Moving on, perhaps...

After being convinced by a student of mine, I've been convinced to try out wordpress... so the blog continues here:

https://awoogarambles.wordpress.com/

You can read my latest post about trolls there!

On Boobs, Music and patents. Also, did I mention boobs?

Let’s talk about boobs. Oh and also idiots.

So I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed that music videos are often very sexy. Shockingly so, when you consider the Disney or Nickelodeon origins of many of the young stars gyrating sexually on screen.

As a young man at university I often found myself pondering the strange disconnect between the enticing, erotic promises of music videos and the mechanical pounding of pornography. Was there no way to meet in the middle, as it were?

So imagine my delight when I discovered that many major hip hop artists were in the habit of making two versions of their music videos. A clean version for your daylight hours, and then a naughty version for your seedier moments. By naughty, I mean a few nipples and whatnot. I thought it was brilliant.

Move on to 2013, and I found myself surprised by the internet rumblings against the perfectly decent “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke (but maybe really by Pharell Williams?). People were upset with the song because it was presumably creepy and “rapey”.

This already struck me as strange seeing as music is hardly a stranger to “rapey” lyrics. A lot of hip hop, and basically all of Reggaeton is eye-wateringly misogynistic.

Furthermore, Shock! Horror! The song had two music videos made. A safe version, and (I know my parents read this blog, so parents, do not click this link!) a nipple version. It’s true that it’s a bit creepy to have three fully dressed guys hanging around naked ladies. In fact, there’s a part of the video where they’re dancing in front of a wall festooned with the words “Robin Thicke has a big dick”. Maybe the video would have been less offensive if he’d gone ahead and proved it?

A still from the offending video. I've censored it with the only thing more exciting than boobs.

But I think back to those sexy music videos I discovered. For example: 50 cent’s “P.I.M.P”, N.E.R.D’s (Pharell Williams again) “Lapdance”, or Ludacris’s “P*ssy poppin’”. Want to talk about “rapey”? The first song is about a man who makes money from managing prostitutes, the second is about a man so tough that all women, including “professionals”, can’t get enough of his manly charms. And the last song… well I had to censor its title, didn’t I?

What’s more, these songs also had dirty versions of their video. Again, parents! Do NOT click these links! (God bless Vimeo).

Those are the boobs. Here come the idiots.

Self-righteous, preachy arses around university campuses rose up in arms, decrying the lyrics and even getting the song banned from university bars. I thought that in a liberal society we should combat ideas we disagree with through spirited debate, not through shrieking and prohibition?

But I know a man who expresses that idea better than I can. Podcast fans, enjoy a five-part series of essays on Analysis, presented by Timothy Garton Ash, about the future of freedom of speech and why these uptight twits need to stop trying to ban everybody who doesn’t quite agree with their ideas (which are perfectly correct and, above all, defendable). He also grapples with other attacks on free speech from Islamists, the media and the need for privacy. I also like the fact that TGA has trouble, like me, pronouncing the letter R.

Part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5.

But besides all that, why was Blurred Lines such a problem when hip hop artists had been doing it long before? Well here’s my theory: Robin Thicke, and two of the topless models in the video, are white. There’s the difference. It’s OK when the boobs are black or Latina, but white boobs can not be degraded so.

Well I’m here to say: Black Boobs Matter.

But my real point, lovely though boobs are, is that what really upset me, more than the lazy band-wagon-jumping reaction Blurred Lines originally got, is what happened next.

The descendents of Marvin Gaye sued Robin Thicke, and also the tremendously talented Pharrell Williams, who probably really wrote blurred lines, and is responsible for so much great music beyond the asinine “Happy”.

Pharrell Williams. Proof positive of the old adage: "You can't judge a musician by his silly hat"

They were sued because apparently Blurred Lines had copied Marvin Gaye's "Got to give it up":

The two songs certainly resemble each other, having the same beats per minute, with minimal instrumentation and a cowbell. Apparently this is copyright infringement.

As it turned out, the Gaye’s won 7.4 million dollars (though recently reduced by 2 million). People jumped at the opportunity to pour yet more scorn on Thicke, but frankly, anybody with an ounce of musical ability or common sense would have been horrified at the result. First of all, the songs are not the same. Second, if this constitutes plagiarism, what happens to every other music artist? Songs sound similar. Deal with it.

Here's a youtube video that plays the songs back to back. Though the uploader clearly thinks this proves how similar they are, I completely disagree, especially when they start singing:

The only reason the Gaye’s won is because Thicke is unpopular, and that’s thanks to the afore-mentioned frantic bleating of self-important social belligerents drunk on their successful, vacuous moralising. I'm pretty sure this isn't a sign of things to come in the music industry, or at least I hope so.

Because if I’m wrong, bands setting up in garages today, inspired by this rock band or that, will have infringement claims slapped on them as soon as they make any money, by the law firms who hold the rights to whatever, vague, musical riffs that have come before them. The whole thing is breathtakingly stupid.

And this is the problem with copyright and patenting. The spirit of the law is to reward innovation and creative thinking. Surely, it is only right that if an artist or an inventor comes up with something that benefits society, they should benefit from the fruits of their labour? Sadly, the spirit is often crushed by the letter.

Now calm down, dear readers. I’m sure you’re all starting to get a little concerned because I’ve been rambling on about music for ages and haven’t mentioned computer games once. Well brace yourselves.

I’m currently engrossed with Dark Souls 3. The “Souls” series of games are role-playing action games set in a world of permanent decay. Everything is imbued with melancholy, as you fight your way through the ruins of long-dead empires, still populated by the mindless denizens that can never die. The game is mysterious, beautiful and punishingly difficult. You will die.

Dark souls 3. Such a wonderful game. In this shot, the character is about to go kill a great, animated tree. It's weak point is its balls (no, really!)

So it’s upsetting that the load times are so damn long! This was particularly a problem with the second game, and often you have to sit there, looking at tooltips cycling across the screen as the game takes its sweet time getting its act together.

Maybe the edge could be taken off the wait if there was a mini-game you could play as the larger assets were loaded. Maybe the mini-game could be equally mysterious and obtuse, with subtle effects on the main game. That would be awesome.

This is not a new idea; it turns out that back in 1995 Namco (now Namco Bandai) took out a patent on the idea of mini-games in loading screens. The patent office really dropped the ball on this one.

Patents are supposed to protect inventors, but should only be awarded if the idea 1- benefits society, 2- is non-obvious and 3- has not been done before. The mini-games idea fails on points 2 and 3, but the patent was awarded regardless. This has benefited nobody, certainly not the customer. If you're interested, you should read more about this.

Stupid patent application

And you know the worst part? Dark souls is produced by Namco Bandai. They’re not even taking advantage of their own patent, the halfwits.

Luckily, that patent has recently expired, so we’ll see if developers start to make their loading screens more interesting. Similarly, we now have functional “D-pads” on our controller after Nintendo’s patent ran out a few years ago. Because a cross-like button is non-obvious. Idiots.

These are the controllers for the xbox 360 on the left, then the xbox one (which came later) on the right. Notice that the xbox one gamepad has a sensible D-pad rather than the shapeless atrocity on the 360 pad. The 360 rubbish is thanks to Nintendo and the doofuses at the patent office.

This problem extends beyond computer games, and is especially rife in Technology. All large tech firms have to buy up thousands of patents to both protect themselves and attack the competition. Look at the constant back and forth between Apple and Samsung, for example.

Even podcasts are at risk. Though there are many trolls trying to prey on podcasts, perhaps the most ludicrous is a guy called Jim Logan, who made a patent back in the 80s for a service that would send cassette tapes with radio programmes to your home. He claims that podcasts today are infringing his patent. Oh God the dumb! It hurts!

Don’t believe me? Have a podcast:

The situation has led to the arrival of “Patent Trolls”, companies whose only business is to buy up patents then sue people who infringe them. These companies don’t actually use the patents themselves, or produce useful technology. Their only raison d’être is to be parasites on other people's creativity. In this case, patents are an obstacle to innovation, and achieve the exact opposite of what they’re intended for.

This is not a new problem. There’s even the suggestion that the inventor James Watt, along with his business colleague Mathew Boulton (an 18^th century technological partnership to rival Jobs and Wozniak), actually slowed advances on the steam engine by rigorously defending their patents. Have yet another podcast on the very subject:

James Watt and Steam Power.

And this brings me back to the old issue of inequality (remember my Azmodan post?). I feel that the function of government regulation should be to lower barriers to entry, so that we all have an equal opportunity to make it. This is already achieved to a great degree through state-provided education, healthcare and subsidies, but more can be done to unlock the potential of society. Too much power is hoarded by powerful families and corporations, and they use every tool at their disposal to do so, including those originally intended to help out the little guy.

Regulation sounds good, and some of it certainly is. I agree that we need anti-trust laws to break up monopolies, for example. The problem is that the government often lacks the time, funds and expertise to regulate specific industries, so they pass the task on to the industries themselves.

The business interests will draw up regulation, couched in terms like “consumer protection” or “sustainability” which assuage most people, but their real agenda is to make it so long and expensive to enter the market that they keep competition at bay. This hurts all of us, as low competition means higher prices and less pressure to innovate. Patents often end up serving the same purpose. Though those on the left hate the idea of “deregulation”, sometimes that might be just what is needed to combat inequality.

Have two more planet money podcasts. The first is about how regulation is exploited by companies to keep out competition, and the second is about how some people, including tech baron Elon Musk, believe that patents should be done away with altogether.

Why it's illegal to braid hair without a license:

The case against patents:

And what about Robin Thicke two years after all those shenanigans? Well, he’s lost his mojo, having put out a universally-panned album about how much he wants to get back with his now estranged wife Paula Patton.

Maybe you shouldn’t have been cavorting around with a delightfully topless Emily Ratajkowski, eh Robin?

How Heroes of the Storm taught me how to be a good person. Also, Mafias is the bee's knees

Close your eyes, and picture a gamer. What do you see? I imagine most of you imagine some kind of pale-skinned troglodyte hunched over his keyboard and furiously typing racial slurs at other dweebs online who will never know the touch of a woman.

Though that particular cliché certainly exists, and a large swathe of douchebaggery is still rife in the world of gaming, I think that in reality most gamers I meet are curious, sensitive and clever people. Maybe not the best social skills in the world, though even there you’d be surprised at which alpha males you see strutting around the bar are also in the Grand Master’s league of Starcraft 2.

Case in point is a guy I often play Heroes of the Storm with, called Mafias. I know Mafias through my idiot friend Charli. Mafias is charming, patient and intelligent. I wish he was my friend instead of Charli. But you know what they say: You can’t choose your friends. Wait, is that it?

Anyway, I like to think I’m a good guy despite being a gamer. Though the truth is that I’m not as nice as I like to imagine. My brother and many of my friends often surprise me with their capacity to be thoughtful and supportive.

Meanwhile, I’m so wrapped up in all my endless, pointless projects (such as this blog?) that I’m using up all my energy trying to avoid doing any work. Why do you think I play computer games? When am I ever going to find the time or energy to think about somebody else? The thing is, every time I do engage in the odd act of altruism, it’s deeply satisfying.

Heroes of the Storm tries to teach me this lesson, in particular with a character called Rehgar. He’s known as a “support hero”, which means he befuddles the enemy and aids allies. For a change, I’ve decided to photoshop my face on Rehgar’s body:

Another one of my sexier looks

Rehgar is a big green orc, plucked from Blizzard’s Warcraft series of games. For some reason he can transform into a blue wolf, and he has something to do with totems. He also heals allies.

One of his ultimate abilities is to send a shower of green healing energy from on high onto one character to recover a dramatic amount of health. The key is to do this at just the right moment – the enemy think they have an assured kill as they focus on one of your allies, but whoosh! You heal the ally just in time and the tables have turned.

Did I mention my wonderful team mate Mafias? He’s great. I met him once in person, and he was awesome-sauce. Well, recently I was playing a game with both him and Charli. Mafias was playing as Xul, a Cryptic Necromancer from Blizzard’s Diablo series. Here’s a picture of Xul (unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of Mafias’ face to photoshop on top, which is a pity because he’s so good-looking, and talented):

At one point, through no fault of his own (he’s so great) he’d got himself into a spot of trouble. Let’s face it, it was probably Charli’s fault.

The enemy had almost killed him, and he had been poisoned. If you look at this image, you’ll see Mafias’ health bar is grey-brown, with no blue. That means his health will gradually decrease until he is killed. No! Not Mafias!

Mafias no!!!

Well here I come to save that day! I cast my ult on the necromancer, and he’s a new man, ready to fight another day.

Down comes the healing goodness

And Mafias is as good as new!

And in a characteristically generous way, Mafias indicated his appreciation. Ah! How uplifting.

That little heart means the world to me

It really is a pleasant sensation when you pull that off. Usually in Heroes of the Storm you’re concerned with getting the kill and destroying the enemy’s base. And don’t get me wrong, achieving those goals is great fun, but being able to come in and save your friend is satisfying on a much a deeper level.

Could it be that being kind makes you happier than focusing on your selfish goals?

Well yup, and this phenomenon has been tested by an economist, of course. They think they can use economics to explain everything, which is part of the fun of economics.

A series of studies conducted by Michael Norton at Harvard showed that people report much higher levels of happiness when they spend money on others rather than themselves.

This study has done the rounds on various radio shows and podcasts, of course. Norton has written a book called Happy Money (which I also haven't read; why would I?), and his study has even appeared in English Language Textbooks (New English File Advanced, unit 3c, page 47 to be precise).

Podcast time? Not exactly, have a TED talk and hear it from the horse’s mouth:

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness?language=en

The great thing about this is that it works even if you know about the study and are cynically exploiting it for your own happiness. Certainly it has worked in the past for me, but I don’t engage in “pro-social” spending as much as I should.

Maybe I should take to heart the lesson Rehgar has taught me. He’s probably the happiest warrior in the nexus.

Is Apple guilty of planned obsolescence? Yup. Also, let me tell you about my idiotic journey into a Technological Island of Stupidity

In the Ian McEwan book ‘Enduring Love’ (I have read books) there’s a wonderful, if somewhat mean-spirited, passage where the protagonist engages in a shady transaction with a couple of hippies. They’re both raging clichés, he with his invented statistics and almost Tourette-level use of the word “basically”, and she… well, here’s the part that stuck with me:

"Daisy was on her feet ladling out more porridge. She spoke in the quiet voice of one who knows the truth but can’t be fished to fight for it. ‘There’s an overriding planetary aspect with particular reference to earth signs and the tenth house.’"

I love that second sentence, perfectly encapsulating the resigned certainty of people who believe in bullshit. It’s with a similar tone that I hear people bemoan the evils committed by our capitalist overlords, one of which being planned obsolescence.

Talking of bullshit, I have an iPhone 4S. It’s a powerful machine, more powerful than the computer that defeated Garry Kasparov at chess, more powerful than the computer powering the Mars rover Curiosity, more powerful than my gaming PC back at university. Much too powerful for what I use it for, which is mostly listening to podcasts (obviously) and texting.

Left by the wayside...

But after the last Operating System update, my poor phone can’t handle the simplest tasks. If I listen to a podcast while searching the web at the same time, the phone stutters and groans under the pressure and starts to let off steam. If I pause a podcast, open whatsapp to send a message, then press play again, nothing happens. The task of sending that message was so gargantuan that the podcast player had to be ejected from RAM, and I need to open up the app again, press play, and wait up to 40 seconds for the bloody phone to get its shit together.

It’s just annoying because the same hardware was perfectly capable of performing these tasks earlier. Prior to the update, I could simply press play on the earphones and the podcast would start without having to unlock the phone. Now, shock horror, I have to pull the damned thing out of my pocket, unlock the screen, wait for the podcast app to grind into action, press play and then wait pointlessly, all while apple sends me subliminal messages that I should get a new phone.

I might have to join my tin-foil hat wearing idiot friends and accuse Apple of designed obsolescence. In fact, a class action lawsuit in Brazil claims the very same thing.

Damn you Apple.

Technology’s advance is tiring, and sometimes really, really annoying. Sometimes breaking with old technology is necessary. In Apple’s defence, I think they did the right thing when they abandoned their buggy OS9 and switched to a whole new operating system with OSX. Microsoft should have done away with Internet Explorer, the bane of web designers everywhere, long ago, but their admirable dedication to backwards compatibility and supporting old software has kept this bloated zombie going for much too long. Maybe they’ll be able to put an end to it with their new browser.

But not all such leaps into the future are desirable. We go through Islands of Stupidity. This is when a technology is abandoned before a valid replacement has been found.

Back when I was a child, if I wanted to transfer a document, it was easy as sticking a floppy disk into the drive.

But then we gave up on floppies. Apple was part of this move – the first iMac had no floppy drive. Damn you Apple. So a need was no longer being serviced. Transferring a simple word document became a nightmare. Some solutions never became mainstream (remember jazz drives?) and the mainstream ideas were stupid. Remember CDs?

Pretty, but oh so rubbish

I hope never to have to go through the agony of trying to burn a CD. They may be pretty, and have great capacity for their price, but what a horrible form of data storage. Thank God for USB sticks, and online disk space, which finally solved the problem.

I’m worried a new island of stupidity might by rising over the horizon.

When I play games on my console (aha! Of course games would make an appearance) I don’t like to use the TV sound, because I don’t want to bother the neighbours. I’m nice like that.

With my old TV, it was perfectly simple. I would just plug some headphones into my TV through it’s jack port.

My gamer face. One of my sexier looks

When I moved, I got a new TV. A beautiful big flat thing, and I couldn’t wait to start playing on it. I put my headphones on and looked for the sound-out port on the TV. Imagine my confusion when I couldn’t find it. I’ve made this image to depict that confusion.



It turned out this new TV didn’t have a simple jack port for sound-out. I looked for hours and hours, but the only sound-out option was a mysterious square thing with a little trapdoor. There was even a sticker warning me not to open the trapdoor and look inside or I would immediately go bald and my balls would fall off.

Baffled, I twiddled my headphone jack inside the square hole for a while in a manner reminiscent of some of the more awkward evenings in my life, and just as productive. After some pointless thrusts I decided I had to actually focus and figure out what the hell this was.

I learned (from the sticker) that this was an optical port. It's some sort of irritating laser-based system. Apparently it’s superior and supports surround sound and so on. Yeah, but does it support my headphones? This is when I embarked on one of my more ridiculous journeys into technological lunacy.

I figured there would be a simple conversion box I could use. Well, sort of. First of all, I needed a cable, called a TOS cable, which transports an optical signal. That was 10 € spent already.

Now the optical signal is digital, not analogue, and a jack expects an analogue signal. This was a real obstacle. To convert digital to analogue you need an audio converter. They’re not cheap! I found one for 40 €. At this point I should maybe have reconsidered my plan, and thought of the cable as simply a sunk cost, but I really wanted to play Call of Duty without annoying the neighbours, and lacked the intellectual capacity to consider other options (see below).

I bought the damn thing (of course since then I’ve found them for a quarter of the price), and it required power, so I had yet another plug in my sea of cables under the TV.

But the sound-out of the converter is not a jack port, but rather the standard red-white connectors known as RCA (yellow is for video). So I needed a cable that would have two male RCA connectors that link into a female jack port. After visiting way too many shops, I found one, for another 7 €.

Now I could plug in the headphones! But no. It was too quiet. And what’s worse, the stupid optical-out volume is not controlled by the TV. The remote did nothing. They expect it to be connected to an amplifier.

So I went ahead and found a small amplifier (normally intended for mobile use) for another 20 €, and I stuck that stupid thing between the converter and the headphones. If I wanted to change the volume I had to squat down to press buttons on the amplifier. Oh and the amplifier also needed a power plug.

The final solution was rubbish. Changing the volume was a pain, and if any connection along the daisy-chain of arseholery failed I had to check each connection. The TOS cable was particularly malicious on this front. Why couldn’t I just plug my headphones into a jack port on the TV? Optical sound feels a lot like CDs.

And in my pigheadedness, I hadn’t considered a much easier solution. Seeing as I only needed the headphones to play xBox, I could simply have bought headphones specifically for that console (which would also handle chat) at a considerably lower cost, which is ultimately what I did after putting up with this shit show just long enough to feel like I got something out of it (mostly misery).

Simple, universal, and on its way out?

And what’s worse, rumours abound that Apple plans to do away with the headphone jack on its next iPhone. Are we once again careening headlong into an Island of Stupidity, spearheaded by Apple?

Damn you Apple

How Heroes of the Storm is classist. Also, meet Azmodan, Lord of Sin, and Proud Member of the 0.01%

In Heroes of the Storm, as I may have mentioned in the past, you play on a team of five players against another team of five. Each of you is in control of a “hero”, who prances and gallivants around the stage like a prima donna demanding all the attention and glory.

But the real workhorse in the nexus is the uncharitably named “minion”, or even more uncharitably “creep”. Minions appear at each team’s base, then march along two or three lanes towards the other team’s core, until they are inevitably obliterated. Then a new wave begins.

"All right lads! Just remember your training and show the enemy what for!"

"Uff.. puff... almost at the front line lads"

"Attaaaaaaaaaaaack!"

"The monk killed Steve! I'm a goner! Tell my wife I said – aaaaAARGH!"

Every match is a horrific battlefield on which hundreds upon hundreds of noble soldiers lose their lives, but are they remembered at the end of the game? No, it’s these “heroes”, who are literally five times bigger and much more flashy.

Heroes of the storm is so classist.

A fine example of one of these fat cats exploiting the downtrodden underdog is Azmodan. Each Heroes of the Storm character comes from one of the past games made by Blizzard, and Azmodan is from the Diablo series. He is the Lord of Sin and one of the Great Evils from the Burning Hells (who writes this rubbish?) though officially he is a resident of the Cayman islands, and sits on the board of several companies and is suspected of having accounts in every tax haven in all three realms.

Azmodan: Lord of Sin, and also of Delegation and Astute Career Choices

Though he may be a fat monster on spider legs ruthlessly exploiting his minions to do his dirty work, I admire Azmodan. First of all, despite being demonously fat, so gluttonous in fact that his stomach has its own mouth, he still, somehow, has a six pack, which is in and of itself remarkable. But mostly I admire his ability to delegate.

Azmodan specialises in heightening the effectiveness of the afore-mentioned minions, by summoning extra warriors and “motivating” the normal ones through his evil powers. He can summon demon lieutenants on any allied minion, and this proud member of the hell-spawn officer class will then empower all nearby minions, presumably through team training exercises and pay-based incentives.

The demon lieutenant "encouraging" the troops.

I enjoy playing as Azmodan because I lack fast reflexes or the ability to concentrate very much. So by sending my lieutenants and warriors off to fight for me I can have them doing my dirty work while I concentrate on not getting dead.

That’s not to say that Azmodan is useless in a team fight. In fact, a bad Azmodan player will focus only on destroying the enemy defences, leaving the rest of his allies a man short during team fights, then when they inevitably get killed, he will call them “noobs” and claim that he is the better player. This is because destroying enemy defences will give you a high score on the all-important “XP contribution” board, though a high score does not necessarily imply good play.

The all important XP contribution screen. In this particularly self serving example, it seems that I, Awoogamuffin, your hero, have wiped the floor with everybody. I'd like you to think this is how it always goes for me.

A good Azmodan player, however, can multitask, providing support in team fights while his underlings continue to sap the enemy buildings.

He has two hero-damaging abilities, both fittingly suited to a particularly sadistic form of play.

Azmodan revels in toying with his foes. When fighting the enemy, he’ll usually hang back because of his bad mobility (and general distaste of hanging out with the hoi polloi), but in the right circumstance he can start blasting an enemy with a laser beam and even follow them around (if you upgrade him correctly). The longer the beam lasts, the more damage it causes, and the more maniacally you, the player, begin to laugh.

I begin to attack a player called "scandal", playing an angelic warrior known as Tyrael, with my hand laser beam

Tyrael tries to escape, but there's no escaping Azmodan's laser beam. hehehehehe

heheHEHEHAHAHAHA! NO ESCAPE!! MWWOHAAHAHAHAAHAA!!

Oh... he escaped... :(

If the enemy hero does get away, they are usually so weakened that their only thought is escape, and here the magic begins. Azmodan can also throw a fiery ball of death great distances and there are few things more satisfying than predicting where the enemy is going, firing a ball in that direction and having it land on them just as they thought they’d got away. Mwoahahaaha indeed.

Tyrael makes a mad dash for his base where he can recover his health

But wait... What is your hero, Awoogamuffin, (me) doing?

Why he's firing a giant ball of death of course

I love this game

And all this while your lieutenants are tearing down the enemy cannons.

So what life lessons does this king among demons have to teach us?

Well Azmodan is very clearly part of the one percent and a metaphor for the growing inequality being felt in the developed world. This malaise (I choose a French word intentionally) resulted in Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the 21st Century, rocketing up to Amazon’s top selling list, even though it’s an economics book well over 600 pages, written by a Frenchman no less.

The key is that Azmodan can be profiting from his minions even while he’s back at his base, recovering health and mana and enjoying the benefits of a company fact-finding mission in the Bahamas. Most heroes, however, have to actually be on the battlefield doing damage to advance their cause. It’s like the distinction Piketty makes between those with capital (which produces wealth for the Lords of Capitalism even while they’re on the crapper) and those who only earn money for the hours they work (most of us). Azmodan knows which group he's in.

Minions at an Occupy Wall Street march

Amusingly, Kindle statistics suggest that very few people who bought the book actually read it. I don’t even claim to have bought it, let alone read a single word, though it’s been talked and written about so much that I can now comfortably claim to be an expert in it.

As I said, he separates the world into two groups: people with capital, and people who work for their money. What’s worse, the rate of return on capital is increasing faster than wages are, so the problem is only getting worse. Remember this: “r > g”, whatever that means.

Now in my last blog I failed to include a podcast, which makes me feel dirty. So here are a couple of short ones.

First have a video from the BBC saying exactly what I’ve just said (though not as skilfully, obviously):

Guide to Piketty book: Capital in the 21st Century

The economist magazine’s podcast “the economist explains” focusing more on Piketty’s explanation for the problems and possible solutions, as well as reactions to the book:

And here’s another from All Thoughts Considered where Alex Bloomberg, from the great “Planet Money” podcast, and now the even greater “Gimlet media” company that he set up, discusses the book’s inspiration:

Mystery Of Mounting Inequality Might Find Answer In Brand-New Tome

Picketty’s solution? Tax the rich! Might be a little bit more complicated than that, but it sounds sensible enough.

It seems that the next great battle, and a worthy one, is that of inequality. That said, some people go overboard in their hatred of the rich, many of whom want to solve the problem too.

I’d love to know what it is like to have a steady income that comes in regardless of how much work I actually do that month, be it interest, dividends, or royalties. Nowadays, with all the rich-hating ‘politics of envy’, I have to admit, I do envy Azmodan.

I want to be the Lord of Sin too.

How Heroes of the Storm taught me that Charli is an idiot. Also that I'm a bad person

One of the joys of Heroes of the Storm is how a game can swing dramatically. You can be sure that your team is doomed, and start getting down to assigning blame and denying all responsibility, when suddenly a dramatic team fight goes badly for the opposing team and the ball starts rolling in your direction.

So it’s important not to give up (or wait, isn’t it also important to give up?). If you hold out and play carefully an opportunity might open up and allow you to steal victory from the jaws of mutual acrimony.

Sadly, the obverse is also true. You might be riding high, dominating the other team and confident of victory. And then Charli happens.

Charli is one of my regular team mates who I tolerate because he makes me feel good about myself. I also see him in Real Life relatively often, so I have no doubt about exactly what kind of person he is.

Here I am in Real Life with Charli and my brother. Charli is the ugly one.

He’s pretty adept at playing Tassadar, an interesting and versatile character who can control the enemy team while providing support and protection to his team mates. He’s also sneaky and can get away from seemingly impossible situations.

Tassadar. A space alien who can manipulate psionic energy. A VERY SERIOUS CHARACTER!

Charli revels in getting frighteningly close to death yet somehow avoiding it. The problem is that he doesn’t always avoid it.

In a recent game, I felt we were comfortably winning. We had the upper hand with regards to destroying their defences as well as having more kills.

The game had been going on for a while, which is problematic because if you die at higher levels, you’re out of the game for longer. Charli, bless him, was prancing around like an idiot near the enemy, perilously close to death.

Charli has got himself into trouble

So we all had to come up to support him, and we started something of a controlled retreat.

Here comes the cavalry. Notice how close to death Charli is

At this point Charli was laughing maniacally. “No one can defeat Tassadar!” He decided that he could separate one of the enemy heroes with tassadar’s ultimate ability, which is to create a sort of energy wall. In the meantime, all our team mates were saying that no, it was time to retreat.

We're back at our gates. Phew, fight's done, right?

But Charli wasn’t having any of it. He plunged, and was immediately picked off.

Charli goes in for the kill

He puts up his stupid wall, but they're all on him like flies on Charli.

Bye bye Charli

The problem is you don’t want to leave a team mate behind, so the rest of us were hanging around
too, and when he plunged, we followed, and only two of us made it out alive.

The team hero, Awoogamuffin, and some other guy called Nomada, make a valiant attempt to protect the core...

Now it was five against two, and they just steamrolled into our base and won the game.

...to no avail

I blame Charli.

The thing is, my reaction goes against a personal rule of mine. I think that when in cooperative venture which is intended for fun, there’s nothing to be gained from turning on your partner. Be it computer games, tennis, or dancing.

I enjoy salsa from time to time, and there’s an unpleasant tendency among people, both leaders and followers, to criticise their partner during the dance. That just strikes me as ridiculous. We’re here to have fun, aren’t we?

It's simple: don't blame your partner.

Besides, I feel that the best dancers are able to adapt to their partner, and no matter what, they’re able to come out of the song having had a good time. No, it’s those dancers who are less sure of what they’re doing who require that their partner comply with the specific style that they have studied and perfected. These dancers don’t look at their partners, focused as they are on the specific sequence of movements required to pull off what they think they’re doing.

At least in Heroes of the Storm and tennis, you have a goal in mind; you want to win the game. Even in this case, I think putting your partner down is likely to make them play worse. How do you “win” at dancing, though? Surely by pleasing your partner, right?

I would even extend this to business and romantic relationships, though of course in those contexts it’s important to let others know when something isn’t sitting right with you. It’s when you feel the need to hurt the other person that you’ve lost the plot. In the end, turning on your colleagues and trying to make them feel bad about themselves is almost never a good idea.

There is, however, one exception to this rule, and that exception is Charli. Stupid Charli.

Tassaduuuuuuuuuuh!

Computer games can be educational. No really, they can!

As a red-blooded dweeb, when I was a child I certainly went through my pseudo-academic obsession with the little-boy trinity of Dinosaurs, Vikings and Romans (there are variations on this trinity, most involving Samurai). It turns out that young, male weaklings find something to admire in blood-thirsty warriors and giant teeth-baring lizards. It's the same tendency that gave rise to the Klingon Empire (from Star Trek, a series notoriously written by a cabal of alpha males).

The making of a monster

The desire to learn more about these terrifying figures from history can be enough to get you going, but I’d say that games have a role to play also.

Educational games are rubbish, but that doesn’t mean good games can’t be educational. In my experience, for me to remember or understand anything I need to have it drilled into my head time and time again until it becomes second nature. Certainly, when I program, it’s only by the 56th time I’ve used a function that it becomes part of my lexicon.

This is a real problem when learning about history. Even when you’re interested in the subject matter (which many people never are) it’s hard to keep tabs on all the people and events.

Games, on the other hand, through their very mechanics can teach gamers real concepts that will ring true to any historian. Every young boy who played strategy games knows what a trebuchet is, and that obviously the best type of soldier to defeat cavalry is a pike man. I remember the look of glee on my brother’s face when we watched the third, horrible Lord of the Rings movie. They had trebuchets defending the walls of Minas Tirith, and when the Rohirrim rode onto the scene to flank the orcs, the orc leader sensibly proclaimed “Pikes in front, archers behind”. My brother and I shared a glance which clearly said “Look! They’re talking about Age of Empires II”


Though boys might grow out of the initial Trinity of Historical Violence, a yearning for ancient bloodshed remains, which was satisfied for me in my twenties by a wonderful game called Rome: Total War. It is a half strategic, half tactical game where you play as a Roman faction gradually taking over assorted provinces, and leading troops in battle. For purposes of clarification I’ve photoshopped my face onto the game’s title image:

Gaius Awoogamufficus Primus Princeps

Each season you organise troop movements and manage cities, and if one of your armies does engage the enemy, you’ll zoom into a battle ground and lead your men to victory. You have to take into account your troops’ energy and also morale, or they might run away. In fact, some units, such as the British head hurlers (they throw severed heads dipped in lime at the enemy) are designed purely to terrify and route the enemy. Good ol’ Brits.

Pay no head to these guys

But apart from the setting, how is this game educational? Obviously, due to player agency, history is unlikely to repeat itself. But the game does some clever things to nudge you in the right direction.

When you start the game, you choose one of three factions. If you go with the Julii, you’ll start at the North of Italy and will naturally end up warring with the Gauls, as did Julius Caesar. If however, you choose the Scipii, you’ll be in the South and Sicily, leading inevitably to war with the Carthaginians, reflecting the Punic wars which gave Scipio Africanus his nickname.

If you look at the map at the bottom left, you'll see that in this game as the Brutii I've taken over most of the East. Only a small Parthian holdout remains. I will crush them.

Finally, you can play as the Brutii, which will take you East to conquer Greece and Asia minor, though I think they missed a trick here by not calling the family the Pompeii. The man associated with the conquest of the East was Pompey the Great, but I suppose they decided that Brutus was a more famous figure.

The battlefield lies strewn with the bodies of my enemies

As you progress through the campaign, there are plenty of nods to history. At one point you’ll have a gladiatorial rebellion. At another, your army will be completely revamped due to the reforms introduced by Gaius Marius. This actually happened in 107 BC. He professionalized the army, which is probably one of the steps towards the death of the Republic as it made soldiers loyal to their generals (who controlled their pay) rather than their country. Having it affect gameplay was a clever touch.

The Julii foolishly try to besiege my city

And finally, of course, as your military exploits earn you fame and the love of the people, the senate will become increasingly suspicious of you until eventually you are forced into war with both SPQR and the other two Roman families, reflecting the Roman civil wars. Obviously a simplified telling, but a great game that personalizes ancient history.

We march on Rome!

My fascination with Rome led me to a wonderful podcast (there’s always a podcast) by Mike Duncan, simply called the History of Rome. His style is academic, but friendly and warm. Just be careful not to binge listen because I guarantee you’ll get lost. A lot can happen in 800 years.

In episode 7, he talks about Cincinnatus, a semi-mythical figure of early Roman history who in times of crisis took on the dictatorship (granting him absolute power), each time nobly relinquishing power as soon as the job was done to return to his farmlands.

 Now look at this image:

This is George Washington depicted as Cincinnatus, a very common interpretation seeing as he too stepped down when he could well have ruled indefinitely. Mike Duncan often draws parallels between Roman and American history, but did I get into American history because of him? Of course not, it was because of Assassin's Creed 3.

The Assassin's Creed series is based around a fun piece of technology called the Animus which allows people to relive the experiences of their ancestors. It's also about an ancient war between two shady organisations, the Assassins and the Templars, who are fighting over pieces of technology left behind by a powerful species that appear to be the model for the Greek gods and... well, to be honest the AC story line has crawled so far up its own arse that even the developers have given up on it. It's just a premise to have a bunch of action games set in historical contexts.

The third game in the series (well, actually the fifth, but let’s not get bogged down) is much maligned for its half-baked game mechanics, it’s sullen protagonist and some really, really stupid trees.

God I hate you stupid tree

But I enjoyed the game and the setting, which is at the cusp of the American Revolution. During the game you meet assorted historical characters like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Lafayette.

Charles Lee as depicted in AC3. He shit the bed at the battle of Monmouth

You also meet the general Charles Lee, who in this game is working for the evil Templar order, though I suspect in reality he was just incompetent, as depicted in the musical Hamilton, “I’m a general. Wheeeeeee!”.


As I played the game I got the nagging sensation that I suspect many people have, which is a sense that I know a lot less about these people than I should. So I got to reading biographies of the early American presidents, and the task was made much easier by having played the game. I could put a digitized face to names, and it’s easier to remember events when you’ve virtually participated in them. I was there at the battle of Lexington and Concord, a battle which rivals Han and Greedo in the “who shot first?” stakes.

All this to say that, given the player has an ounce of curiosity, games are a great launching-off point for real learning, and give another perspective on otherwise dull topics. It’s one thing to know what happened, but it’s quite another to have experience them yourself, simplified though they may be in game form.