system128・システム128

Well, it is the start of a new month again, after having been so used to the fact that the previous one was in session. So, what is going to be in store for this month? One thing I did know for sure is that it started with rain! Cool, I like the rain. But that can happen on any old spring or summer day… The more I thought about it, the more I noticed what was going to happen this month. It is actually going to be decently eventful! It is not that surprising considering that I am going to be graduating soon.

This is the part of the year where more fun things happen, such as going on field trips and congratulating your fellow colleagues at school how well of a job they did on school work for the year, or on how much they TRIED to do work; depends. When this is mixed with graduation, then things can get VERY interesting. The first things I have to endure this month are my AP exams for Calculus and English. I could have taken the one on computer science, but by the time I found out that the computer science test was even a thing, it was already FAR too late. I have my tests on the 8th and the 9th of the month. From what I am hearing about AP exams, it sounds like it feels like purgatory in there. You are not permitted to tell the time at all, so you never truly know how much time you have left on a test before moving on to the next thing. And some of these tests can stretch on for multiple hours, so you better not be falling asleep during that period of time. Overall, I think I am gonna turn out okay by the end of exams, but not without some minor internal-clock and MAJOR boredom problems throughout.

But AP exams are likely to be the worst part about the month of May, because I am going to be rewarded with a bunch of cool stuff, just for being either a senior or smart at one point. I have an honors ceremony to attend on the 10th, where I am receiving… something related to college. I am not gonna expect it to be much, but something like a full-ride scholarship only happens with the top-dogs or whatever, and I am not THAT good. Probably like, a $2,000 scholarship tops.

There are three field trips that I am going to be attending by the end of the school year, and two of which are in May. They are both not terribly big but they are good enough to give free time away from any responsibility, and give some memories afterward. I’m all for that kind of thing. The first one is physics related, some sort of university-level physics lab not terribly far from here. This will happen on the 15th. The second field trip is a visit to a tech college, which is funny enough, one that I have already been accepted into and going to attend once I have the funds. This would mark the third time I visited that exact college too. The first was in 2019, and the second was early 2022, I think? I just know it happened twice before. This trip will occur on the 25th. The third field trip will leak into June, but I don’t care. I wanna talk about it still. This one is only occurring because I am a senior and I get to get spoiled by the school district administration… only joking. For real, though, this is a trip up north to a waterpark. These kinds of trips seem pretty common, actually. I was surprised to know that a bunch of people I know on Discord are also getting these same kinds of trips. This will occur on June 1st.

Back to the inside of school, the rest of the seems-fun stuff that will happen during this month is either not that big or expected, just some more interesting units, including a swim unit in my Phy Ed class, and a surprise in Calculus. I still am kinda peeved at my teachers for keeping it a secret. :/ Of course, there is also the graduation procedure, the rehearsal, the ceremony; seen it, done that – well, not yet, technically.

Other than that, yea, that is pretty much how my month is gonna go. The summer might either suck or be pretty chill. It depends on how I am gonna get the money I need to go to college. My mom wants me to work retail, but nah, I wanna be in a position where I can say “Screw that” and do something more enjoyable than retail. Thankfully, options are opening up, with the side effect of being done online, because my productivity is horrible online unless I have a drum and bass playlist in the background with minimal distractions. One of my friends wants to collaborate with me to make some stock videos like geometric animations and stuff like that and split the profits. It sounds like kind of a neat idea, but we would need to research good price-points and stuff, because they can’t be too cheap or too pricy. In case that doesn’t work out and I absolutely HAVE to do retail, then I want it to be something remotely tech related, even if it is still at a desk for a few hours to make sure a site doesn’t go down, because I don’t want to dabble into something that I am ultimately not interested in, such as fast food. My experience with fast food so far has been pretty rubbish. Managers can make or break the entire thing. This not only goes to fast food places, but also to retail stores. My parents also know that from experience. But I am only gonna be an 18-year-old who just got out of high school, and there isn’t gonna be anything like that. But there is one more option I could endeavor, which is just apply for more scholarships, which I was technically supposed to do this entire year, but I just didn’t for some reason, and got caught up still doing kid things.

I have found this wall of text that I made back on March 13, 2023. I want to update myself on how my experience with this app was so far. This was the text that I typed up originally:

I have been thinking about trying out this app called Revolt. It has been brought to my attention via a user on my Discord server that wanted me to have a Revolt server. (And bridge it to the Discord one.) Another reason why I think it would be worth my time is because it seems that Discord has been turning into one of those services where you are not as free to enjoy it unless you are subscribed to Discord Nitro. “Pay to enjoy” was it called? What it is called is not important right now. I have looked into information about Revolt, and this is what I was able to find.

The software is completely free and open source, which would likely eliminate the chances of the platform suffering the same fate as Discord, with all of the Nitro features.

Revolt has themes that are completely free to use! Discord once experimented with this, but it looks like not much can be done with it… unless you have Nitro of course. Technically, there is already a free way to get custom CSS themes on Discord, but that requires something like BetterDiscord, which of course, is against the platform’s Terms of Service.

Just like Mastodon, you can self-host your own instance of Revolt, so it will become harder to take down if something goes wrong with either Discord getting salty over its existence or some other reason.

The file size limit on Revolt is larger that what free users have on Discord. As you may know, on Discord, the max file size that you can upload per file is 8 MiB maximum. However, this is over doubled on Revolt, allowing you to upload files up to 20 MB / MiB (I am not sure what base they are using here. It is definitely either 1,000 or 1,024.)

I think the most important plus for Revolt is their goal to be user-first. A mentality like that is CRUCIAL for platforms to do if they want to have loyal users. Being there for your users whenever possible can allow you as a platform owner to add what the users want, while you still have the choice to comply with the demands of advertisers or colleagues. A happy medium is probably the best you can get.

Apparently, it is possible to bridge Discord messages into one of your Revolt servers. However, the program cannot be used to control your Discord account, which is a shame. It probably makes sense though because I don’t believe Discord would be very happy about it. Terms of Service would likely get in the way again.

These are some good things about Revolt that I found to be enticing to me, as a long-time Discord user. However, there are some drawbacks that do make me wonder about how long I will use it.

The main reason is because of how many of mutuals use Discord. I can probably convince a few to make a Revolt account but I highly doubt that they will be nearly as active, let alone keep their account active at all. Getting a good portion to switch would be a real pain.

I have been told that screensharing is not a feature that exists on Revolt. I know a few people that screenshare what they are doing in voice chats very often, and they may be deterred by the fact that it just cannot be done on Revolt directly. My friend group does have remote desktop software that we use for when we want to do collaborative work, though.

When I get the chance, I will totally play around with it, maybe get a few people on it, and see how it is. If I find it to be good enough to replace Discord, I will see what I can do from there to manage things. Here’s to hoping for the best with Revolt.

Update time! Yes, it is a pretty good app so far, but there are two main things that is stopping me from using it at the moment. One, I joined onto the site at a very bad stage – well, for audio anyway. Partaking in voice chats on Revolt the moment I was on it was pretty much impossible. The audio sources, input or output, both were not able to be detected and/or applied. It turns out that the Revolt devs were working on an entire rewrite of the audio functions of the app. I don’t think there has been any status on it since January 24, 2023 that I could find, but I could very much be wrong.

I found myself using different OCs as mascots depending on what I do. In YTP Tennis, it is more likely to be seen as Glaceon Rai or even my old tophat Glaci OC. Glaceon Rai is also seen for when I do YouTube commentary or video essays. For art (drawings to be clear), I may be seen more as Cat Rai, which is what you may interpret me as.

For rhythm gaming, something new is occurring. I have been using Vincent, even though Vincent doesn't strictly represent me in a vib-ribbon form. In fact, I have never actually Vibri-fied myself.

I mean, until now... just as a proof of concept...

I think Vincent and Nyxon both are good candidates for rhythm gaming because they are based on a rhythm game themselves, which obviously is vib-ribbon. I have Vincent as my profile image on Steam, which definitely adds to the rhythm game idea. Recently, I also did some custom skinning work depicting Vincent and Nyxon in Quaver – a game I play often, where I'm almost in the almost top 4,000 – for personal use. This is how it looks right now.

I have been warned of something that is inevitable to form in some student as they enter their last year of high school. I had a teacher call it “senioritis.” (Looking it up, it does seem to be a common term to describe it.) This is characterized by the lack of motivation to do school work once they are nearing the end of high school. From looking this up, they say it extends to college, and even post-graduates! So, us teens are not alone in these situations. I think I am starting to feel a little bit of this myself. At this point, I have already been accepted into college and only have one class to pass, which even then gives easy points, and then I can just move on from high school. Though, there is a rising worry about how my grades will end up being affected if I do start slacking off more than I should.

I believe that taking breaks from work can be a great thing, just so long as it is done in moderation. The problem for me is that once I am on a break, it never seems to end. That, I have found, is probably the worst thing about my productivity: my proneness to extended breaks. When it comes to senioritis, that makes me more of a vulnerable person to target. The only way to defend myself that’s been tried and worked is putting on music.

Music works like magic! If I got stuff playing the background, then I get a lot more done that I could before. There is a strange part to it though, but I think I got that figured out too. What I have noticed is that I get less distracted with certain types of music. I have found a couple of aspects that increase my productivity when I have it playing.

The music has to have little to no vocals. Period. I say little because it can just be short samples like “Hoo!” and “Yeah!” That’s fine, but if there is enough to form a necessary lyrics sheet about it, that is when I call it.

The theme of the mix the music is a part of has to fit in at least decently with the rest of the mix. Some genres are able to do this quite well while others do not. I have found that things like pop are horrible at this, especially because many of the prominent artists have their own singing styles (which also means lyrics. Aaah!!!!!), and sometimes their own ways of making beats. I think it’s mostly their singing though. Since they are extremely popular, you would be BOUND to recognize at least one voice.

I must not recognize who wrote the song, how long it is, or its composition. At all. Despite my attempts to minimize my memory of it, I still did manage to commit some of the songs I have heard to memory, and end up picking out the samples that they used the next time I listened to it. This doesn’t create much distraction, but to have this minimized would be a good practice for me.

For some bonus points, the music also may not be attached to any specific person that was directly involved in the creation of the content or similar content. If you REALLY wanna be hardcore about, you could attempt to remove the idea that people even made that content to begin with, like leaving the content on its own, as if it just materialized one day. I have found that this keeps the magic in things that I enjoy. This stems from what we call “childhood magic,” where mystery seemed to make things more fun and enjoyable. I think this was because ignorance was bliss. This was also probably the reason why childhood was simpler than adulthood is now, but that is beside the point.

This one is also more of a personal preference, but I also want some integral part of the song itself to bring a sense of calmness or peace. Ambience is VERY good, PERFECT even, at bringing this experience. It is able to paint a therapeutic atmosphere for me. Sometimes I will be somewhere in space or in the middle of the ocean. And depending on what else happens in there, someone might be coming out of the water and start spinning around. You know, kind of psychedelic shit. However, that is just listening to the music on its own. I have to do some work here. I have to be engaged in what I am doing.

A lot of these would likely be done consciously at first, but I think it would be best to do these practices for some of the things you enjoy subconsciously. Being aware of the absence of involvement in that thing’s community may bring feelings of isolation. With practice though, it will turn out fine.

Is there a genre of music that I have shown success in by increasing productivity and keeping that sort of “magic” or “mystery” that came from it? Turns out, yes I have! I have successfully done this with Ambient Drum and Bass and sometimes Intelligent Dance Music (especially by Aphex Twin), but more the Ambient Drum and Bass. I like how the music itself is very unchanging and samey. While this is a disadvantage for many listeners, this is actually GREAT for me! It just creates less distractions while I work if it feels like a song is two hours long, but in reality is actually 20 songs. As far as ignorance goes, the only pseudonym that I know from that genre right now is “4AM Breaks” because that is where I get most of the music from, but I plan to try to keep it that way. This is not because I wish to attack any of the artists behind the music… well, whoever they are. In fact, I think they are quite talented. All of them! I just believe that not knowing who made them is just a part of me enjoying the genre.

On the topic of ignoring things leading to happiness, I have also applied a little bit of this to nostalgic aesthetics. I watched a video a while back about an aesthetic in packaging that I seemed to like whenever I was browsing Walmart, especially with cleaning products. They seemed to take me back to when I was in my old town, also exploring Walmart. It also did a nice job at taking me back to my old apartment from before I moved towns. Turns out this aesthetic was called Frutiger Aero/Metro. The only names I can attach to the aesthetic is one, drmr being the guy behind the Wii’s Homebrew theme, and two + three, two friends that just so happen to also like the aesthetic a lot. Just so long as I am not involved in any of the drama that comes from aesthetics, I think the same magic can be felt from when I first experienced it. An interesting side effect that I found is that most people’s views on music that fit the aesthetic are different from mine. There is a wiki page, (below) that lists a lot of music that their community has felt that fit the aesthetic well. I did not agree with a lot of the picks. I find that Trance / Dance music of the time would fit more with the aesthetic, but that’s fine. We all don’t have to experience aesthetics the same way. Fascinatingly, I have also attached the Ambient Drum and Bass thing to it too, which only makes my idea more independent.

Sorry for not posting in a while. But I really wanted to talk about today. Today was a very interesting day at school because lots of things happened that were different from what would usually happen at school. I actually didn't want to go there very much this morning as I got ready to go to school 10 minutes later than usual. But I did manage to get there on time, and the first hour or so was going as usual. Actually, it was normal until fourth period. The main reason why we didn't want to go to school today was because of the weather outside. It was all snowy and stuff, and it even hailed on our way to school. Somehow, this did not mean a snow day. Up here, we have very high standards on what we call a snow day for some reason.

Many of us, myself included, questioned whether school should have taken place today or not, but we pushed forward anyway. (We didn't want to get in trouble after all.) The next best thing we wanted was a blackout, because sometimes that would mean something like an early release for example. But that would be a stretch because this happened very rarely. For reference, the last time we had an early release during a blackout was within the last 20 years. So imagine our delight when we found that the lights were turning off! Cheering was spread throughout the hallways as we then scrambled to find out what we were going to do next. From here, we're hoping for an early release or something. The teachers were trying to find out how to handle the situation as well. As far as we knew at that time, lesson plans were off the table now.

The blackout persisted into lunch as well. Getting to the lunch room was actually not as hard as we thought it would be because a generator was keeping some of the lights going. Around the beginning of lunch, we found out that we were, in fact, having an early release! A whole 95 minutes earlier than usual! The busing plans have been changed and everything! This made a lot of us students very happy! Though there was some disappointment when the lights came back on, as evidenced by the groaning that ensued throughout the entire lunchroom. This means we really only had fifth period and we were out of here. Luckily, fifth period was a gym class, which was interestingly being taught by a substitute teacher today! What is good about this substitute teacher was that he is very laid back and basically lets us do whatever we want as long as it's in line with what needed to be done that day! He usually teaches an English class, which he is just as laid back in. Essentially, we talked the entire time and shot some hoops here and there.

That isn't to say that it never works, however. I have managed to maintain a month-long streak by learning Japanese on Duolingo and continue to rely on other sources to get the job done, so obviously I am capable of building some sort of habit. Another example of this is how I've managed to become fluent in another keyboard layout. But there are so many other things that I wish to do going forward, especially when it comes to YouTube. I have been very on and off about video production, which has resulted in months and months between videos, which I don't think the audience would appreciate if this continues. I need to find some sort of way to continue work on them more often than how I'm approaching them at the moment. It would have to be in a way that is most comfortable for me whilst also getting quality work done. Over the past year or so, this has been the greatest challenge I have ever confronted, and continues to be to this day. I figure writing about it will jump start me finding a process to this madness.

Perhaps I can always come back to old ideas and give them another try. One of these old ideas is putting something at stake and acting on it depending on the outcome. Like for example, I wanted to prevent myself from doing something I wanted to if I didn't get something done first. I think I want to try this again, because it sounds like something that would be very effective. Looking back at my childhood, this was very effective in getting my chores done, because I couldn't access my video games until then. Even though this was years ago, that does not mean that this could still apply to present me. Another old idea that comes from my childhood is scheduling. When I was in around 4th grade, I was often supervised by another teacher because I had pervasive developmental disorder, and one of the things that they found that ended up helping me was having a second schedule on my desk that laid out the things that happened during that day. I also have a friend that schedules things 30 minutes ahead of time. (He even calls these things "keyterms.") Using that sort of way of scheduling, it is easier to keep track of what you want to do at that specific time. It seems to be very effective on him, and have been thinking about doing something similar for a while. The reason why I think this will work better than some other methods I've tried is because I tend to jump to the next thing kind of quickly. There are times where my mind is more in a "hyperactive" state rather than completely focused on one thing, whereas other times, the opposite is the case.

I will warn you: this entire thing is about a half-hour read, which easily some of the longest things I have typed in a while. This was calculated by taking the number of words in the document and dividing by my personal talking speed. This half-hour metric is not going to be very consistent because people do things at their own pace, so sorry to my psychology teacher (Shoutout!), who has to read this whole thing. Good luck grading.

In introduction, one of the most important things in life is to remain positive. This is mainly because of the benefits we can reap from it. The things we do and experience greatly impact on our outlook on life. Here, I have compiled multiple lists on things that are generally positive and my thoughts and experiences that connect with them. This was originally made as a project for my psychology class but I am more than willing to make it a blog post. I guess you could say I thought real positively about my project, huh? Huh? … Sorry...

The world of AI has been rapidly developing in the past couple of years, and now we have this chatbot named ChatGPT, which is apparently so good, that people are starting to use it to write their college-level essays. That sounds like a situation that would play out in a science-fiction, comedy-driven novel about how academics will be like in the 2030s. But nope, this is real. This morning, in my first period class, I was randomly assigned a task to read a couple of articles about this whole ChatGPT thing. That was how I found out about the whole idea of using it to fully write their essay assignments, while I was forced by the assignment to think about how it would change how we think of well, everything. How the AI situation is depends on the medium. At the present moment, there is little fear of AI taking over the world of text. For the time being, we may not have to worry about our text being indistinguishable from human and AI.

When we use these bots for enough time, we start to notice something interesting. Sometimes, it makes some confidently incorrect statements. There are many instances of AI goofs. In text for example, I will now tell you something that came from the experience of someone in my Discord server. With ChatGPT, you can tell it to make a Python program to render something using the PyGame library, or even work with a file format that you developed yourself, but it is not going to be correct every time. The more ambitious your prompt is, the less likely it will be for the AI to make something that works first try. You would have to go through dozens of prompts to make the final product, not counting the mistakes fixed by the human. Ultimately, there is still a large human component to it. If we absolutely had to, we would have to use the AI more as a companion then a 100% reliable generator, especially for proofreading. I remember when we were in a Discord voice chat, talking about the chatbot, we had to constantly tell it about the errors it makes and then see if it would go ahead and do some troubleshooting.

In the case of academics, when the bot is confidently wrong, it causes a lapse in the user’s judgement, and it bites them in the butt when they see a fat C- on their next paper. As it turns out, the bot is currently really bad in citing their sources and finding nuances. So it really needs to train more on tone in text if it wants to get an A every time. Because of these types of weaknesses, there are still ways we can exploit the weaknesses of any AI to distinguish between what is done by a human and what is not. My English told me this morning that there is already a beta of a detector that can put a percentage of confidence whether the text you give it was generated by an AI or not. The English department in the school I go to has quickly been made aware of this tool. The more we know about ChatGPT, sure, the more it will be developed, but also the more we know about how we can exploit it. This lets us learn about the AIs that we develop so that we know how to stop them from going too far, and maybe even taking over the planet.

So that was the whole gist on how the world of text is safe for the time being, but it is good to be made aware of it. Artificially generated art on the other hand? That is a tougher nut to crack depending on what you are using it for, and worse, it is a lot more morally questionable. This calls back to artificially generated images in general, like with human faces or road signs. Someone at some point had the idea of using images taken from art websites and then see what happens. But we first need to understand what an image AI does. Every AI needs a dataset to train on to get the result the user needs. The problem lies in what the type of data it needs. In the case of art AI, it would need to use other people’s works, usually obtained from the original artist without the permission of them. For all I know, my furry art could very well be a part of their datasets too. Because of the lack of permission and the fact that it is generating art that can sometimes be harder to distinguish from human art, people are rightfully pissed off about it. There have even been protests about the issue of AI generated art. It has trended on numerous platforms across the internet, spammed to oblivion on pro-AI art websites, and much more. There is also a group of people that saw money signs in their eyes when they first saw the concept of AI generated art. They now turned a profit from it, which made human artists even MORE furious! Their art is now being stolen, not just by the datasets in which they generate from, but now the people making thousands of dollars off of it! This only fueled those protests even more.

This whole thing about the divide between what is human and what is AI made me think of generational gaps. Many boomers do not like the idea of having computers and the internet, especially for the gaming world. Many millennials are not fans of modern social media platforms like TikTok. Do you think the same is going to happen with artificial intelligence and Generation Z? I am definitely opposed to a lot of aspects of AI, but they can be fun to develop if you are doing something less useful and more fun, like some of the stuff that Cary Huang – aka carykh – does. I have a feeling that Generation Alpha will find a lot more fascination in this medium than any of us ever will. If it turns out that artificial intelligence has dominated the planet after we find some sort of equality measure between humans and robots, we might have them to blame for feuling the decisions of the Generation X/Y leaders.

There is a thing we say up here in town in the midwest: you can not predict 100% what the weather will be like about a week from now. That is usually true; sometimes, the forecasts are just wrong enough to not be accurate to what actually happened that day. Not even winter is safe. The month of December is, a lot of the time, more predictable than the other months, but there have been times when it just goes off the rails. For reference, usually during this month, it goes back and forth between rain and snow, with these intervals lasting about a week or so. But we usually start seeing the snow as early as November. Last year, we had an untimely heat wave, resulting in a 100% green Christmas. That Christmas Eve, it was 60 degrees outside, a lot hotter than we have ever seen at that time of year. Imagine my surprise when I found that it started to snow two days later and was in the 20-degree range. It felt like a final “fuck you” by mother nature after almost an entire month of rain and spring temperatures.

And then there was January 2019, the Great Polar Vortex as I like to call it. That was an agonizing couple of days when the temperatures were so cold, you could be frostbitten in as little as 10 minutes. It was in the best interest of everyone in the midwest to stay inside their houses and pray their water pipes still worked. Here in Wisconsin, we got wind chill ratings as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit! Northern Illinois also saw some lower -40 wind chill and the same with Indiana. Arguably, two states had it worse than us: North Dakota and Minnesota. They saw the wind chill go as low as -65! Our Canadian neighbors also shared the same pain as us because they were also caught pretty majorly by the polar vortex.

After December, once the snow sticks, it sticks for a WHILE, though it is not so easy telling when it will finally melt, bringing us the spring. There have been years when spring came at a normal time, between late March and early April. But I remember a couple of years where the snow had stuck around for so long that while the east coast was enjoying the sun, we were still chilling with a couple inches of snow, somewhere in May. During this time, we can also see some other really wacky things happening. Last year, we were hit by an EF1 tornado. Thankfully, our house was not hit, but our power was knocked out for a good 7 hours or so. It had been downpouring essentially the whole night otherwise. But since the temperature dropped at just the right time, I woke up to a fresh blanket of December-looking snow.

Even when we finally see the snow melt after so long, because of the length of winter, our spring usually isn’t that long. Say that we get another May snow year. That only lasts over a month before it gets unbelievably hot in the summer. Speaking of hot, we don’t just see freezing up here. We also see melting. We are no strangers to days when it is 102 degrees outside. We are a region of the United States where we are able to adapt to both extremes. But the thing I, personally, am not so much used to is consistency, which is why I tend to get annoyed when the sun is out for more than a week without it raining a drop. At least the clouds in the sky could collect more raindrops or something! Some states can have almost constant hot or cold all year, and I will not know how they go through it just fine. Show me your ways, Australia! It does seem that Texas feels the same way about how we handle the cold because, in February 2021, they got a wave of cold weather, which led to the first snow in a long time in some areas. Since they are more used to hot weather, their cooling system becomes a detriment because they usually have little need for heating. What they had was not enough for them because some 200 people got killed by freezing to death during the cold wave, which is honestly kind of scary.

There is one more example I want to mention, and that would be the number of times I have been given flash flood warnings on my phone. Usually, after the snow has melted and we are experiencing the long summer that is June to September, a week cannot go by without my phone telling me that somewhere in town is probably going to flood!! Thankfully, around parts I have lived, that never happens. But I am willing to bet that it happens somewhere, near some of the creeks, ponds, and rivers. After a while, I stopped paying attention to those warnings.

Earlier today, I had to write an argumentative paragraph about the perception of video games according to people that are less of an expert on the subject. When I turned it in for AP Lang, I found that I was proud enough to turn it into a Tumblr post. But of course, I revised it to be more grammatically correct and to give myself more creative freedom (rephrasing things to fit my personal writing style.)

Many people downplay video games as a childish activity. However, this only exemplifies their ignorance and exposes the fact that they have little experience in gaming. These people often imply that gaming is unproductive, a slothful activity for sluggards. They assert that gaming is addictive and unhealthy. These critics dismiss the positive aspects of gaming: the community it builds, the strategies needed to win, and the enjoyment you get from it. I acknowledge that for some people, gaming can be addictive. However, for most people, gaming adds a positive and fun element to their lives.

Without a second thought, I totally agree with this. These critics can be ignorant when it comes to playing video games, though I got a good idea as to why this happens. The answer is quite simple: like with all sorts of things we find cool in life, there are significant generational gaps. Most people who game tend to be younger, especially in the modern gaming market. (Retro gamers can have pretty old guys because they immersed themselves in consoles of that time when they were younger and want to continue enjoying that experience.) Because of how we view the gaming demographic, hearing someone in their 60s playing games like League of Legends is a shock to us! That is because most people who play LoL tend to be around their 20s.

Though, we must recognize some of the things the less knowledgeable say in the media about video games. No matter if the people are experts in a subject or not, people will still tend to believe what they see in the news. One infamous topic to add that tends to be brought up is the sentiment that “video games are a cause of violence.” Despite the numerous claims these people have made, experts have repeatedly failed to confirm that such a trend exists, implying that it more than likely doesn’t exist. If there was a possible source for where all of this has sprung from, this would have to come from games with violent themes in them, like fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, which exemplifies the gory side of fighting. Games like this were often blasted by the media because of such themes.

Lest we forget the idea that the activity is childish either because, in the Mortal Kombat situation, the prominent presence of blood should be a good indicator that the game is not meant for a younger audience. Some games are just meant for adults, not just because of violence but because of many other things. The ESRB tends to list these things on the covers of console games and as a note on Steam games. The addiction part, though? That is true, but of course, this is not exclusive to the gaming world. Any activity can become an addiction if they get enough into it, such as gambling. For most people who game, though, addiction is not really too much of an issue, but it is good to check gaming habits if one does end up being concerned about them. Games sometimes have notes on the boxes to take breaks every so often as to avoid eye strain.

Someone's number just went up today, and it is not referring to someone in real life, as it came straight out of my head... Nice!

Okay, now why am I making a post about an OC's birthday? I will explain it now! A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing through some old art and found out the first time I made a proper art piece of Vincent, that being November 26th, 2020. Here is a Discord screenshot from when I first posted it onto the internet for all to see.

The image was posted at 12:05 AM Central Time, so it was very early into that particular day, which is pretty interesting. It's also pretty cool how the character was conceived two years ago now, especially when according to how my mind works, it feels like he's been around for a lot shorter time.

With this logic applied, unfortunately, we did miss out on Nyxon's and Neveah's birthdays, which are on October 6th and 13th (maybe) respectively. But not to worry though because I don't have to miss Jackie's, which is on January 19th!

Leads me to a pro tip, if you want to give your character a birthday, but don't know which day of the year to pick from, just look at the day you created them in the first place! Might sound like a cliché thing to do, but it really does work! The days they will land on will usually stay about as random as just picking a random day out of the year using a random number generator. (At least that is how it turned out for me.)

Enough yapping, though. Even though it's kind of strange for me to wish my own OC a pleasant birthday, who cares? Not me! Happy birthday, Vincent!