An over-abundance of what you love

A friend messaged me a little while ago and asked me to talk about over-saturation, specifically with TV shows.  At first, I didn't know what to say, but after the last week or so, I've been thinking about it enough that I have some thoughts.

First I have to explain the pre-internet way of marketing.  Before the internet, TV shows, movies, music...just about everything in the entertainment industry had a buffer zone of popularity that companies could react to.  If a TV show was becoming the new 'in' thing, there was a span of time where the early adopters started watching it to when the late majority began watching it and the early adopters were in full blown crazy about it mode.  This buffer zone was usually enough time for companies to hash out a plan in order to capitalize upon the popularity of whatever it was, deciding where toys, lunch boxes, etc etc would go.  By the time something became unpopular or the new 'in' thing was around, companies had plenty of time to rake in the money.


Then came the internet, or at least the internet as we know it now.  Because of the internet, that buffer zone has gone from several weeks or months to a matter of days, sometimes hours.  Take for instance Gangnam Style.  Putting aside the fact that without the internet it never would have become so popular in the US, or possibly anywhere other than South Korea, the video spread like wildfire in a matter of hours thanks to websites like Reddit, 4chan, Tumbler, Twitter, and Facebook, amongst others.  Within two or three days, the internet had parody videos, remixes, reposts, torrents, gifs, blogs, and so much more.  It wasn't until months later that a commercial tried to play on the popularity it gained, and by then, most people had either forgotten about it, or were bored with it.

And that's the problem and the benefit with the internet.  Extremely quick turn around.  Sometimes the content continues, and there is plenty of time to capitalize on it.  Other times, it's just a passing fad, and the energy should be placed somewhere else.  But because there is no buffer zone, companies now have to make that decision almost immediately.  It's why so many companies try to create viral ads for the internet.  If they succeed, they get even more free advertising with the remixes and the reposts and the parodies.  A great example of that is Old Spice Guy.

However, if they fail, they don't really lose anything they wouldn't have lost with just putting out a bad commercial on TV.  In fact, it's less risky because doing a viral ad via YouTube is cheaper in the long run.  You can't fault companies for saturating the market with something they can make money on.  It's why I always say, "The only way to get large companies to listen to you is to not buy from them."  Money is the only thing that speaks to companies.

But where does the over-saturation come in?  Well, let's take 'PQ's example of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. (yes...I'm talking about it again, but it's what he was worried about.)

MLP, regardless of what your opinion about it, is immensely popular.  There is countless fan music, art, animations, remixes, fanfiction, t-shirts, vinyl statues...just about everything. Unless you started working and releasing stuff back at the very beginning of the show's popularity (and producing good content), chances are you are going to have a rough time gaining any traction in the community.  The market is completely over-saturated with content, and because of that, even the die-hard fans are going to start losing interest because they've just been flooded with content.

Any market that becomes too popular can start losing people.  Contrary to popular belief, the first group you lose are the early adopters, also known by many as 'hipsters.'  The reason why you lose them is because they will quickly move on to the next thing that is going to be big, just so they can say they were in it first.  They will occasionally return, but once they have moved on, they aren't going to spend time or money on something old.

Next, you'll lose casual fans, the people that came in a bit late, but decided to stay for a while.  The only time they will come back is for nostalgia, or nothing better to do, and again they aren't going to spend time and money on it anymore.

Finally, you'll lose the late adopters, the people that showed up towards the end and burned through so much content to catch up.  They are really only staying around so long because they have so much to go through, and they don't have to wait as long to get it.  Everything is new to them.  But once they've seen it all, they will move on.

The only people that leaves you with is the die-hard fans.  Those people that have been loyal since day one, and have sworn an oath to remain a fan.  Usually, these are the people creating your extra content. They are also the people buying everything they can afford.  If a company keeps putting out product, they will keep snatching it up.  But alas, eventually they will move on too.

So what does one do about over-saturation?  Nothing.  If you are on the creating end of it, then there really is nothing you can do short of holding a meeting with every person on the planet and saying "We can only put out this much content per week amongst us all."  If you are on the absorbing end of over-saturation, the only thing you can do is just limit your intake.  Take it in moderation.  Don't let yourself be over flooded with content that you start losing interest in what you love.  But if you feel you should purpose your energy into something new, then do so.  If you come back to it, then you'll come back stronger.  I've been an Evangelion fan since 1997, but I've limited my intake of Evangelion in order to preserve my love of it.  There is plenty of content I've never seen, and most of it I probably don't want to.  But it's there should I ever need to get a fix for something that what I currently have doesn't fill.

So 'PQ' I hope that answers your question.  If anyone else has a topic they would like me to speak my mind on, send it to me.  I'll take it into consideration, and think about it for a while.  When I have a thought about it, I'll post it in a blog.

New Post

No...I did not forget to change the title.  Lately I've been thinking about how much excitement I get when someone I follow posts new content.  I follow several YouTubers of a wide range of fame, and I read quite a few webcomics that update at various intervals.  I get quite excited when one of them posts a new video or page for me to enjoy, and sometimes when I haven't seen anything new from them in a while, I get anxious, even sad that I haven't seen anything new from them.

I mainly started thinking about this because of being gone Sunday, and Nice Peter.  For those that don't know who he is, he's one of the driving minds behind Epic Rap Battles of History on YouTube.  What some people don't know is he also posts things like picture songs, and would usually post a video every Monday that was just him vlogging a bit and opening up his mail and showing what he got.  The Monday Show was actually the reason I subscribed to him.  I liked the picture songs, and the ERBs that came after I subscribed were a lot of fun to watch evolve.  But I really liked The Monday Show.  It was just a guy named Peter, talking with people that enjoyed his music, getting excited about the random things people would send him, and every week he would have something to say that always made me happy for the rest of week.  One week, he even talked about creating something, and that was the primary inspiration for this blog.  I watched that episode and said "Hmm...I think I should start a blog.  That would be fun, and it would give me something to look forward to updating each week."  I spent the next several months figuring out what I was going to talk about before I just decided on talking about whatever I was thinking about that week.

Then the Epic Rap Battles got big, and understandably Nice Peter began spending more and more of his time working on them.  Occasionally, he'd miss a week of The Monday Show, and would make them on Tuesday.  Then he started missing entire weeks.  Eventually for Season 2, he just stopped making them altogether.  As each week went on, I understood why he wasn't making the Monday Shows, and would go back to earlier ones in order to get a small burst of joy.  But eventually, I really wanted a new Monday Show.  Something where he would talk about something new, and we'd get to see what new crazy stuff he has, and hear him talk about something insignificant that inspired him to write a little song.  But just seeing him smile behind those yellow sunglasses cheered me up.

Finally, season two of ERB was over, and Nice Peter posted a video just saying that he was returning to making videos (and that he adopted a dog) for Mondays.  I was very excited.  And the next week, we got this.



I like it, much like I enjoy the rest of Nice Peter's songs...but I was hoping for a Monday Show.  Even if it was unedited, just recorded and uploaded, I would have liked to have seen one again.

And I wondered if anyone else felt this way.  When someone you subscribe to changes their upload schedule, or changes what they upload completely.  Do you wish they would bring back the old style of posts?  And do you get excited when someone you follow posts something new, or get sad if they don't post for a while?  Let me know in the comment below.

OCD

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  If you look around you on a daily basis, everyone you see has it to some degree.  The problem with it is most people use it as an excuse to either not do something they are supposed to, or as a way to coerce people into doing something they want.  There are plenty of people out there that have an actual disorder, a chemical or psychological imbalance that causes them to do things outside of what most would call normal (whether its repeating certain tasks a specific number of times, or washing their hands vigorously so many times a day that their hands are raw)

 

The problem is that people feel that OCD is just a term for anything they just want to see perfect.  So I'd like to set the record straight on this.  If you have ever said "This is really setting off my OCD." or "I'm OCDing about this right now.", you don't really have OCD.  Take a look back at those times, and truly ask yourself if you just didn't want to do something else and used what you were currently doing as an excuse.  Or perhaps you saw something doing something and you wanted it done a specific way, and used a disorder to try to get them to do it your way.

We've used OCD so much that it's almost become an irrelevant word, much like calling someone gay over the internet for doing...well anything you feel like insulting them on.  I've known a few people that actually were OCD.  The looks on their faces when you disrupt their routine in order to feel comfortable is actually saddening.  I've seen how angry or nervous they can get.  You learn to feel bad for it.

 

Because everyone really feels that OCD is apart of them though, we now need new levels of the term.  So to everyone that just uses the term, you are now a First Degree OCD.  What this means is you have things that irritate you, that you want to see perfect, and that you would rather do yourself in order to ensure that they are perfect, but if push comes to shove (or something much more entertaining or important comes up), you can forego the task for a while, even indefinitely.  You don't really have OCD, because it doesn't come up on a daily basis.  You don't have hard set routines you must follow or you break down and curl up into a little ball.  You just have things that irritate you.  That, or you just want to make a shelf at work look perfect so no one asks you to do anything else for a while.

Now to all those people who's OCD affects their daily lives, you are a Second Degree OCD.  And my heart goes out to you.  But let's give you something more impressive to call it so the rest of the world can have the now demeaned OCD.  How about Social Routine Perfectionism, or SRP?  I like the sound of that.  But I really do feel for you.  I had one friend that needed to do many of his daily tasks in fours, and originally we thought it was just a quirk until we opened the door on his third knock and he freaked.  And by freaked I mean his face turned to that of fear, and he almost froze completely.  We managed to calm him down by going outside and closing the door and talking with him and allowing him to knock his four times before going inside.  I really felt bad for him.

I'm not saying I'm above this though.  I've used the term OCD just as much as the next person.  But every time I do it, I realize the term has no meaning to it anymore.  And there are many other words that have the same effect, especially text acronyms.  Hearing people say "LOL" and "ROFL" out loud instead of laughing irks me for instance.  Why not just laugh?

What other terms do you think have been demeaned through overuse of it's unintended meaning?  I know there are a ton of them out there.

Also, no blog-post on Sunday.  I'll be in Southern California visiting family, and I'll be away from my computer until late Sunday night.  I'll be back next Thursday.  Thank you all for reading.  I've recently reached 700 page views, which is way more than I thought I'd get in only 4 months, so I'd really like to thank you all.

Idiocracy

There have been a lot of movies that have predicted a future of earth.  Some say we'll be a prosperous, highly advanced civilization with robots and self-driving flying cars and where the normal life expectancy is 250 years.  Others say we'll be destroyed by war caused by those robots becoming self aware, or aliens coming to Earth, or even just because we want to destroy each other.  The one I hope for it Star Trek's prediction, where we no longer need money to be happy, and instead are hungry for knowledge and work hard to better ourselves and those around us.  Where we become explorers, scientists, doctors, historians...all for the advancement of what we know of the universe.

However, I have a feeling the opposite will happen.  If you've never seen the movie Idiocracy, do yourself a favor and watch it.  It will make you laugh, but if you look too deep into it, it will make you want to learn everything you can about...well, everything.

The basic idea of the movie is this.  The most average guy in the military, and a regular run of the mill hooker, are frozen for an experiment and wake up several hundred years into the future.  Through a trend of intelligent minds not breeding enough children because they want to wait for the right time, while those of, to be kind, less than average intelligence breed like wild fire, the world has become a pit of dumb.  Even the most common knowledge ideas such as water making plants grow, has become something that is hard to convince people of.

It may be a bit extreme, but looking at every movie prediction of the future, this is the most likely.  No robot apocalypse, but instead an overpopulated world of morons living in their own filth and having the mental capacity of a four year old.  And this is coming from someone that considers himself an optimist.

I see it happening around us everyday.  I see mother's with 6 children, of various ages, all of whom are unruly little hellians and their mother does nothing about it.  Or seeing twitter feeds of teenagers and even college students who don't understand concepts like Leap Year or the phases of the moon.  I constantly see the laziness of people everywhere, who all figure that the world is owed to them and so they just do whatever they want and expect someone else to take care of it.  I see it in our government as they allow corporations to take over the legal system in order to fit their needs so they can make a profit.  I see it in our school systems where a person that can't read or write is able to pass high school.  The parents that don't teach their kids anything practical to survive in the world, yet are more than happy to teach them that dinosaurs and humans lived together less than 30,000 years ago.  The people that preach intolerance, conformity, and hate instead of helping people find their own niche in the world and loving all.  Even the people who get visibly angry with people who are just trying to do their job, but feel they need to explode in rage about a mistake that they made.

That image sums it all up for me.  Some people say that bad things happen for a reason, but there is a steady decline of intelligence in the world.  And those that dedicate their lives to being as smart as they can about a subject are being dwindled out slowly.  We live in a world where money and appearance is the only thing that matters, rather than happiness, intelligence, and togetherness.

Timing

A while ago I talked about the past and how memories from it creep up on you.  Today I'd like to talk about the present.  The events that are currently in the process of happening, and in a way, how they reflect the past.

Back in high school, I worked at a local Walgreens.  It was my second job (my first was working at a pizzeria, which I quit as soon as I got the Walgreens job) and I basically worked there as a cashier and associate for a year and a half.  It was pretty easy work.  Towards the end of my high school years, I had learned just about everything about the operations of the store other than pharmacy, which I couldn't learn because I was under the age of eighteen.  However, I had decided to join the Navy, so I could earn money for college, see the world, and experience something new.

But there was another option.  My manager asked me one day if I wanted to become an assistant manager after I graduated.  She wanted to put me on the track to move upwards in the company.  I declined because of the military I had already signed up for.  Fast forward to right now....

As I've said, I currently work at a liquor store.  It doesn't pay enough to live on, so I've been looking for another job, something full time.  About a month ago, I started taking part in a course that would help align me with a sales job that would be full time and could get me into a position where I could once again be self-sufficient.  However, at the liquor store, we've had a problem with one of the head clerks. Every employee, and even some of the customers, have noticed and expressed complaints that he has been drinking on the job.  Usually, he'll be downing at least a full bottle of wine, sometimes two or three in a five to eight hour shift.  If he doesn't drink, we've noticed he gets the shakes.  To add to this, he has been stealing these bottles of wine from the store itself if he can't seem to get his hands on an opened return bottle, or bottles from the tastings from Saturdays.

Honestly, I don't see him working there for much longer, especially after the store manager told me that the issue was out of his hands now, implying that it had gone to higher ups.  One of the associates who works there was also apparently talking with him about what would happen.  This associate told our manager he doesn't want to talk over as head clerk, and said that the position should be given to me if possible, to which the manager said "I just might..."

This leaves me with a dilemma.  One one hand, I could get a job that I don't know, but has the possibility of creating large annual incomes for myself.  On the other, I have a job I know very well, and if I could get enough hours at the right pay, I could easily live on my own again.  And both have managed to present themselves at the same time.

The timing on this couldn't be worse.  If instead, the liquor store had offered me the job a while back before I had even joined this program, I would have taken it in a heart beat.  It still hasn't been offered to me, so I'm keeping on as I have been.

These timing issues seem to happen to me a lot.  Whenever I have tons of free time, I have nothing to do.  Whenever I get something to do, I suddenly don't have nearly as much time, sometimes even so little I have to drop out of the project.  But it's how the world works.

What I'd like to leave you with is that whenever you are faced with timing issues like these, especially when making the decision can change your future, take the time to actually weight the pros and cons.  Play devil's advocate for both sides.  Try to convince yourself not to take one, then convince yourself not to take the other.  See which side wins.  I'm currently leaning hard towards a new job, but if I'm offered the job in time, and the questions I have about it are to my liking, I may lean back and stick with my current one.  But I have a list to convince me both ways.  We'll see which way I jump.

Customer Service People

Though I've been working various customer service jobs since the day I decided to join the work force, I have to say, I hate working customer service jobs.  There are many, MANY reasons for that, but unfortunately, even though in the back of my head I'm screaming at people, I still seem to be good at it. It's not that the work is grueling, and in fact, on most days, it's quite easy.  It's the various people you have to deal with in customer service that make the days go like hell.

Because I like listing things though, I thought about it for a while and decided to write a nice little list of the people you will have to deal with in customer service, and why you will hate them.

1: The talker - This customer just likes to talk.  Whether they are lonely or just have a lot to say they insist on taking up your time with anecdotes about themselves and talking about current events all day long.  If you try to break it off with them so you can do something else, they follow you or hang around until it looks like you are doing nothing and then they talk with you some more, essentially preventing you from doing what you need to do.  There are only two things that stop them.  One is them leaving, and two is being rude towards them.  Since you don't want to do the latter, you end up waiting for the former.

2: The cheapskate - He wants $100 stuff, but he want's to spend $5.  This person, regardless of what you attempt to do, will always buy only the cheapest thing you can find to suit his/her needs, even when you tell them they will be in every week purchasing the exact same thing over and over again, and if they'd just spend a little more, they'd get something that lasts much longer and would save them money.

3: The know-it-all - This person knows everything about everything you sell (at least they think they do) and must correct everything you say about something.  Sometimes they'll even rub it in your face saying that they know more than you so you couldn't possibly help them with what they are searching for.

4: The unconsolable - They walk in angry, cause a scene, and even after hearing their situation and knowing what happened, and trying to explain things calmly, they still want to yell and rant until they get their way.

5: The stranger - Usually a tourist or someone that just doesn't know how to speak your language, they are really hard to understand, if at all, even when they talk slowly.  Yet, you have to try to help them as much as possible, and you feel really bad when communications break down to a point where you just start trying to get rid of them by telling them you don't have something.

6: The man on the mission - He'll walk in, head straight for what he gets every week, and walks out.  Never talking, never changing his routine.  You can't sell him anything, or show him a new item that came in that he might be interested in.  In fact, you can't show him anything.  And if he has to wait in line for check out, expect him to start letting everyone know that his time is valuable.

7: The big spender - This person comes in and basically wants everything from all around the store.  This person isn't so bad, and is the person you kind of want to come in every so often, especially if you earn commission.  They want the most expensive items, and they want a lot of it.  You usually have to take the time to go the extra mile just to ensure that they feel like a VIP, but at least you made an impressive sale.  I only mention this person to mention....

8: The fake spender - This person wants to be The Big Spender, but they don't have that kind of money.  But they'll make you go through all of the motions, get all the nice items, and eventually bring them up to the register, only to find out they don't have a valid card, or no cash, or worse yet, they aren't legally allowed to purchase the items.  Then they just leave, and you are left with a cart full of items to put back away, and about an hour or two of your shift completely wasted by one person.

9: The looky-loo - They walk in, and look through the entire store for an hour, sometimes more.  They never purchase anything, and sometimes will break something while they are there.  The only redeeming quality about them is they don't take up your time talking to you about nothing.

10: The closing staller - This person comes in with less than 5 minutes left before you lock the doors.  With they way they were running in, you'd think they were going to be in and out, but nope.  Instead they walk around looking at everything, grabbing little things here and there.  Fifteen to twenty minutes later, they finally decide they are done and you can finally close.  It's really aggravating on slow days when the store is already front and faced, everything is stocked, and the last till in the registers should only take five minutes to count, and they come in and purchase a bunch of stuff, and pay in cash.  One person just forced you to be there for another twenty minutes AFTER they leave.

11: The dog walker - Oh look...they have a dog (or cat, or lizard, or ferret, or whatever else), and they decide that that dog needs to go into every store with them.  Never mind that there is food to contaminate and breakables around just waiting for a dog tail to smack them.  Nope, it's just a cute doggy.  Next time I see a dog, or any other pet, in a grocery store though, I'm lighting up a cigarette in the store.

12: The mother/father - Parents...I completely respect what you guys do, especially with the little ones.  But if you have little ones that like to run around, scream, touch everything, and are generally hard to handle, at least allow someone working there to assist you so you can concentrate on controlling your little hellians.

13: The stoner - As soon as they walk in, you can smell it.  The definite aroma of marijuana.  It could be B.O., but as you look at them you can see the blood shot eyes and they are kind of giggly.  The scent is strong enough you are getting a contact high from it.  Do us all a favor.  Either smoke after you get what you need, or at least stand outside and air out a bit.

14: The moron - They are looking for something.  They don't know what, but they know what the label looks like.  Unfortunately, that label is the most generic label in the world, and they don't even describe it well enough to narrow it down to one thing.  They don't know the name of the product, or even what to call it.  After a minute of trying to figure it out, they start questioning whether it was a real item or if they just dreamed it.

15: The price comparator - Insists on telling everyone that works in the store about other stores selling the same item for cheaper.  If you suggest that he tells corporate (the people that actually can do something about it), he just shrugs like he doesn't care.  You wonder why he doesn't just go to that store, but week after week he's back and he has new items to complain about the price to you about.

16: The eternal adder - They come up to the register all ready to go...oh wait...they want to get one more thing.  Well, you've already started the transaction and no one is in line, you'll just wait.  Next thing you know, they've added twenty items and now there are seven people in line waiting on this person to finish up.  Every time you are about to try and just cancel it, he comes back up, looking like he wants to close out.

17: The rearranger -  They come in and grab something, but then they see something else and put their original item someplace it doesn't belong.  Then it happens again.  And again.  Next thing you know there are items all over the store.

18: The phone caller - They walk in and are on their cell phone, talking about who the hell cares.  They never get off the phone though, the entire time they are in the store, even when they check out.  You can't say anything to them to loud for fear of them getting offended that you interrupted their call.  Forewarning, if you come to my store and talk on your cell phone while I ring you up, I don't care what you think.  I will talk loud, fast and I won't repeat myself.  You want to be rude to me, so I'll be rude right back.  Finish your call outside before you shop, or at the very least finish it before you check out.  You can always just say "I'm about to check out.  I'll call you back in 10 minutes."

19: The thief - They come in many forms, shapes, sizes, and colors, but you still know them when the come in.  Sometimes they are good and you don't know if they took something.  Others are terrible at it and you just groan, especially if your store has a policy that you can't do anything about it for one reason or another.

20: The questioner - They have questions.  Lots of questions.  Questions about EVERYTHING.  Most of the stuff they ask questions on they aren't even going to buy.  After a while of explaining so many things to them, you start realizing it and just want to get away where your efforts will be more profitable.  Yet, they always have one more question.  Always one more.

Oh nice...I made an even twenty of them.  It's almost like I planned that. >:)

Most of these, people can't change.  It's part of who that person is.  I know myself I'm a number 1 and 6, with sometimes a number 9.  Being anything on this doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad customer, just annoying after a long day.  So which ones do you see yourself as?

E-Rage and E-Security

This past Monday, there was a bombing at the Boston Marathon.  The first thing I would like to do is express my deepest sympathies to those that were injured or the families of those that were lost.

The second thing I would like to do is say to all the conspiracy theorists and racists out there making horrendous comments about it, shut up.  You don't know anything about who did this, just as much as I don't.  Hell, the government doesn't know who did this yet.  You're making claims that are racist and asinine.  These are some of my favorites.

Congratulations Katie...your fear of the Muslim people has reached a peak.

Jayce...if it was North Korea, they would have probably done something a bit larger than this.

Sure Holden, except let me make one change.  How about instead we send all the racist assholes and people who insist on being intolerant dumb fucks to an island and then maybe we could make even larger improvements to the American way.

Oh Mrs. Hunman.  I'm sure that the sexual orientation of individuals with the Boston area is the reason why this happened.  I mean, the Boston Marathon isn't a gay pride thing, and I'm sure the 8-year old boy that died deserved it, but that's besides the point.

When 9/11 happened, we also knew exactly who it was that attacked us.  Obama is doing what he can right now with the information he has.  Also, I'm sure a white boy like you is really a hardcore thug drinking that Chocovine wine.

The point is, why do so many people express their rage via twitter before they know anything definitive?  And why do so many people fear it's necessary to post their racist comments when, as I've said before, once it's on the internet it never leaves.  It's because they obviously aren't thinking.  Think people.  Think.  These were just a few of the ones I liked...there are countless others.

Because of the Boston Bombing, there was another issue that became overshadowed.  Our fantastic government, headed by men and women that know little to nothing about the internet, are attempting to pass another internet security measure that would infringe upon our rights.  Some of the key notes are:

It lets the government spy on you without a warrant.

In other words, the government can simple keep tabs on everything and anything you do on the internet, regardless of your intentions.  So everyone better stop looking at all that porn, looking up how to hack their phones or download anything illegally even for the purposes of education.  Big Brother is watching.

It makes it so you can’t even find out about it after the fact. 

Even if you want to know if the government is watching you, you can't until they've pretty much found out what they want to know.  

It makes it so companies can’t be sued when they do illegal things with your data.

Y'know how so many companies, especially retail, have little cards that you fill out so you can get discounts? Well, this will allow them to pass that info onto anyone.  ANYONE!  They could give it to Westboro Baptist, or Neo-Nazi groups.  They could plaster it on their website, or on other websites.  And they can't be sued.  While this is the extreme case, its still possible.

It allows corporations to cyber-attack each other and individuals outside of the law. 

Another extreme case, but y'know all that music, all those movies, all those programs you downloaded over the years without paying for it?  This would allow companies to basically attack your computer to find it all.

It makes every privacy policy on the web a moot point, and violates the 4th amendment.

Self explanatory.

When we say that your information can be shared with “The Government” it’s not hyperbole. Federal Agencies from the Fish & Wildlife Service to Amtrak to the NSA could access your data. 

Oh good...because I love fishing so much and I never use my car to go anywhere.

The basic idea of it is that net-neutrality, internet privacy, and freedom of knowledge would be at risk.  I'm not saying that everyone that illegally downloads anything is in the right or wrong, there is some truth the matter of having the freedom to use a program for nothing more than learning.  I use programs such as Maya, Photoshop, and Final Cut, all of which I legally own.  However, I use ROMS for certain games, and technically that would be theft.  They are for games that are no longer available from the Genesis and SNES days, and most of the games I play I owned at some point.  So why shouldn't I be allowed to play them for free now?  I already shelled out my money for them years ago.  I touched on this when I wrote my On Console Design post.

This is actually a scary thing.  Bloggers, vloggers, anyone with an opinion out there would be easily targeted for having a voice of any kind.  I've kept my real name on this blog mainly because I have nothing to hide from the government, so if they want to watch me, they can go right ahead.  No skin off my nose.  But I also know my rights.  However, should this pass, I can foresee a downslide of other laws on the horizon, up to and including being able to arrest people for talking smack about anyone in the government, or even so much as making a passing joke.  Freedoms could be lost.

To read more about the CISPA bill, you can go here.  And if you want to know who to contact about this, go here.

Fears

Too scared to look...too scared not too.

Whether you are five or fifty, everyone has something they are afraid of.  Sometimes they are completely justified, and other times they are totally irrational.  And sometimes they are just downright funny (I know a guy that at first looks is one of the toughest guys you'll ever see, and then you find out he's afraid of butterflies...as in freaks out and screams like a girl scared).

The thing about fears is how you act upon them, and whether you let them control your life or if you use those fears to drive you.  I have three fears that I can honestly say affect me daily.  The first is a fear of my mother, and not in that I'm afraid of what she'll do to me daily.  It's an underlying fear that at some point, I may do something that will make her lose all faith in me.  It's more of a fear of making her disappointed in me.  I've had that fear for a long time, and it has allowed me to separate myself from certain decisions and re-evaluate them before locking in what I'm going to do.  Sometimes, I've made the wrong decision and I have disappointed her.  Luckily, nothing I have done has permanently hampered me in her eye.  But even so, those times when I have disappointed her, I've done everything in my power to rectify the situation and improve myself so that it never happens again.

If I fully lived in the fear that I'd never be remembered, this is what I'd be doing right now.

The second is a fear of being forgotten.  It stems from my dream of one day creating something, whether it's a game, or a TV show, or a movie, or something where everyone for a long time enjoys it.  Whether I get rich off of it is besides the point, but I want to have something that years down the line, long after I'm gone, people will still be able to look back on it and will remember my name along with it.  The fear comes from never reaching that.  Becoming just another statistical death amongst the masses where aside from those that physically knew me, no one will ever know who I am.  I would like to believe that this blog might eventually reach that status, and I hope I'm alive when it reaches there.  Until then, I continue to attempt to create something that will be remembered and cherished.

I am never going to live in Australia...EVER.

The third is my irrational fear.  Spiders.  Eight-legged, ugly little insect eating spiders.  Even from the smallest little house spider to the big tarantulas to those Australian spiders and Camel spiders.  I take precautions within my house to ensure that no spiders enter at least my room.  I have plug-ins that generate sound through the walls to create a barrier and I spray the baseboards and windows and doors every month or so.  Occasionally, one finds a gap and breaks through.  When that happens, I'm so afraid of them that I have to use oversized hard cover books or spray them from a distance to kill them.  If I see one and don't manage to kill it, I'm paranoid for hours, sometimes days, of what it's doing in the places I can't see.  Is it plotting to crawl all over me in my sleep?  Is it going to set up a nice little home and watch me with it's eight eyes as I dream?  *shudders* I'm going to stop there....I'm creeping myself out.

I'm just glad my father has never heard of Slenderman

I look at my father though, and the only fear I've seen him have is ghosts and stuff.  He doesn't like hearing horror stories or watching scary movies, he doesn't like people talking about ghosts or possessions or exorcisms around him, and he definitely doesn't like to know that my great grandmother sometimes comes to visit us, even though she's been dead for more than ten years now.  So we just don't expose him to it.  

My mother's worst nightmare.

My mother on the other hand, she's afraid of some funny stuff.  Midgets, clowns, driving over bridges, handling raw chicken...we tease her about it all the time.

The point I'm trying to make is how we handle fears for our day to day life.  Some people use fear to motivate them to be better, while others let fears consume them into a hardcore preventative state.  Look at those afraid of germs.  Some just make sure they wash their hands well and often, carry around some anti-germ lotions, and generally take care to monitor what they are touching and eating from.  Others on the other hand will lock themselves into a hermetically sealed home, only leaving if they absolutely need to.  They wash constantly, and even small little specks of dust or dirt will drive them absolutely crazy.  

This guy just overcame his fear of being a silhouette.

The first step to living with your fear is admitting you have it.  The second is confronting it.  My first two fears live with me constantly, and I work hard to try to keep them at bay without letting them interfere with my life.  The third one I've been attempting to get better at.  I'm no longer afraid of paper spiders, and smaller spiders I can at least approach for the kill with a paper towel or toilet paper.  Eventually I would like to get over the fear enough that I can be in the same house as someone with a pet tarantula without constantly looking over my shoulder to see if it has escaped. (I did go to a guy's house once that had a pet tarantula that he didn't tell me about.  As soon as I saw it, I left despite his assurance that it can't escape.)  I'll never hold a spider, that I'm sure of.  But it would be nice to not be paranoid about every spider I see.

So what are your fears?  How do you prevent them from taking over your life?  Or do they, and what do you do to keep your self from going into a panic over them?

Respect

For the last two years, I've been living with my parents (whom I affectionately call 'the 'rents'), and for the most part it's been okay.  It took me a while to find a job, and when I did it was just part time working at a liquor store, and after two years I finally have a chance to get something full-time that I can move out on my own again on.  I do what I can to help out, whether it's vacuuming, or the dishes, or even washing the cars if they want me to.  I'm not perfect, but I try real hard to do what I can to help out.  And I do it out of respect for them helping through a tough time.

About seven months ago though, my aunt hit near rock bottom.  After quite a while of having problems with money (which my dad as well as other family members helped her with), she was in danger of being kicked to the curb.  My dad was nice enough to say she could move in with us for a while until she got back on her feet, something we were also going to help her with.

At that time, I didn't know the extent of the damage, but with her on the cusp of being force out of here, I now know every detail.  For years, she has been borrowing money from family, never even attempting to pay them back.  While living with us, she has spent more time going back to her husband (who is a drunk and has even attacked their sons before) and hanging out with her friends than with her 18 year old son in high school who is living with us as well.  She doesn't do anything to help out around the house, and shows no sign of gratitude towards my parents.  This fifty year old woman basically has the mentality of an angst ridden teenager when it comes to respect.  Just this week, she spent ten days being with her friends, while the son living with us was under our care during his spring break.  She ended up coming home at 9pm on Sunday, said a quick "Hello." and then ran up to her room and hid.  She never checked to see what was going on this week, or even attempted to come home and take care of her own son.  My mother ended up doing his laundry, on top of the task of making sure that he ate.  My aunt has never taught him how to do anything to fend for himself, and in my opinion has set him up to basically to fail for the rest of his life.  Total, she owes my father somewhere in the vicinity of 8-12 thousand dollars, and he's already said that he doesn't ever expect to get it back.

Her basic routine during the week is to wake up, drive her son to school, go to work, and come home at around 10 or 11pm.  Given what she does, I don't fault her for that much, though my mother is pissed that she can't seem to wash a coffee mug after she's done using it.  On weekends, she remains with her husband and friends, avoiding contact until Sunday when she arrives either right before dinner or right after dinner.  She eats, then hides.

There are ton of little things as well.  She uses my bathroom, and when I wake up in the morning, I find that she's used the toilet and hasn't flushed.  Her room is so cluttered it makes my room look pristine (I don't keep the tidiest of rooms).  She never offers to do the dishes, and she never tries to even do her son's laundry for school.  On the one or two nights in which she's been home and my parents were away that weekend, instead of actually preparing something decent for a meal, she's made hamburger helper.  Her one night home with her son, and she makes something a bachelor makes when he's eating alone.  And that's just here.

Over the years, apparently she's never pushed her children to be better, so the son living with us is in some of the easiest classes I've ever heard of, despite him being quite intelligent.  Her apartment, the one time I've been over there, made Chernobyl look livable.  She's avoided taxes several times, which is where some of her money troubles came in, and at family functions she does nothing but eat and socialize, never trying to even lift a finger to help with anything.  The first family function I did with that side of the family, I was asking if there was anything I could do to help, and after dinner I helped with the dishes, something I learned to do from a very young age.

I tell you all this because you should respect people, especially if they are trying to help you out.  I can tell you right now that after this entire incident, she's burned a major bridge between not only this house, but the rest of the family.  I'd be surprised if she has another bridge to even cross should she fail at being a human being again.

But yeah...respect people.  Help them out, and strengthen that bridge so that if something happens later on, you have somewhere to go to for help yourself.  

Employers and Employees

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  No one likes to work.  Especially when that work involves interacting with irate or even ignorant people, back breaking heavy lifting, and standing on your feet for hours on end for minimum wage.  People like money though, so some people get a job to earn it.  Others find ways to get money just to sit on their asses, but many people are willing and able to do an honest days work for a paycheck.

I've worked several jobs, primarily in retail and sales.  Before I take any job, I usually determine whether the amount I'm being paid justifies the work I'll be doing.  Nine dollars an hour?  Yeah, I'm willing to work four hour shifts dealing with customers and lifting boxes to stock shelves.  Not hard, and to some extent, I enjoy it.

What I don't enjoy is doing that stuff while other people, who are paid exactly the same as I am, get to stand around and gossip WHILE I'm doing that work.  I'm a self-motivated worker.  I prefer to at least make it look like I'm busy doing something while I get paid, and nine out of ten times I actually am trying to get stuff done because I take pride in doing something to justify my paycheck.  In other words, I work hard for the money.  Yet, most of the people I work with don't.  Unless they are confronted with a task directly, they will simply stand around, talking about non-work related topics, or playing on their phone or reading a book in clear view of customers.  To me, that's not only highly unprofessional, it's also an insult to those that would be happy to take their job. (To those of you that are unemployed and seeking work, that would be you.)

Worse yet, those who are managers seem to do nothing about it.  They walk by, say nothing, and don't even comment on their lack of activity, even when it's been going on for over an hour.  So, because of this, I would like to declare a list of things to remember for both employers and employees.  And yes, I have seen all of these happen at the various places I've worked at.

Employees

1: You are there to work.  Do something.  Anything.  Help a customer, stock a shelf, file some paper work...whatever your job entails, do it.  Everything done for the day?  Get ahead.  Do stuff that would normally be done tomorrow.  Can't find anything to do?  Ask your boss if there is anything you can take off their hands.  Not only does this show that you are a hard worker, thus if they need to get rid of someone you are less likely to be let go, but it also makes time go by faster.

2: Phones, books, games, and anything else non-work related...don't use them at work.  Checking the time on your phone is one thing, but you should not be on Facebook or playing a game while working. Do it on your break.  Do it when you get home.  But when you are on the clock, work.  You aren't getting paid to play (unless you are a QA game tester...then I guess you are, but it's towards a purpose)

3: If you have clients or customers, don't talk about them or other clients/customers around them.  It's unprofessional.  Period.  Same goes for bad mouthing your co-workers in front of them.

4: Speak English (or if you are in another country, whatever the native language of that country is) to your co-workers during business hours.  Customers don't want to hear you yammering on in another language for two reasons:  One, if you start breaking Rule 3, it's even more of an insult that you thought you could hide it by speaking in a foreign tongue and two, it's unprofessional towards your fellow coworkers who may not speak the language.  Also, eventually, you are going to say something out of line that a customer or coworker is going to know, and they are going to call you on it.

5: Whatever your dress code is for work, you should be two steps above it at all times.  Many of the places I've worked had a dress code of "uniform shirt and khaki pants, belt and black shoes."  That does not mean a wrinkled right out of the laundry shirt that you keep untucked, khaki colored pants that have 20 pockets on them, a belt with flames on it, and black boots with ten straps on them going up to your knees.  Professionalism people...remember it.

Employers

1: Chain of command.  The people you employ are there to work for you.  If they are not working on something, then give them something to work on.  You don't have to micro manage them, but whenever you see an associate standing around doing nothing for 10 minutes, then tell them to do something.  If you are the boss of the place, give the department heads a list of tasks you would like done daily.  And let your associates know that they can express comments and concerns through this chain of command.  A low level employee should not be contacting a CEO directly.

2: Delegate.  You hire underlings for a reason.  They are there to do the menial tasks while you take care of the higher priority ones.  Store managers?  You should be worrying about ordering stock, money, and walking through the store to see what needs to get done so the store is as perfect as it can get.  The associates should be the ones doing things like stocking, cleaning, and your go-to guys should be doing things like resetting sections.

3: Reward.  Every job has employees that skate by doing bare minimum and others that work hard every day.  Let the latter know that their work is appreciated.  Tell them "Hey, I appreciate all this work you do." every so often.  If you can, give them something small.  Gift cards, free product, a paid day off...something that shows them that their hard work is not for nothing.  If you make it public, then the slackers might start working harder to try to earn it.  And don't just give it to a random person just so one person isn't always winning it.  If one guy is always winning, give it to number two once in a while, or even number three if those two guys are always at the top.  If you give it to the worst person in the place, then the reward becomes meaningless.

4: Reprimand.  Those people that do nearly nothing? Reprimand them.  Give them verbal or written reprimands saying that they need to work harder.  Evaluations don't come often enough to really make an impact.  Usually those people that skate by need to have someone on their ass pushing them.  And if they don't get it after a while, then those written reprimands will prevent you from being sued when you fire them.

5: Communicate.  Talk to those guys below you.  Tell your section leaders or your head clerks or your department heads what is going on.  The best boss I ever had carried a notepad on him at all times, and he wrote down everything.  Twice daily he would get all the senior staff together and tell them everything and what he wanted to be done about it.  The senior staff would then pass whatever was necessary along to us at the low level and things got done.  In fact, the store was almost always perfect because of that.

6: Train.  Don't assume that because someone does something once they will remember it every time from then on.  And if someone has never done something before, don't just take over for them.  Make a note to train them on it.  It doesn't need to be extravagant training, but quick training on something every so often is great for a refresher.

7: Promote.  Take note of who are your best workers.  Anytime an opportunity comes up for promotion, ask them if they want it.  Put in a good word for them, and even push to get them promoted.  That's why they work hard.  They want to advance.  If nothing is coming up for a while, give them a leg up.  Train them on how to do higher level stuff.  Give them the opportunity to do it themselves under supervision once in a while.  This way when they do get promoted, they can hit the ground running.

*****

So, to all the lower employees out there, work hard.  Try to work harder than anyone else where you work.  And if everyone is just slacking off, raise the complaint to your boss.  If your boss doesn't care whether you slack off or work hard, continue to work hard but look for a job where your work will be appreciated.

And to employers out there, you should only want the best workers.  No body is perfect, but when you know someone is working hard and trying to make something for themselves, help them along.  Help them move forward.  It's how you gain loyal workers who will advance your business ten-fold.  And cut off your dead weight, because it's not the pay thats going to make your good employees leave.  It's your good employees noticing that their work isn't going to get them far with your company.

People of the mall.

I went to the mall a couple of days ago, and wandered around with some acquaintances of mine.  Nothing really significant happened, except one little thing that got me thinking.

There...I've met my pony quota for this blog.

One of the guys in our group noticed a couple of people outside of our group laughing at us, and also a girl outside of our group taking a picture of us.

Perhaps I should explain why.  If you haven't gathered so far from previous blog posts, I'm a brony.  For those not in the know, it's a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  Whether you agree with my choice to watch it or not, that's your prerogative  and I don't feel like going too deep into it in this post.  The people I was hanging around with, also bronies, and from the general attire we all were wearing that day, it was pretty easy to tell that we were a herd of bronies.  (Yeah...I made that pun.)

Anyways, after that guy pointed it out, I went on high alert for further incidents of it.  While there were the occasional stares at us as we walked by, I rarely noticed any laughing or pointing, which was good. Some people actually smiled at us with a genuine greeting.  I was happy to see that there were not too many people out there that wanted to start something.

I'm all of these...and more.  A lot more

And by start something, I have to bring up a few other situations that have happened in my life.  Along with being a brony, I'm a raging geek, nerd, otaku...I'm quirky in many ways.  I can't really explain every way, but understand that I have more than one thing out there that makes me smile uncontrollably, and quite a few eccentricities in the way I act.  This has in the past, caused more than one problem, most notably with confrontation.  I've had a few times where certain people have seen my overly happy demeanor as a sign that I'm a pushover, or even a fun little (well, not really little) target for attempts of bullying and humiliation.

This was what I was mainly afraid of as we continued through the mall.  That some teenager or young adult was going to see a group of obvious geeks and attempt to take advantage of the situation to either harass or even physically test us.  And I wasn't going to have it.

I've been in a few fights that started with this same look.

People know I'm not one to take any form of harassment lightly, usually getting quite angry and even physical myself.  It's not that I want to fight, but I learned at a younger age that running from a problem doesn't solve it, and can usually bring that problem back.  I prefer to confront any and all problems head on.  I may not win, but I will show that I'm willing to give that problem a run for it's money and make it second guess itself next time it wants to try something.

So for the next couple of hours, I constantly was watching for any sign of trouble that may be heading our way.  Luckily, no incidents.  The herd was oblivious to my watch standing, and we ended up having a great time.

But those people...those couple of people that made my one friend uncomfortable even for just a moment...especially the girl that took our picture...they are the kinds of people that need to understand something.

The reason why we have so many conflicts in life is because of people not allowing other people to be themselves.  Our group wasn't harming anyone.  We were just roaming the mall enjoying the day and each other's company.  We weren't blaring music, singing loudly all over the mall.  We weren't dancing like crazed idiots.  We were walking, and had our attire been different, you never would have known we were bronies.  But because they knew that fact, suddenly we were a focal point for ridicule.

And that's why I don't go to the mall very often if I can avoid it.  Yup...that's the point of this rant.  Malls suck.  Yay for a point.  Oh, and a question.  Have you ever noticed someone ridiculing you behind your back because of something you were/are that's different from what some would call 'normal'?  What did you do about it?  Run or fight?  I like hearing those kinds of stories.

Also, I'm thinking about starting another page.  This one would not be updated nearly as regularly, but it would be a more idea driven blog.  Someplace where I can upload pictures I've done, lyrical work, animations, etc etc.  I don't know how often it would be, and there is going to be a LOT of random crap most people aren't going to understand.  But if there is an interest, I'll start it up.

Reading Up

A couple of days ago, I had a discussion with a friend of mine.  He wants to be a writer, and received a harsh review on something he wrote, and was feeling a bit down.  So, being the guy that I am, I wanted to help him.  I read the review and while the guy put it in a pretty blunt and almost rude way, overall everything he said was correct.  His story has bad pacing, his sentence structure and punctuation wasn't great, and the way that he attempted to create flow was more confusing than anything.  The basic gist of it was, it wasn't engaging.

So I asked him, what writers he liked and how much he read.  He named a couple of huge authors like J.K. Rolling and Stephen King, and a few other long-since dead authors, but then he told me something that told me his entire problem in one sentence.  He doesn't read all that much.

I don't know any writer out there that doesn't read.  And they read a lot.  It pretty much fills up the rest of their time when they either aren't writing, sleeping, or doing their job.  And even during the last one, sometimes they are reading short stories or poetry whenever they can.  It's like a musician that doesn't listen to music, or an artist that doesn't look at other artist's artwork.  It's gaining a frame of reference, and expanding your knowledge of your craft.  As an artist myself, I probably look at images and speed paint videos at least 4-6 hours a week.  And it's not just looking at them, going "Hey, that looks cool." and then clicking to the next one.  I study everything about it.  Their line work, their shading techniques, their framing of the composition, the color choices they made.  I find every little detail and analyse it.  Then several times, I've attempted to recreate it using my own techniques, or if I can't, trying to figure out the technique they used.  Sometimes I find things I never knew existed, or a new way of doing something that not only looks better, but save me time.

The same thing goes for musicians and composers.  The ones I know constantly have music playing if they aren't working on something themselves.  Sometimes it's just for pleasure, but other times, especially with a new song they've never heard before, they are listening to every detail, every pitch of every instrument.  Where they are accentuating certain parts, and where they are breaking things down. How they pace their song, and how they leveled each instrument so not one part is overbearing.

Sounds like a lot of work, right?  Well, if you want to be good at anything that is part of it.  Let's go into something less creative.  Mechanical Engineering for example.  Working just by yourself, you may figure out how to repair an engine eventually.  But if you watch someone else do it that already knows, you'll be able to do it much faster.  If you watch several people do it, and put their techniques together, then you might be able to find an even better way than all of them.  Getting into the engine, you might start studying how each piece works and it's relationship to every other piece, and possibly figure out ways to improve upon it.

Or how about salesmen.  Even the greatest salesman in the world can learn something from another salesman.  How to interact with people, or certain words to use in place of other words to make something sound fancier and more appealing.  Even mannerisms, fluctuations in volume and speaking patterns, how to tell jokes and anecdotes...they all come into play and learning from other salesmen can improve your own style.

A book I think everyone should read is Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. In it he explains that it takes 10,000 hours of practice in order to truly perfect anything, which equates to roughly 3 hours a day for 10 years.  Now, that can be accelerated by practicing more per day, so say 6 hours a day for 5 years, or 10 hours a day for three and a half...something like that.  But it's the hands down practicing, and good practicing, for 10,000 hours that's important.

Studying is part of practicing.  I don't claim mastery over anything (I wish I could though) but the things I am really good at I probably have about 4000-5000 hours doing, and much of that was studying.  One thing I'm really good at doing is talking about Evangelion, and anime done by Studio Gainex.  I have literally studied that anime, watching it so many times through, reading up on theories and discussing little nuances of the series and movies.  The culmination of my work came when I was able to give a panel at Megacon and Anime Festival Orlando on the subject, the best of which was the one at Megacon where I was in main events and was given the honor of leading into them showing the first of the Rebuild movies.  I had roughly 100 people in there, the largest crowd I had ever talked to, and afterward I had people stopping me in the halls and asking me even more questions, all of which I was able to answer for them, even if it was just a theoretical answer.  Had I just watched the series once, I never would have had enough knowledge to do that.

What I'm trying to get at is that anything you want to do, especially if you want to do it for a living, you must practice and study.  Studying doesn't just come from reading instructions, but seeing examples of your craft done by other people.  If you want to design video games, you have to study video game design, and play games not for enjoyment solely, but look at everything they did and try to understand WHY they did it.  If you want to act in movies, you must watch movies and see how other actors have portrayed their characters, studying everything from their voice to their facial expressions to their hand movements.

So, what do you do in order to practice your craft?  And how many hours of practice do you think you honestly have?  1000?  5000?  Have you already breeched the 10,000 hour mark?

(Also, side note, I've noticed that I have quite a few readers in Germany (or one that just keeps reading).  To my German readers, feel free to comment below.  I may not speak German, but I know how to use Google Translate, and I would be happy to hear thoughts from people other than my fellow Americans.)

On Console Design

I've been around for quite a while.  Long enough to see gaming consoles evolve from simple 8-bit machines to home entertainment computers that encompass many facets of life.  Long enough to see gamers evolve from a select group of individuals that were deemed nerds to just about every make of human being from the toughest sports nut to the meekest of child.  I've also seen the console war itself evolve from simply who can output the best graphics and have the best exclusives to a war not just about power, but functionality and to a lesser extent, gimmicks.

I've also been witness to enough items to understand what works and what doesn't in the long run of gaming, yet I still see console manufacturers trying to implement items that most gamers never will use unless they are forced to, and even then they will do so with a groan and a bit of disappointment.  It's not always the console's fault.  Sometimes the games just don't do justice to the idea.  They feel tacked on last minute, or even worse, forced in just so they could say they used it.  Because of this, I've come up with a concept for a console using what I know and a plan about how future workings of it would be.

1 - The Power, The Brain, and the Guts: Contrary to popular belief, it's actually not hard to design a console's inner working as long as you know what you are doing.  I'm not going to state any specific hardware, because the moment I type it, there will be something new announced and it will be obsolete.  Also, coming back to this post a few years later, it will probably be ridiculously out of date.  Instead, the inner workings would be an amalgamation of contracts with hardware manufacturers based on the date of release.  Working together with them, I would take a hint from Sony's Playstation 3 and run a multi-core system with a central processor.  I would probably expand upon it a bit, possibly running 10 cores with a central brain to handle final compiling.  Given enough RAM, whatever the high end graphics and sound cards are, and the proper outputs, and the hardware is pretty much done.  The only thing I would have above anyone else right now would be terabyte hard drives.  Models would come in one, two, and eight terabyte, and there would be an output connection for a separate cord.  This cord would directly connect to another terabyte hardrive of the same type, so that users could expand to higher HDs.  I would also sell this cord with a 16TB and 32TB hardrive should they be available at that time.  Granted, the space could go up if needed based on the time of the console's release.

2 - The Mind: The operating system for a console is, in my opinion, the most critical part of the console itself.  An operating system should be set up for the ease of the end user, and should have basic functionality to run without too many possibly unused programs.  Basic programs that would come with the console would be an online store, game launcher, DVD Player (or whatever format I could have it play), music player for digital music, photos, and basic community applications.  Aside from that, there would be the ability to fully customize everything on the operating system.  Start up sounds, backgrounds, icons...pretty much everything.  The console would come with a program for the computer, both PC and Mac AND Linux compatible, that would help create themes.  And yes, those themes would be dynamic.  My console has enough power to run high definition games at at-least 60 FPS.  I'm sure it can load a full HD movie to be played as the background.

Everything else would be for the user to decide to download, and most would be free.  Things such as Netflix, fancy picture slideshows, or even an internet browser don't even get used on consoles most of the time (at least not through anyone I know).  Apps that I haven't seen that should be there are screen recording and internet streaming.  There are plenty of gamers out there who enjoy playing and like to record themselves having fun and show it to others.  Let them...in fact, let them easily do it.  Along side the community functionality of just having a friends list so you know when they are online and what achievements they have, there would be functionality for those Let's Players out there to simply click a setting, and instantly they are online streaming, speaking into a mic (purchased separately) and showcasing their skills.  If they do not wish to use that forum, they can simply record to the hard drive to upload to whatever place they choose.  Other social media apps such as Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook would be an optional download as well, and I'm sure as time went on, there would be plenty of other apps to add that people would enjoy.

3 - The Interface: Now for the controller...that little device you hold in your hand, and the one piece of equipment that always seems to be tampered with by console makers.  First off, I need to explain something.  Despite what most people think, controllers have not changed too drastically over the years.  D-pad on the left, buttons on the right.  The implementation of shoulder buttons with the SNES has been expanded on, and the Dual-Shock controller's joysticks are still probably the best places to have them, though some would argue that X-box's controller did it better by switching the D-pad and left joystick placement...but that's not the point.  The layout is still fundamentally the same.  Why?  Because it works.  It's comfortable.  It's easy to get used to.

So, with that, I'll keep a similar design to the Dual-Shock from Sony, with a few additions.  First, there would be a 4-inch screen dead center of the controller.  Now, this would never be used for any games itself, but instead would be a console interface based on what the user is doing other than gaming.  For those that like to play their own music, there would be a music controller there.  Chatting with friends via a mic?  It would display a status on who is talking and who is connected.  For those streaming though the console's media site the chat would be displayed so the player could simply look down for a moment and see the chat, thumbing through if they want to see more.  Even digital movies could be played on the screen, or if they don't want the distraction, achievement lists, power displays, or just a clock.  Of course, this could all be set up in the settings.

This also opens up something that I'm surprised nobody has thought of before.  Interactive Live Digital Game Guides (sold separately).  Purchasing one of these ILDGGs would allow you to basically cheat through a single player game.  The guide would allow you to navigate through a few menus to decide what you want to do currently, then as you play update your guide.  So if you wanted to find all those hidden items for that achievement, the little screen would act as a map.  If you wanted to know the code to unlock the door without having to read all the clues, the game would just tell it to you (even if it changed each time you played).  I've used online guides several times for those fetch trophies, but I have to make notes on which items I've collected so I don't have to go searching for 1 of 100 in a large world.  This would make it a lot easier and would justify the purchase of game guides again.

4 - The Games:  A recent topic that has been coming up in the console wars is backwards compatibility and the used games market.  On the former, assuming this console does well and warrants a second generation, there would definitely be backwards compatibility, and to anyone that designs consoles out there reading this, that should be a must regardless.  I know where the companies are coming from.  They want people to purchase new games.  They want people to re-buy their old games in new formats.  That's great, but unless you give them a great incentive to do so, most gamers would rather just keep their old consoles until they either die or enough good games come out for the new console.  And even then, they will probably keep their old console just to play older games.  I was lucky enough to get the double backwards compatible PS3, and I still occasionally play some PS1 and PS2 games.  It's rare, but when those feelings of nostalgia come on, I'm glad I have the ability to pull out Lunar or Megaman Legends and have some fun.  So if you want people to be less angry about not having immediate backwards compatibility, then heres a tip.  Create a way so they can get their old games back for the new console.  And with the invent of the internet on consoles, here is the perfect tip.  Buy a disc version, get a downloadable version for free, lock it to the account so only that account can play it, and poof!  New console comes out, make the SOFTWARE have the ability to play the digital versions, and people will just store their discs and download their old games at their leisure.  Problem solved.

Now for the used games market.  Several companies are attempting to tackle that the wrong way by treating it like it's a stolen game.  And I understand this...to them, it is stolen.  But here's how you fix that, and several games have taken the first step towards it.  Several games require you to input an online pass code in order to play the game online.  That's great.  Now, what about single player games?  Easy...online registration.  When you get a game, the first thing you have to do is input a code inside the box...if it's valid, a small 100kb file downloads to your system unlocking the game for that system.  If you sell the game or give it away, the game won't work.  If you don't have a stable or consistant web connection, that's fine since the file itself is what activates the game, so you'll only need to be online once for a few minutes, and then you can play the game offline all you want.  This would work for handhelds as well.  If the game is digital, then the file downloads with the game itself, and everything is good.

Oh wait...what about the other end...the game stores that sell those used games.  Well, they still can.  Users that purchase these games can purchase the online passes or the offline registrations of the games for a fee obviously.  I would probably say $5 would get you either/both.  Stores can still sell used games for discounted prices and make money on them for themselves, and the game companies can still make some money on their work.  I think that about covers all the bases.

5 - The Gimmick: There is none.  I've seen too many consoles try and fail at it.  The Wii was the closest thing to a success with the nun-chuck thing, and even that was mainly geared toward the casual gamer. Sega Dreamcast tried their VMU unit, and that wasn't enough to save the company from falling from the console wars.  Gimmicks just don't work.  If it's not part of the functionality, then it's not worth putting in.  Stick to what works, add what you need to make your functionality work, and leave the rest alone.  Some could say that the screen on the controller is a gimmick, and to some extent it is, but it's there for functionality.

*rereads* Wow that's a long post...but the I hope the idea is getting through.  I also hope that someone from either Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo reads this and starts to rethink where they are going with their consoles.  If not, oh well.  Maybe I'll get someone with the know-how to build it wanting to go in with me and Kickstarter this.  Maybe not.