http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/11/sony-still-subsidizing-us-supercomputer-efforts.ars

The only thing I wonder about… Has anyone told the U.S. Government that the latest $299 model also removed the ability to install Linux? Hn.

For my next “personal post”, I’d like to direct the attention of those of you who are unaware to DrawGo Radio, the weekly podcast I started producing in early October. We’ve recently been added to the MTGCast network, and I have to say, it’s been a surprising turnaround in a short amount of time. We can also be found at iTunes, and our work can be heard at the following link: DrawGo Radio

The Magic Worlds tournament happened recently in Rome, and the most notable incident was, sadly, not the crowning of the champion, the rookie of the year, or even the hall of fame inductees. No, what the event will be remembered for is player Chris Gindy and his disqualification during the first day of the event, which led to the disqualification of the entire United States team from the team competitions of the subsequent days.

You see, unlike many other sports, Magic does not use their backups to step in for a player if they are ejected from sanctioned play. The reason for this is to prevent fraudulent actions; the assumption being that a player may intentionally cheat as much as he can to see if he can get away with it, with the team “playing straight” once they’ve used their alternate. Even technically ethical players could abuse the system by determining one of their players is just underperforming and have him eliminated, and this kind of collusion is something that’s been controversial since the inception of organized play.

So what’s the solution? I don’t know. As it stands, the alternate is there basically only if a player is incapacitated… But here’s the rub. It’s not like the National Team chooses who participates; if one of the players is fraudulent in their individual competitions, the entire team is punished completely out of hand. It’s a situation that is almost entirely indefensible and, as we’ve seen in this year’s event, does a lot to damage the game’s professional credibility.

Of course, we still have that sticky wicket; if we just allow an alternate to be what the name implies, what’s to stop intentional fraud for an advantage in the tournament environment? Call me daft, but I would think the ability of a team of top level judges to examine the circumstances of the players involved and the possibility that the disqualification was intentional should be a factor than a blanket “rocks fall, everyone dies” scenario. Further, for something as grave as “intentional fraud” at the top professional level, disqualification from the event really seems like a slap on the wrist. Certainly, Gindy himself was left hurting a bit according to secondhand accounts of what he had to go to in order to reach Rome, and the DQ meant no prize to recuperate the expense, but I would think a year-long ban from competitive play minimum would be an additional penalty for disqualification from a top tier event. Is that severe? Yes it is. But the gravity of it also really puts the impetus on the judges to maintain the highest levels of skill and professionalism, as the controversy that swirled around the circumstances of this DQ and the vague official statements wouldn’t hold water, but there would be a need for detailed, clear accounts and a record of significant deliberation.

Further, of course, it would take steps towards rectifying the team alternate issue. Why do I think such changes (perhaps not those exact changes, but along the same mindset) would be beneficial to the credibility of the game? Personal responsibility. Certainly, there’s somewhat of an illusion of camaraderie amongst the professional players, especially the ones on the national teams, but in reality, you’ve got the four people that happened to make top four in their nation’s championship event. Do they play on the tour together semi-regularly? Likely. Does that mean they’re a tight-knit band of brothers that will lay down anything and everything for each other?

Dream on. There’s already all the incentive they need to cooperate as a team; team prizes. Up the ante on personal responsibility and the notion of giving up a year of competitive play, something that’s likely to be a source of income for you, for a shot at winning a share of the team prize? I think common sense just might win out there.

But anyway… Just a possibility, not an absolute answer. Of course there are more factors to consider, but I merely thought to offer a possibility. As it is, there really seems to have been a lot of sturm und drang over what happened for it to all just as quickly die off, and if that’s what the people are satisfied with, so be it. But I for one hope we do get a new set of penalty guidelines at the beginning of next year, because the more recent version is a definite negative in light of Magic: The Gathering’s attempts at streamlining and simplifying their product.

For more information, check the following:

Worlds 2009 Round 6: Disqualifications

DrawGo Radio Worlds ’09 Episode

Okay, I’m behind. It’s been a slow news month, what with half of it being Thanksgiving and the slow roll-down to the dead stop in December that November entails. But we’re rolling into December, so best wishes, as we wrap things up for the year.

Second Life is not a game. Let’s clear that up from the beginning.

And I don’t mean it’s “not a game” like most MMORPGs aren’t games because they lack a definitive ending/victory condition. Second Life not only has that going against it, but there are no real gameplay mechanics to it at all. You can move your camera and navigate your avatar; other than that, it appears that all interactivity is actually embedded within the objects you interact with, as opposed to the overarching application itself.

Now, this isn’t an unsuccessful model; Will Wright used this same approach with The Sims to make the Sim characters seem intelligent and aware of their environment. Whenever you purchase an object and place it into the Sim’s environment, all of the coding, including scripting governing how the Sim should react and interact with it, comes along with the new toy. And so seems to be the case in Second Life. I wouldn’t know, because when I tried to interact with objects, my avatar would do his damnedest to reach out and touch them, but there was never any actual follow-through on activation.

So I don’t feel like I can give the experience a completely fair evaluation, but maybe my “saving grace” was that one object actually did work: the portal into Second Life proper.

It doesn’t look bad, and I believe this was an environment created by Linden Labs itself. But as I watched my virtual incarnation mechanically shuffle down the boardwalk towards the beach, I realized I couldn’t take it any longer. Linden Labs has a great business model… to a point. But it seems almost as if they’ve let the core design stagnate and relied solely on what outsiders wish to invest into building their property for them.

What could improve the experience? Well, for one, a more intuitive interface and beginning experience. Second, the default options available, and even the selection of free options in the tutorial area, leave much to be desired… An annual release of fan-chosen freebies that come as sort of a “new player starter kit”, including a much more fluidly animated set of avatars with some personality, would make leaps and bounds towards keeping user interest long enough to pass the most basic parts of the learning curve. And curve there is; nothing too deep if you’re not trying to create your own objects, but like I said, non-intuitive. When I first played World of Warcraft, I was able to move my pointer to something, see if it was friendly or hostile, and click to perform basic interaction (talk or attack); same with just about any modern virtual experience. Second Life just shows its age, and it has not aged well.

So as a marketing tool… With some updates to its presentation, it could really work. Right now, there’s appeal in that it’s free for anyone to access… But in the online world, being free just isn’t enough, and any experience that’s meant to engage its users needs to have engagement. Online marketers have a lot of content they want to push, and without any charge to me; great. But no more how beautifully or professionally presented it is, if there’s a big enough hurdle between me ignoring them or experiencing what they have to offer, then I’m just not going to go out of my way to jump it.

And for Second Life, that hurdle is itself. It’s supposed user freedom is a sinister illusion; you’re free to do whatever you want, as long as you shackle yourself to an otherwise virtual prison long enough to divine that interaction into virtual reality.

A brand extension is what you get when a brand tries to expand itself with products beyond what it’s known for. Want an example? Here.

Okay, that was a bit extreme, and arguably… insane. If the synthetic pheromones and such in a fragrance are supposed to arouse desire in a potential partner, wearing “I make $8.00 an hour on the grill” seems to be pretty low on the causes of coital inspiration… But I digress. (For those of you who disagree, there’s a reason you’re reading this through the mystique of the interwebs and we’re not actually having this conversation in person.)

So what makes a successful brand extension? Don’t ask me, I’m not an advertiser; but if there are any consistent trends in what I’ve seen, it seems that there are some common, glaring threads anyone should be able to pick up on.

Cleverness and novelty alone are not effective qualities: If the greatest strength of your brand extension can be summed up with the phrase “I see what you did there”, you’re doomed. Aside from the previous Burger King fragrance spray, Cheetos made lip balm. Just pause to consider; the cheese powder that clings to your fingers, except oily enough to smear on your lips for an extra taste treat.

If your brand has a stigma attached to it, you will not override that by pairing it with a necessity: If you’ve got a niche, take it for all you can, especially if what you do is only socially acceptable in mixed company only in the “we just don’t talk about it” way. Hooters tried to brand both airline flights and credit cards, two things that are necessities in a lot of everyday lives. I can only speculate to how this could actually work out, but hand in an expense report with a flight on Hooters Air and reimbursement requests for charges to your Hooters card, and get back to me on how it turns out for you.

Just because you can do it and you can connect the dots logically, doesn’t mean it is the correct course of action: Smith & Wesson make bikes and handcuffs. Ostensibly, these are for bike cops. The problem is, what is Smith & Wesson known for? Maybe it’s just me, but if you go out of your way to promote a brand that’s associated purely with firearms, I’m probably going to consider you to be actively promoting the use of your supported brand’s primary product. Police officers promoting guns just seems like it’s built to backfire.

So, what am I getting at? Good question.

Try to make a product that there is a practical need for: What’s one of the most successful extensions of recent years? The Tide to Go stain removal pen. As mentioned on BrandChannel.com, “Why didn’t they think of that before”? It’s a good question; it seems like an obvious tool for anyone who has business lunches or needs to constantly be presentable (i.e., most of the workforce). Of course, it’s not inherently that simple; Tide is very much a practical product, and making it portable is just the next step. (One could even say that the easiest brand extension is to take a product from a fixed location and make it portable.)

Sometimes, a brand just should not be extended: Hard reality to face, especially since these are the kinds of things that keep the marketing industry running… But unless you can make something that can easily connect to your existing brand, that has practical usage without banking on irony or any kind of sense of humor, you may need to stop and try again later.

Other reference:

Mental Floss list of Bizarre Brand Extensions

brandchannel.com list of Top Brand Extensions

Still haven’t recovered from whatever is plaguing me, which is a problem, because I haven’t even been able to set aside the time for this Second Life assignment, and it shouldn’t take more than an hour. But what do I do when I return to the place I live? Sleep. Okay, I’ll pause to put some laundry in some days, take some meds, fix a bottle of water to keep at wherever I’m crashing to make sure my throat doesn’t get sore enough to keep me from sleeping… But otherwise I sleep to try and heal whatever this is. For the most part, it works, except for how it doesn’t.

You see, I have something called sleep apnea. The short explanation for that is, I stop breathing when I sleep. Oh, there’s more to it, but that’s the most important part. The inverse to this is that I unconsciously clamor for breath when I do sleep; this is fine, except due to what the weather has done to the air recently, this rapid intake of cold, moist air promotes further sickness. It’s not as “severe” as what I have had recently, of course, but it’s actually more bothersome because while the other was just annoyance at the constant presence of congestion, this is the constant presence of slight congestion coupled with pain, something I frankly want to be conscious for as little as possible. Coupled with the fact that this can easily last the rest of the year into the beginning of the next… It’s hard to get motivated for a lot of things.

But, the show must go on. Just because I don’t have words in the real world because of all of this, doesn’t mean I have no voice here. Are you familiar with what a brand extension is? If not, you will be soon enough.

I’m afraid you’re going to find this week’s update to be sorely lacking, as we seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with our author. There was an infection earlier this week that created some driver issues, but fortunately we have managed to get him up and running for the time being by booting him into Safe Mode. Of course, this does mean that he is only capable of the most basic functionality while we tend to the infection at hand.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

The Management

Let me posit for you a scenario:

Imagine that your will were to suddenly travel backwards in time. Without warning, your consciousness dims out and resurfaces, and you’re standing before a crowd calling out for blood. While you’re initially not certain what’s happening, you soon gain a very contextual understanding of who you are, and what decision is before you.

You are Pontius Pilate, and it’s up to you to decide the fate of one Jesus of Nazareth. And while you have access and understanding of what is happening here, you are not actually Pontius Pilate; you know, even if it’s only through divine fiat, that you will not have to live through Pilate’s existence after this decision, and so the political and social ramifications of however you may decide, at least as far as Pilate’s life is concerned, aren’t your problems to face. No, for all intents and purposes, this moment is happening to you in a vacuum, and you will return to your body once the decision has been made. Whether it’s your existence as you recall it, of course, may well bear on your decision.