You’ve probably heard about this movie coming out shortly. This movie about Facebook and it’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, titled The Social Network.
Only it’s not, because he’d threatened to sue if the movie was actually about particular things he did but haven’t been proved in court, so there’s a character with the same name as him… but different!

Never mind the fact that the movie is going to suck in a similar way that Antitrust* . This film is still going to be a commercial succes, and so will its soundtrack, for the very reason that Facebook itself is a commercial success, never minding the involvement of David Fincher.
*supposedly about Microsoft at the time, but becoming strikingly more like Google with every passing month) did by basically making a fairly non-exciting event and adding drugs and murder (because that happens to computer programmers all the time!

Everyone’s gonna be talking about it, like I am, and then circle jerk off to how amazingly awesome it is. Or how fucking lame. I know I’m now involved in that cicrle jerk right now by writing this article. The irony’s not lost on me. Maybe Alaniss Morisette, but not me. But speaking of msuic that’s out of place!

It turns out Trent Reznor has signed up to do the music.

Fincher’s movies are right up Reznor’s alley. For sure! Fight Club probably would have been way more awesome with an industrial sountrack. But really? REALLY?! Trent, WTF!? It’s a movie about a nerd that fucked over a few of his friends to become a billionaire by fucking over millions more people! Adding bullshit won’t make it better or more interesting. And you’re stamping your name to it!

It’s like Danny Elfman deciding to do the music on a Disney remake of Jack Black’s life about the time he never saved an orphan and fought his case of Lou Gehrig’s disease. It’s a lie and you’re adding more to the lie that the movie is going to be!!!

[Or if Rob Zombie wrote the jingle for a Doritoes ad! - Egofreaky]

Fuck! This is a perfect example of why good musicians need to die young.

I was reading an interesting article in The Age the other day about how and why  (opinion mouthpiece, ex-catholic ranter and supposed comedian) Catherine Deveny got fired. Oddly enough, it wasn’t over the photo pasted right below this paragraph. Yeah, I’m surprised too.

At the Logies, perhaps the most subprime example of how far the Australian TV industry has its head up its arse, she tweeted the sorts of things that one would normally lean over and drunkenly whisper to the other people on the table. But because she tweeted it, it got out into the public and came back to bite her in the arse. Now I’m not going to bother analyizing this or explaining in greater detail waht happened. Read the related coverage for yourself.

But it did get me thinking that this stuff actually is permanent. It’s still there on her feed, and will be permanently. And then I thought about my friends who have recently become parents and actually already created social network pages for their kids… yeah, you thought it was bad enough when they showed your new boyfriend your baby photos in albums. (more…)

I like to think of myself as somewhat erudite bastion of civility and culture… even though in person I speak like a highschool drop out and generally wear the kind of clothing that would have to have a Kmart label in it to get ranked as “fashionable”. Hey, I drink wine, and I can tell the difference between a Gamay and a Bordeaux. That’s pretty fucking classy compared to some of the people I know.

Part of being classy is keeping up with the artworld, outside of comics and album covers, and to that end, I keep my eye open on various news feeds here and there.

I’m also a consummate prankster, and know a good one when I see one.

A few days ago, Artlurker, one of the contemporary zones of wankery that insists it’s at the forefront of all that is avant gardè, edgy, and filled with suppressed didactic meaning, gamed its readers in a rather large way, and thus the art world got gamed along with it.

They posted a story about a gallery work called “The Rape Tunnel”. Whilst the original story and comments have been taken down, Google remembers all, and cleverly cached it here.

When I read this story in early October, my bullshit-o-meter went through the roof. Initially, I thought this was another one of those stupid projects, like the artist that intended to chain a dog with the water bowl just out of reach and let it die if no one moved the bowl. Then I realised there is no way this would go ahead, as the supposed artists “Richard Whitehurst”, and the gallery director are basically conspiring to commit rape.

2 minutes of Googlefu revealed no previous gallery, no art journalist named Sheila Zareno, no artist named Richard Whitehurst, and no former tunnels of any kind, let alone punching people in the face.

However, looking at some of the reactive comments, it makes it bloody tempting to perhaps start one, and have some wanky description of how art is imitating life that imitated non-existent art, inner rage at soceity and the homoerhey is that more chenin blanc for free at my opening night that was paid for with my government grant? Sweet!

But I digress from the main point. This story got covered in actual news papers, because no supposedly real journalist bothered to do a damn bit of fact checking. It got published somewhere else, so holy shit, we better publish it too! How is it that none of them even wanted to talk to the artist or gallery owner about the work?!

And this goes to show how easy it has actually become to game certain segments of society, and gain a few fleeting moments of notoriety. No doubt, the original writer of this article is likely to be able to come forward, and get a decent job at a real paper, having done what the majority of papers now consider their primary business… outraging readership enough that they might consider looking at the news.

The outcry from the general public, both over the original fake article, and Artlurker exposing their ignorance when it was revealed to be a hoax is amazing. It ranges the whole gamut from people insisting that they’re retracting a failed publicity stunt, to others saying how the editors are worse than Hitler because rape is something we should never talk about… ever… except inside our therapy circles… and it’s not funny!!! (unless you’re raping a clown)

It makes me think that not only will the general public be pretty easy to game, but I could probably pull off a massive hoax of my own, and not just get away with it, but probably make some money on the side.

I’m thinking of selling off franchises in my religion…

Remember Virtual Reality games in the early 90s? If you ever played them, you felt amazingly nauseated, and pretty much feeling like the last thing you’d ever want to do is leave your inferior meat sack behind and muck up inside this triangular, low depth, low colour, low resolution, Tron looking piece of crap world.

The graphics were awful, the gameplay was limited, the physics modeling was non existent, the control devices were perhaps the least intuitive things ever, and Lawn Mower Man scared the shit out of everyone for years to come.

… So why didn’t they keep developing this stuff until it worked decently?

Actually you probably don’t know, but they have been. It’s been done by stealth and it’s basically all video games, much like it ever was… but it’s been a bit more subtle than that.

Played Half Life 2? The physics engine in that is pretty damn good. Played 2nd Life? It’s a persistent world with more people in it than New Zealand, where people live out their lives, have adventures & social lives, and some even manage to earn a living while they’re in there… just like New Zealand. Played any Japanese RPG on the Play Station 3? Those graphics are pretty damn good for real time generated simulations. And these are not the only examples.

Fact of the matter is that virtual reality has snuck up on us.

So I’m sure you’re all well aware of the various games that are out there. Let’s face it, with all the media attention, it’s impossible to be unaware of at least World of Warcraft and 2nd Life, although you may not be aware that they were nowhere near the first of these games. That dubious honour belongs to a 1996 Korean title called Nexus: Kingdom of Winds, but the games weren’t made “popular” until 1999 with the release of Everquest, often called “Evercrack”… possibly where the derivative “World of Warcrack” comes from.

Why is this history lesson important? Because people, for the first time, were able to play these games not just to escape their mundane lives, but to actually live their lives through the game. I’m not talking about some sad git pretending to be a half-cow priest full time, but sad gits actually able to make a living through these games by selling in-world items to other players for real world currency, access the “outside” internet through some clever hacks that allowed them to order food (Pizzahut online) and necessities, and basically never have to leave their chairs with the exception of taking acrap or getting another Mountain Dew. For the first time, it was actually possible to not have to live in the real world.

“But it’s not total immersion!” I imagine you crying out, because I often think that people reading these things nearly a week after I actually write them can carry on a conversation with me without the aid of some kind of tachyon beam technology (perhaps something for another post).

Well, sorry, but you’re wrong again.

The only reason why these games aren’t total immersion yet is because you’re poor and can’t be arsed doing decent research.

There are actually several VR headsets, and natural haptic feedback devices already on the market at fairly reasonable prices. Certainly the sort of price range that is well within the reach of an avid gamer that regularly upgrades their computer to be able to run these sort of simulations at the maximum quality.

VR helmets have made leaps and bounds recently as well.

Not only is the price now comparable to that of a high-end monitor, but the nauseating 3D issues appear to have been solved. As it turns out, 25fps is the minimum for simulating motion, but if you want people not throwing up and getting a real sense of the 3rd dminesion while looking through their giant nerd boxes, you need around 120fps… per eye. If these hulking monstrosities pictured don’t sit well with your sense of style, you could always be one Jordie LaForge looking motherfucker and just get the iTheater glasses. The 3D isn’tas good, but you can wear them on public transport without looking like too much ofa freak, and the current ones plug right into an iPhone… so you can watch your World of Whorecraft episodes without being disturbed.

But what of touch? No point playing a game with your sight and hearing fully immersed if it’s going to be shattered by not being able to feel a damn thing because you’re holding onto a mouse and keyboard.

Three words: Haptic Feedback Accessories.

Haptic feedback gloves have been around for years, and were actually developed to help tele-operators get a decent feel for the job that they were doing. Some gloves merely provide resistance so that it feels like you’re holding an object. Others are actually designed to mimic textures in real time. Many are compatible with 3D design programs, and some even work for various games that allow manipulation via in game Hands.

Black & White is one such game, where your god hand can actually be used to pick up in game objects, crush superstitious villagers to death, or pimp slap your avatar… all witha satisfying sense of resistence to each. With the right set of gloves, you can feel the resistance of a gun grip in your hand, and have your wrists jerked back by the recoil as you fire it.

This of course leaves the issue of being able to actually touch anything and feel it. There are a few gloves on the market that actually simulate the feel of various materials. Nano-fibres recreate themselves underneath your palm and fingertips to give the feeling of certain forms of textures, and heat. These are currently not on the domestic market, nor nearly ready o be consumer level technology yet, but give it another game console generation or two, and you might just feel the leather thong criss crossed on your swords pommel as you wildly flail at your enemies, and then feel the blood flow between your fingers as you crush that annoying fairy in the latest installment of Legend of Zelda.

Hell, you can even get a vest that allows you to feel that you’re being shot or hit in game… and it comes in pink for girls.

Perhaps, in the end, we will find ourselves living regular mundane lives in the fantasy worlds we have created for ourselves because it is simply more bearable to do so without all the aches and pains of our real world selves. Not physical of course, but rather mental. After all the pain of falling out with other people is not so much in a virtual world. New others can be found with ease, and the quibbling little trials of our analogue reality simply won’t trouble us there. After all, the grass never needs mowing in your 2nd life… or does it?

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