Free Thing of the Week: FreeRice

As theories go, Chaos Theory is pretty much the best. It states that while the behavior of certain system may appear to be random, in fact it may be simply a highly sensitive response to initial conditions. It's determinism WITH AN ATTITUDE. Jeff Goldblum used it to fight dinosaurs, making it the mathematical equivalent of a bazooka.

"Dynamic systems aren't the only thing that's 'highly sensitive' around here, LADIES."

This explains how a butterfly might beat its wings somewhere in the world, and cause a hurricane. Inevitably it is always butterflies, and it is always hurricanes. You'd think a theory that ostensibly describes 'randomness' would try mixing it up once in a while. It is never a frog croaking somewhere in the world, causing some guy to watch an entire Sanford and Son marathon. I mean, yes, there was that one time I went back in time on a dinosaur safari and accidentally stepped on that butterfly, and when I came back to the present my roommate was a total jerk, but that's a small price to pay. I mean, Dinosaur Safaris, right?

Now maybe it's just me, but I am SICK and TIRED of all these butterflies bogarting our perfectly fine chaos. We need options! Luckily there is FreeRice, which does not dissapoint.

Do you know what 'doleful' means? 'Gimcrack?' 'Passerine?' Congratuations. Someone halfway around the world gets some rice, which I think is a much nicer gift than a hurricane. Operating under the same principle as The Hunger Site, which leverages a free cup of food through a daily click of a button and a few flashy ads, there is the distinct sensation of cornucopia. We are so accustomed to the internet being much ado about nothing that to suggest a direct change in the world, even a subtle one, requires a shifting of stance.

Of course, english vocabulary is only the default setting. Brush up on your famous paintings or chemical symbols. Practice your Italian or French, go over world capitals or multiplication tables.

I've spoken about this before, and remarked upon how simple it is to transform a neutral gaming experience into a vehicle for charity. Often there is the question of impact but these questions need not be rhetorical ones. In this case, the question "Does it make a difference?" has a simple and tangible answer: It makes 65 billion rice of difference.

Ultimately it frames gaming as a matter of choice. Yes, I could help Mario get past Bowser, though likely my princess will be in another castle. Or I could help some dude get his rice on.


- Rook

Yuletidings

As I write this I'm sitting on a large couch, in my pajamas and robe, listening to the crackle of the fire while enjoying some hot mulled cider. Of course the cider has about half a cup of brandy in it, the crackling fire is a 'Fireplace Ambiance' DVD, and the couch is in the home of my good friend Matt but this is Christmas in Toronto and one should expect no less.

Growing up, Ol' Saint Nick and I had our differences, with the primary point of contention being where I would spend Christmas morning, you see there were rarely fewer than 3 options vying for my attention, what with my parents being divorced and I being raised with my Mom and Stepdad, each of my families would request the honour of my presence each year. This is stressful on a young man whose only goals in life are to become a firefighter, become an astronaut, and please everyone all the time.

Eventually I had an epiphany, I would attend none of them. Certainly I would lose the gifts the season would grant me, new books, and video games. But in return I would get an actual holiday. A day to relax, kick back and enjoy life to it's fullest. And so, for the last few years, that's exactly what I've done and now, for the second year running Matt has opened his doors to all wayward christmas celebrants to come by and enjoy a bit of pressure free, straight up 'spirit of' Christmas morning.

Truth be told I can't think of a place I'd rather be.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Until Next Time, Enjoy This Christmas As Though it were the last.

-King

A holiday gift for your soul!

For a limited time only King and Rook is now selling Karma!
That's right folks, pay dollars and get an equivalent amount of karma!
I draw your attention to the widget on the right. Now give!
Give like you've never gived before!


Kingfully yours,

-King

Been through the desert on a bus with no name

Penny Arcade's yearly toy fundraiser, Child's Play, is purring along for the sixth time. Founded in 2003 by web-comickers Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik as a means of rebutting negative media portrayals of gamers. Since then, over 4 million dollars worth of games, books and toys have been donated to children's hospitals around the world, a remarkable feat of media mobilization and charity. As a symbolic act, it succeeds as a modest claim: that gamers are decent human beings, no better or worse than most. Attention must be paid.

A reassuring proof that we aren't psychotics.

This year, a good bit of attention has been given to a sister-project: Desert Bus for Hope. Organized by LoadingReadyRun, a comedy troupe in Vancouver, B.C., Desert Bus is a curious sort of virtual marathon, raising money to devote to Child's Play. In this instance collected donations relate not to miles ran, but hours spent playing video games. While that might sound like a fun arrangement, the game in question is anything but.

Bundled in the never-released Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors, Desert Bus is one of several parody games. While the others are used to prank your friends by setting up Penn and Teller style magic tricks, Desert Bus was something else: a "simulation" of the most fastidious sort. The object of the game is to drive from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas, a feat that takes 8 hours of real-time play to achieve. The road is empty but for you, and the bus veers slightly right, requiring constant correction. It cannot be paused. Should you veer of the road, you are towed back to the start, also in real-time. If you make it to your destination, you are awarded one point.

Then you turn around, and begin the drive back.

Desert Bus: Putting the "sissy" in "Sisyphus"

Penn Jillette has described "Desert Bus" as the "world's most boring video game", but that isn't quite right. It can better be described as a non-game, an exercise in tedium that serves to make a point in being not played. Where other non-games like You Have to Burn the Rope comically condense everything exciting about platform gaming into 30 seconds of play, Desert Bus pushes in the opposite direction, insisting that you play ad infinitum despite there being no rational reason to do so. Just as Warhol's Sleep is only a film insofar as the artist insists that it is, Desert Bus works as a game only by pretense.

So to actually play Desert Bus - in fact, to play it for days on end, spelling off in shifts, staring at the screen as trips are made to and fro through a digital purgatory - becomes a feat in itself. In drawing attention to their playing of an unplayable game, they have produced precisely the thing that Desert Bus avoids: the significance of event. And in playing on the idea of gamers as listless and inert, devoted to doing nothing for hours on end, they've managed to produce something impressive: a chance to do real, tangible good, precisely by doing nothing for hours on end.

This is the Stone Soup method of charity, where from nothing (in this case, the barren virtual landscape of the desert), a small something is scraped together. Gamers of all types understand the humour in endorsing other gamers to sit around and do nothing, and have given generously, if only to be a part of the event as well. And so it's here that an oddball game like Desert Bus has found its home, not as play but as performance.

- Rook