Wednesday, December 5, 2012
GSpark Reviews: Ethics
Okay, so I've posted about certain controversial topics now, and I want to bring that to a head somewhat. It boils down to this: what is our dogma, if you will, when it comes to making ethical decisions? Each person is different and may or may not choose one path that is similar to the next. For example, I avoid saying certain offensive words because there is no point in doing so, and saying those words only makes me look bad. A guy from England wouldn't bat an eye saying them ... which is fine and dandy since those words mean different things in his culture! Basically, everyone is different and has different standards and values they believe in. As long as they live by their creed (and explain it to me if I don't know why they might be doing something I consider odd), I'm willing to understand, "but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24: 15)
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
GSpark Reviews: Reality
I have previously read David A. Bednar's famous CES Fireside talk and an article a... ahem, certain professor of mine helped write. Having reread them, a study Elder Bednar referenced struck me as odd: it said 40% of guys and 53% of the ladies who are online said they considered their online friends to be better than their friends in real life. But... but that's saying the females have a higher percentage, you say! I realize that, I would've guessed the other way around too, given the stereotypes. It makes sense, however, when considering most females are more sensitive to the "ideal image". Ah, perhaps those that feel they aren't up to snuff are looking elsewhere to fit the "image", men and women! Yet the Lord values our real bodies, not our fake ones, and what anyone else thinks shouldn't matter as much.
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My second post on Pokemon should be coming up this next weekend, if everything goes well... if everything goes well. *rolls eyes*
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My second post on Pokemon should be coming up this next weekend, if everything goes well... if everything goes well. *rolls eyes*
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
GSpark Reviews: Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
FINALLY! =D We have a review for Pokemon! *triggers noisemakers* I'll start with the 1st generation of Pokemon games for now, then 2nd gen will be in the next post. So let's get into it!
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Whew, well... where do I start? I guess I just say that... well, Red/Blue was my childhood. I chose to play Blue first because everyone else looked like they were doing Red. Also, I started off with Bulbasaur because it would help me against Brock, Misty, AND Giovanni, though I'd always struggle against the Gyms in the middle. My first playthrough, I had no idea what I was doing and just used my starter all the way, but I eventually got smart... and used the Missingno Glitch. Then I was able to beat the Elite Four and my Rival easily!
Then I played Yellow. I think they took the Missingno. Glitch out of Yellow, but I liked playing it for an entirely different reason: not only could I get a game that closely resembled the first season of the anime, but I could even get a Pikachu that stayed with me all the time! Aw... Better yet, I could get myself ALL THREE STARTER POKEMON, and almost all three were freebies! (I remember you had to beat Team Rocket out of Cerulean City to get Bulbasaur) Those, plus catching the Legendary Birds, I had an awesome team that could beat pretty much anything! I also liked being able to battle Jessie and James, though I now wish they had double battles back then because that would've made the experience even better.
All of that was really cool, but what are my favorite Pokemon out of those games, you ask? I didn't really think about any favorites when I was playing the games at the time, but the Bulbasaur line has been and always will be a favorite of mine, though I've grown a liking to Charmander too since then. Vulpix and Ninetales were always the under-valued Fire-type Pokemon--at least until 5th gen showed up, but I'll get to that later--and I've always had sympathy for the underdog... or fox, in this case. I also have a soft spot for Clefairy, just because I like how cute they are, and I'd certainly have picked Clefairy to be the mascot over Pikachu. Recently, I've come to like Ekans a lot since I've developed a love for snakes in general, even though I don't have any, and by that token I like Onix too, and not just because it was the longest Pokemon at the time, though it certainly helped. Other Pokemon I like, along with their evolutions, include Eevee, Scyther, Lapras, and Dratini.
GSpark Light Says: As I said before, Pokemon was my childhood and is still a huge part of my life. Why? Because it's an RPG that made things simple. Every attack has a hard limit on the number of uses instead of having everything run on mana or MP, and typing was also very simple, the choices of type for each Pokemon being realistic to resemble either an actual animal or a myth or legend in Japanese culture. Also, it's just plain fun to catch 'em all!
GSpark Dark Says: There were some issues I wish were handled differently. First, Poison-type attacks could hit Bug-types for double damage when the typecharts would always say Poison hit Bug neutrally. Second, I did NOT like how dual-types were dealt with sometimes. For example, Gyarados, a Water/Flying type was resistant against Grass-type attacks in Red/Blue when, according to the typecharts, Gyarados should be hit neutrally because Grass is good against Water but bad against Flying. Another inconsistency with the typing was that Ghost attacks couldn't hit Psychic Pokemon at all when they should have been good against Psychics. The other issue I had was that two of the same Pokemon were very hard to distinguish between if you didn't have nicknames for them other than stats, and even then, they sometimes had the same stats too!
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Wow, so there's Gen 1! Gen 2 will come up in another post, and there I'll go over what problems Gold/Silver fixed from Red/Blue. Until then, waving out!
--Gemini $park
--------------------
Whew, well... where do I start? I guess I just say that... well, Red/Blue was my childhood. I chose to play Blue first because everyone else looked like they were doing Red. Also, I started off with Bulbasaur because it would help me against Brock, Misty, AND Giovanni, though I'd always struggle against the Gyms in the middle. My first playthrough, I had no idea what I was doing and just used my starter all the way, but I eventually got smart... and used the Missingno Glitch. Then I was able to beat the Elite Four and my Rival easily!
Then I played Yellow. I think they took the Missingno. Glitch out of Yellow, but I liked playing it for an entirely different reason: not only could I get a game that closely resembled the first season of the anime, but I could even get a Pikachu that stayed with me all the time! Aw... Better yet, I could get myself ALL THREE STARTER POKEMON, and almost all three were freebies! (I remember you had to beat Team Rocket out of Cerulean City to get Bulbasaur) Those, plus catching the Legendary Birds, I had an awesome team that could beat pretty much anything! I also liked being able to battle Jessie and James, though I now wish they had double battles back then because that would've made the experience even better.
All of that was really cool, but what are my favorite Pokemon out of those games, you ask? I didn't really think about any favorites when I was playing the games at the time, but the Bulbasaur line has been and always will be a favorite of mine, though I've grown a liking to Charmander too since then. Vulpix and Ninetales were always the under-valued Fire-type Pokemon--at least until 5th gen showed up, but I'll get to that later--and I've always had sympathy for the underdog... or fox, in this case. I also have a soft spot for Clefairy, just because I like how cute they are, and I'd certainly have picked Clefairy to be the mascot over Pikachu. Recently, I've come to like Ekans a lot since I've developed a love for snakes in general, even though I don't have any, and by that token I like Onix too, and not just because it was the longest Pokemon at the time, though it certainly helped. Other Pokemon I like, along with their evolutions, include Eevee, Scyther, Lapras, and Dratini.
GSpark Light Says: As I said before, Pokemon was my childhood and is still a huge part of my life. Why? Because it's an RPG that made things simple. Every attack has a hard limit on the number of uses instead of having everything run on mana or MP, and typing was also very simple, the choices of type for each Pokemon being realistic to resemble either an actual animal or a myth or legend in Japanese culture. Also, it's just plain fun to catch 'em all!
GSpark Dark Says: There were some issues I wish were handled differently. First, Poison-type attacks could hit Bug-types for double damage when the typecharts would always say Poison hit Bug neutrally. Second, I did NOT like how dual-types were dealt with sometimes. For example, Gyarados, a Water/Flying type was resistant against Grass-type attacks in Red/Blue when, according to the typecharts, Gyarados should be hit neutrally because Grass is good against Water but bad against Flying. Another inconsistency with the typing was that Ghost attacks couldn't hit Psychic Pokemon at all when they should have been good against Psychics. The other issue I had was that two of the same Pokemon were very hard to distinguish between if you didn't have nicknames for them other than stats, and even then, they sometimes had the same stats too!
--------------------
Wow, so there's Gen 1! Gen 2 will come up in another post, and there I'll go over what problems Gold/Silver fixed from Red/Blue. Until then, waving out!
--Gemini $park
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
GSpark Reviews: FamilySearch.org
Sigh... I'm just going to say that my review on Pokemon comes when it comes, though I should have some time over the weekend to get on that. Fortunately, I've got another review related to family history to show everyone!
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Remember when I talked about the Family Search Indexing website? Oh yeah, that was last post! Anyway, FamilySearch.org went through a nice change about a year ago: instead of people being forced to navigate to an indexing service, a forum, a blog, a wiki, and other sites aside from the main ancestry-searching tool created about a decade ago, they can now access all of those features on one streamlined Family Search website. Now people can find related Family Search sites much easier because they are now simply features to FamilySearch.org. Maintainers of FamilySearch.org also benefit because they only have to manage one site on one server. Their server's bandwidth can breathe again! Of course, with Family Search being more streamlined, family history work, as a result, has become much easier, so now there's even less of an excuse to not do it!
Thursday, November 1, 2012
GSpark Reviews: Technology for the Gospel
I admit that one concept I currently struggle with is using my computer time to further the work of the Church. However, once I start poking around and see what I can do, I see so many options! Mormon.org is definitely a good site I can get myself into; it means I can do missionary work from home a lot easier since people come asking questions about the church, and I can answer the questions much faster than I would if I were e-mailing someone. Family Search Indexing is another cool tool to use because I can put names from old papers into a database where they can be easily accessed for temple work. And those are just two ideas of things I could do on the computer! All I need now is the willingness to give them a try.
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Gaaaah, once again, Pokemon has to wait until the weekend! But it's coming! Ohhh, it's so coming! =)
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Gaaaah, once again, Pokemon has to wait until the weekend! But it's coming! Ohhh, it's so coming! =)
Thursday, October 25, 2012
GSpark Reviews: Copyrights
Heh, what can I say? When you get delayed, you get delayed. Partially that's due to me going to Anime Banzai this past weekend (I was cosplaying Sanji from One Piece), but also I've been busy playing Pokemon so much, I crowd out the time to review it! Ahem, anyway, another short blog post before Pokemon shows up!
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Oh, copyrights. They do so much to help individuals protect their works of art... when big name companies aren't taking advantage of them. But now we have YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other websites, big and small, on the internet letting people share movies, TV, and music for free, those same companies are throwing tantrums about losing money due to everyone sharing everything and not paying them to do so. I have little, if any, sympathy towards such companies that don't realize they're sitting on a gold mine of publicity and aren't profiting on concerts, CDs/MP3s, posters, and other memorabilia they wouldn't normally sell without free sharing. Instead, they pushed for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was a terrible law that would've only protected their interests, not the interests of the original owners who weren't getting the copyrights to begin with.
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Oh, copyrights. They do so much to help individuals protect their works of art... when big name companies aren't taking advantage of them. But now we have YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other websites, big and small, on the internet letting people share movies, TV, and music for free, those same companies are throwing tantrums about losing money due to everyone sharing everything and not paying them to do so. I have little, if any, sympathy towards such companies that don't realize they're sitting on a gold mine of publicity and aren't profiting on concerts, CDs/MP3s, posters, and other memorabilia they wouldn't normally sell without free sharing. Instead, they pushed for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was a terrible law that would've only protected their interests, not the interests of the original owners who weren't getting the copyrights to begin with.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
GSpark Reviews: Open Sourcing
I knew that Linux was a good OS for open source development, but I didn't know that it started out as open source software. This means that, as a user, I can give advice on a feature it'd be nice to have, point out a bug in the system, or suggest a way to make it more efficient. Best of all... the developers might even listen to me and try to implement my suggestion. Of course, someone else can come in and complain about that idea, if it gets implemented, and ask them to take it out, but that's the beauty of open sourcing! No one knows more about good software than the customer (remember, the customer is always right!), so if the users are the testers, there will inevitably be one person that brings his/her own solution to a certain problem, and it might be exactly what is needed to improve the software. Listen to the user, and you may end up with the best software in history.
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My review for Pokemon should be coming very soon. Stay tuned! Waving out!
--Gemini $park
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My review for Pokemon should be coming very soon. Stay tuned! Waving out!
--Gemini $park
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