Band’s 8 player multiplayer still cannot be topped by the veterans. The only good music in Guitar Hero is on the disc but that is also flawed as it is released on Rock Band at around the same time and you don’t have to fork out £40 for a song you like. GH’s last chance to claw back was with GHTunes but that became just a medium for people to create Mario and Zelda song remixes, and bad ones at that. I would even go as far as saying that the Guitar Hero DLC is just lazy. Rather than releasing a track pack, like in Rock Band, Guitar Hero makes you fork out for ANOTHER disc with only around half a dozen songs you like on it that are named like: Guitar Hero – Metallica or Guitar Hero – Aerosmith or Guitar Hero – George Formby or something… You get the idea. But here is what it comes down to. GH haven’t embraced the advent of DLC, leaving it to an afterthought and I am afraid that is what it takes to survive these days in this type of gaming market. Maybe if they started listening to the fans and bringing them together in a convincing, non evil corporation way, then they may stand a chance. At least show us you are trying. Put some stupid stuff on, like the Red Dwarf theme for example, and people will be blinded by fake smiles and the magpies will flock to your shiny discs. It isn’t honest, but it will at least get you enough money to make you last until you release Guitar Hero – Village People.

Now then, it HAS been a while since I last logged into my admin page to speak to you all. I must admit that I have has a busy few weeks. I have playing around with the frontend of the Breach54.co.uk (I am the community manager over there you know) and I have been writing for my web-series, of which I have outlines on the first half of the series and the production name has now changed to the final name that I wanted. But that isn’t really important at the moment. A bigger reason to why I haven’t been here for some time is a lack of a good subject. I mean, as I write this first paragraph I still haven’t decided on a title, whereas normally this is the first thing that I decide on. I must admit, July was a pretty boring month. All we have heard about really is how we all should be dead by now. Hang on a second!

So, swine flu then! Swine flu is apparently some kind of flu that came out of Mexico not long ago that is causing twenty five billion new cases every odd hour, and that this is one of the biggest threats facing the world today.  Forget global warming. Forget asteroids. Nope. It’s some pig in Mexico with the sniffles. Some of you may be wondering why I am not shouting at people like I usually do. The reason is that it is not seriously something I can shout at over, only laugh at, as this is another case of the media brainwashing people. And I can’t believe the pandemonium that has swept the Western world over such a small thing. As of 1st August 2009, according to officials there have been 31 swine-flu related deaths in the UK. I mean, isn’t this serious? However, there is a problem.

The problem this time is with how the people of the UK count swine-flu deaths. Notice how I have said that there have been 31 swine-flu related deaths. This means that someone may have died of a completely unrelated illness, but if they have found even a cell of swine-flu inside them (even if it is dormant) it counts as a swine-flu related death. The reason for this? This is because of the modern British culture. It isn’t known for being reserved like it used to. It is hardly subtle either. By using such a small technicality on how they count these deaths, the media coverage can increase ten-fold. 21st Century British society is about bringing as much attention to this little island as possible, even if it means talking about the death of their own citizens. This is the whole ‘tabloid’ culture that has smothered British culture. People seem to over hype things. Remember a few years ago with the bird-flu problem. This was exactly the same thing. Every day was news of death over bird-flu in the Middle East. They seem to forget that it affected one swan up in Scotland. And that’s it. The whole of Britain was brought to a standstill by a fucking bird. Then, the media didn’t take it any further due to the fact that the people realised that it wasn’t half the threat of what the media made it out to be. It seems that this is a case of  ”It’s all the same, Only the names will change” (thank you again, Bon Jovi). But, back to the ‘related’ part. According to the technicalities of this, someone can die of rabies, but if they have even a cell of dormant swine-flu virus, it counts as related. It seems like the episode of Captain Planet in which one episode saw one of the main characters catch HIV and the bad guy starts spreading lies about HIV and AIDS. Just imagine that in the script,  someone spelled HIV completely wrong, the kid was in another country, and the bad guy looked like Piers Morgan. That pretty much sums up swine flu from a media perspective.

Believe it or not, this is not the first time that there has been the swine flu virus has been a problem. The virus stretches back to the early 1900’s. It was even the same strain of virus (H1N1). Over the years (namely ‘76, ‘88, ‘98 and ‘07) the virus has popped up in different areas and has not lead to half as much of a problem as this appearance. This is mainly due to the fact that the media has evolved. As I mentioned back in my Twitter article, I mentioned how news is very easily spread these days through social networking and the Internet in general. The news is touching more people so that means that more people are aware of it. This, in turn, means that the media can control more people when they talk about the ways that swine flu is affecting people. I mean, it has gotten so bad that whenever I hear someone say that someone else is ill, some smart-ass will always say from the other side of the room, “Is it swine flu?”. It’s not clever. It just makes you look like a dick. So, why are the media taking this so far? The answer? The economy!

People panic over swine flu so much that they forget how banks and governments ran us into the ground! Scaring people into a state of stupidity is not as rare of a tactic as you may have thought. Many governments and organisations have used this over the years. I can imagine the conversation that Mr Government and Mr Public had…

Government: “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
People: “Errrr…. the good news?”
Government: “The economy is fucked!”
People: “How is that good news?”
Government: “Errrmm…errrrmmmm… look! An unknown illness! You are all going to die!!”
People: “Ahhhhh!”
Government: “Suckers…”

You see? It is reduced to a Good News, Bad News argument where there is only bad news and really bad news, except in this case there is no really bad news. This is just something for people to take their minds of the fact that neither them or their children will be able to get a mortgage this side of an ice age and, rather than inject money back into the economy, the British Government see fit to spend £6 billion of our money on an over-glorified school sports day. So, the country is fucked, but at least we get to see some people throw some cannonballs over a field.

So, finally in closing, let’s go all Captain Planet and teach these people about the HIV Virus… I mean the swine-flu virus.

The thing with the swine-flu virus is that it is no more deadly than the standard flu virus. The problem with it is that it has come out of a poorer country than the United States and it has been given a silly name so it makes it sound like it will eat the flesh off your bone. This is very similar to the standard flu and has roughly the same symptoms as the main influenza virus. Just like normal flu, if you keep a healthy lifestyle you should be fine.

And whoever said that it can fuse with bird-flu and make flying-pig-virus is a fucking moron.

This is no doubt in the minds of anyone that Youtube has seriously changed our lives. No question.  Youtube allowed anyone around the world to get their view out into the world with nothing but a camera. This system also allows people to become media producers, instead of consumers, at a very little cost to them. People can upload video blogs, random stuff they see on the street, and even important world-wide events, at no cost to them. All that is needed is a camera and an Internet connection. The only thing holding people back is the file size limit. This is great! Everyone is equal and everyone is fair. Now, go onto my main page and read the article from last week about Twitter, China, and the media.

Now you’re confused. Why am I contradicting myself by saying that Youtube is fair, when I specifically said that some are more equal than others? I’m not saying that at all. It is, in fact, the worst offender. This is all based off flawed assumptions and premises of the people using Youtube. As long as there is a popular video sharing site on the Internet, people will use it to upload copyright material without the authorisation of the actual copyright holders. I want to say to everybody that this is wrong. I agree about how this is wrong and shouldn’t be happening. A false assumption here is that people will pay attention to the Terms and Conditions of use on Youtube, which clearly state:

Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. The Copyright Tips page and the Community Guidelines can help you determine whether your video infringes someone else’s copyright.

It also says this on the video upload page. But Youtube assumes that people pay attention and it will stop people doing it. The law of the world is: if you tell people not to do something, they will do it anyway. There is nothing we can do about that. I don’t have a problem with Youtube taking action over copyright content. They specifically said that you can’t do this. There is no problem with this. However, it is how they act on the copyright content.

The default for what Youtube do is take the video down and warn the uploader about copyright content (after a certain amount of warnings, usually three, the account will be suspended. If you are suspended a certain amount of times, you get banned). This is a fantastic system in nine out of ten cases. In other cases, there is a small advert using the annotations system on Youtube videos that allows you to buy the music or movie on iTunes, Amazon, or other online stores. There is also a small notice under the description linking to the channel of the original content creator. In extreme cases, the video is muted. This is fair enough. And with the introduction of the Content Detection system, it makes it easier to pinpoint. Here it comes everybody…

However, there is a problem. Surprisingly, it involves the media and companies being whiny little bitches. Imagine that!

The DMCA has been criticized for making it too easy for copyright owners to encourage website owners to take down allegedly infringing content and links which may in fact not be infringing. When website owners receive a takedown notice it is in their interest not to challenge it, even if it is not clear if infringement is taking place, because if the potentially infringing content is taken down the website will not be held liable.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act – Criticism (Wikipedia)

This system is a perfect system. Content owners upload samples of their content into a database and videos uploaded go through these scanners and offending videos are flagged up. This is great. But the system’s greatest strength is also it’s greatest flaw. We have a large issue that circles the Internet about how broken the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is. This is one of those issues, which allows companies to run to these companies that host content, cry and ask them to take it down, whether it is a breach of copyright or not. Unfortunately, the hosting companies are unable to challenge these types of requests. And this is where the idiots that make up the stereotypical American citizen come into play. The fear of being sued over a false claim is far greater than just taking the ‘unoffending’ content down. There is a word I am thinking of here that describes this. It is called: bullying.

The problem with Youtube’s system is that it catches a lot of genuine content or content that is covered under the Parody Clause or Fair Use clause. I am all for Youtube catching genuine content (such as television shows) but Youtube seem to only listen to the companies who think of poor reasons to take content down, rather than the consumers who use THEIR service and give definite reasons why their content should stay up. Not that this stops them from just deleting their video out of their own free will due to the poor appeal system that threatens to remove their Youtube account if they DO protest. I love that people who genuinely put copyright material get caught and they shouldn’t be doing it. This is great. But by purposely listening to their idiotic lawyers and not to the consumers and the actual law, then it is impacting on the kind of thing that Youtube is known for. Youtube was made so the common person can upload original content for the world to see and reach out to a captive audience. But it seems that a few people have ruined it for everyone else and rather than punish that person, Youtube’s lawyers have decided that it is best to punish everyone else. Youtube! Stop listening to your lawyers and listen to the people. At least acknowledge the Parody Clause and the Fair Use Clause in copyright law. This kind of thing is making Youtube change its image from one of freedom to one of a policing dictatorship governed by people like Viacom. OK. Maybe taking it a little too far, but you get the idea. That is why so many other people are moving to other sites, away from Youtube.

A couple of examples:

Someone playing Rock Band and recording the note chart with a copyright notice in the description saying it is not their content and it belongs to someone else. However, it does say that they are allowed to use the song in conjunction with the software. Should this be taken down? Common sense says ‘no’. It is fair use. They are not purely putting the song up on its own with a download link or anything. They have said that this is fair use and is protected by the law. According to Youtube’s lawyers, it is bad and needs to be taken down or the audio changed.

Someone reviews a movie and puts small ten second sections of the movie in the video to highlight a point. It is a work of parody, they have acknowledged the original owners of the content, it is less than thirty seconds so it is excempt from copyright, and it is under fair use. Common sense and the law says ‘fine’. Lawyers say ‘no’. Ban this guy’s account! Ha! Ha! Ha! (*twists moustache and strokes cat*).

…

You get the idea (the previous example being a reference to Doug Walker a.k.a. That Guy with the Glasses). Youtube are breaking the law by ignoring clauses that allow the content and paying attention to ones that don’t allow it, even if it is annulled due to a clause that makes it exempt from this law. Youtube is no longer a place where people can get a message out. It is, just like every other place now, a bitch for the bigger organisations. It should be named ‘ViaTube’ or ‘WMGTube’. Whatever it should be called, Youtube is no longer about ‘You’. It is controlled, like everywhere else where people can express an opinion, by those in power.

But it was good while it lasted!

Also, Fred? 1 million subscribers for some voice changer software? Sod off!

I want to start out with a small announcement to all readers to this blog-slash-opinion page. You may have noticed that over the last few days, I have added support for multiple writers. What this means is that anyone with an opinion on a certain subject, or several subjects, can now drop me a line on my ‘Contact Me’ link on the left telling me what you want to write about and you can write an article on this page and get it published alongside several other people who have done the same thing. To make sure that I give attention to it in time, it will help if you put the word ‘[Disgruntled]‘ (including the square brackets) in the subject line. If I find the idea is OK, I will give you an account on this blog to write your article. I will then proof it and approve it onto the main site. I should note that if you are writing for the site, then you should include a picture of yourself to be placed alongside the article. If you don’t send one, then you will have a Gravitar.

Also, if you don’t want to follow Breach54 on Twitter and want just the Disgruntled stuff, you can go over to twitter.com/b54disgruntled and you will be informed on Twitter when a new article is released.

But, going back to giving people an opinion…

The World Wide Web has been a wonderful thing. Since its invention twenty years ago it has produced more technological progress than in the last three-hundred years. Some people may question me at this point and say, “Surely there must be other things that are more important! What about the invention of the television?”. At which point I would say, “Don’t be such a prat”. The television was invented over 80 years ago by a Scotsman called John Logie Baird and some may argue that this is the single thing that gave ‘power to the people’. This made it so everyday people could become celebrities overnight. With such a big audience, it meant that people such as Terry Wogan and Michael Parkinson could become our ‘national treasures’ as they call them.

However, there is a problem.

Over the last few years, television has become corrupt in the sense that people getting on television are becoming famous for the wrong reasons. You don’t need to look as far as what happens on Saturday nights. Saturday nights were a time in which the whole family gathered around their television for entertainment with shows such as Saturday Night Live in America and The Generation Game in the UK . This was before Simon Cowell came and ripped the still-beating heart out of entertainment and drank its still-warm blood until the corpse resembled a rotten piece of rump steak. Pop Idol came along and people instantly became national celebrities for all the wrongreasons. After Pop Idol (which nobody cares about), they go the in papers whenever they step out the house (which nobody cares about), they write a book which is basically them having a great big erection over themselves (which nobody cares about), then to Celebrity Big Brother (which nobody cares about), then to I’m A Celeb (which nobody cares about) before finally getting a job at Television X. Now, the only exception to this rule is Myleene Klass as she seems to have stepped out the shadow of her former image and is now a classically trained pianist. That’s fine. But people such as ‘Saskia’ or ‘Chantelle’ or ‘Danielle Lloyd’ need to put those ‘things’ on their chests away (notice I didn’t say boobs because, as you can probably guess, there is very little actual boob there) and get a real job.  And, due to dominant ideology, men are told to find these women attractive, so they keep buying into these women and they continue behaving like sluts. How life works is that people try to achieve the most amount of success as possible by doing the least amount of work as possible. That’s OK. But people like this take this rule one step further and do no work and get a lot of recognition for the little work they do. The media continue to narrate on these women because the media control what people like and what people don’t like and anyone who disagrees is cast out of society and treated like a cultural retard.

Plus, remember that it was Pop Idol that killed the revival of The Generation Game in the first place.

So I have talked about corruption in one of the very things that so many of us hold so close to our hearts.  So, television isn’t more of an advancement than the computer and the Internet. So, what else is there to complain about? Well, some may argue that long distance communication via the telephone may be the answer. Well that is a slippery slope. It has decided to defect and help drain the pockets of our younger viewers by the medium of ‘phone voting’. So the very thing that revolutionised the way we receive information from the media is being destroyed by the thing that revolutionised the way we receive information from the common people of the land. And this is a nice segway onto why I think that the Internet is the most revolutionary thing that has graced the Earth for over four hundred years: the common people and the media.

Up until the turn of the 21st Century, the people who were in control of the flow of information were the media. As they were the ones who controlled the flow of information, they were also the ‘gatekeepers’ onto what information they think that we should be receiving. On the flip-side to that, they also filter out the information that they think we should NOT be receiving. I have already mentioned dominant ideology before in this article, so it is only fitting that I mention it again and that it is dominant ideology that controls the media so when there is undesirable behaviour that it sees is against the ideals of dominant ideology, it never makes it to our screens or our papers. This changed when we finally entered ‘the Digital Age’. The Internet is not controlled by dominant ideology. People are finally able to produce their own, unfiltered information and opinion to the world without being subject to the filtering that took place 10 years ago. Any person with a mouse and keyboard finally has the opportunity to say what they feel like to a large audience with little or no repercussions. Blogs allow us to give opinions over news. Twitter allows us to report what is going on in everyday life quickly and easily with nothing more than a mobile phone. Youtube allows us to show people what is going on around the world, even when they aren’t there. Everyone is finally allowed to express an opinion. The consumers of this information from the media are finally becoming the producers and reporters themselves. This leads me to a case study.

Back in May of 2008, there was an earthquake in China. Within seconds of this earthquake happening, the people were on Twitter and Twitpic uploading this live and constant stream of information to the world about what was going on. It took another 7 minutes for the US Geological Survey to pick up this earthquake on their scanners. News companies throughout the world did not recieve news about this earthquake from their own reporters first, they got this information through Twitter first. First news of this earthquake was given by the common person, and not by the groups that had been giving this information for half of a century. The media are finally becoming consumers to OUR information, as well as us being consumers of THEIR information. This isn’t a role reversal. This is the start of people finally becoming equal. The news is finally going back into the hands of the people and the consumers of this information. Media groups and those involved in the media now have their own Twitter accounts. Web 2.0 is rightly named. This is a society where everyone is equal! This is great news! However, there is a problem.

Last time there was an earthquake this big, it took the Chinese authorities three months to admit it actually happened. In the Web 2.0 generation, it took seconds, and everyone knew what was happening instantly. Everyone has heard of the Great Firewall of China, and how China control this flow of  digital information into their country over the Internet manually, thanks to their communistic ideas. However, the power of this firewall does not go the other way. The information going in can, but the information going out cannot be controlled. This includes Twitter. Due to this mass Twitter event happening, the Chinese agreed that there was no way to control this type of real-time information on Twitter (as opposed to the ’snail mail’ pace of information being received after being checked and cleared). So, rather than change their policies on how this system works, they simply blocked the entirety of traffic to and from Twitter in China. The people of China no longer have their say in the digital revolution. It seems that the Internet can battle and win against values that have been upheld for the last one hundred years. However, it still cannot compete with those that have been upheld for less than that. Even in the days of free speech, some people are still more free than others.