EDIT: SOLD!!!

Put up my barely used netbook up for sale over on craiglist - pass it on! :)

Contact me if you're interested in picking this up, or if you know someone else who is.

Yesterday, I had the joys of getting one of my non-gamer friends hooked on a game. Getting to watch Mir laugh and stumble through building a lattice to make a bridge for a bunch of wobbly goo balls to cross over was totally worth the teensy $20 I paid for World of Goo.

People who were weaned mostly on games as children, rather than other forms of media - Saturday morning cartoons, sci-fi movies, dungeons and dragons - continue to approach problems from a different perspective as they move into adulthood. For example, we tend to interpret architecture and industrial design different, after subconsciously studying the worlds we previously walked through, built from the imagination of the game creator's mind. There are other nuances within gaming, of course, such as the type of games played (educational, sandbox, interactive storytelling, entertainment, etc), as well as within the different [constantly changing] genres of games - first person, strategic, puzzle, and others.

Whether I'm having a conversation about politics, technology or society with someone, the ideas that get thrown around between people who are (or were at some point) at least moderately invested in gaming tend to take on a distinctly more constructivist approach. This often leads to a more holistic understanding of not only the topic at hand but also the other person's stance on the issue. I take for granted that not everyone I deal with is/was a gamer, and so I often find myself expressing frustration at concepts and context that I assume are common knowledge, when in fact, they aren't. Of course, this reflects more on me being an occasional insensitive douchebag than on them lacking any knowledge. What follows is a list for these people (people who don't play video games, not people who think I'm a douchebag - their list is long enough as it is).

Via The National Union of Public and General Employees

In a move that has disappointed many Canadian high-tech leaders and public interest groups, including the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has announced that it will not force Bell Canada to stop its controversial Internet throttling practices.

[...]

The CRTC decision comes in response to a request from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) that Bell stop throttling other Internet service providers that use its network. More than 2,000 Canadians across the country filed letters with the CRTC supporting CAIP’s request.

[...]

CAIP has been in limbo since April waiting for the CRTC decision. CAIP argued that Bell’s throttling practices violated telecommunication regulations, gave Bell an unfair market advantage and interfered with Canadians' online privacy.

Well, you know, shit.

(I never, ever thought I'd post that picture on my blog) ;)

I can only hope that we here in Quebec can come together for change the same way Americans did yesterday, the next time we are presented with such a historic choice.