Running on Empty

With a recent change in medication, I have been extremely under the weather lately. I am waking up, not just lethargic, but physically in pain. What energy I have when I can force myself up very quickly disappears until the evening, when all of a sudden I am much more awake and active. I fear a lot of this is down to coming off the duloxetine (or alternatively known under its brand-name Cymbalta), which at lower dosages is used as a pain killer.

Also, if you read my more politically minded blog, I am torn with the recent decisions of the coalition government. That I appear to be rapid cycling after the change in medication does not seem to help. It is massively depressing that I basically helped fuel the second Tory government of my lifetime, and they already seem ideologically intent in ripping up the very public services that up to now have kept me alive.

However, it could have been much worse if it was a solely Conservative government I suppose. I think I’ll hold out for a while longer.

I hope I can perk up a bit in the next few weeks, but that seems unlikely. It’s getting very difficult to cope at the moment.

Conservative Candidate @karlmccartney Gets Ruder Still

If you’re in Lincoln and haven’t yet voted, I strongly urge you to vote for an MP that actually cares about people and listens without giving blunt and patronising answers.

Candidates I would suggest are Reg Shore (Liberal Democrats- though obviously I would say him first as I am a member of them!!), Gary Walker (Independent Candidate) or Gillian Merron (Labour). There are BNP, English Democrats and UKIP but they all seem to share the same essentially white supremacist feelings.

Anyway, here’s the latest from @karlmccartney

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Karl McCartney
Date: 27 April 2010 10:48
Subject: Re: My vote should count
To: Gary Watts

Dear Gary,

and your home address is?

You and I both know will not be voting for me. Your views are simplistic and tainted by the political party you support.

No.

Kind regards – I won’t wish you luck in your election for obvious reasons.

Karl
On 22 Apr 2010, at 11:56, Gary Watts wrote:

From:
Gary Watts

Dear Sir or Madam,

I live in the constituency you wish to represent in Parliament.

As a candidate in the election you are asking me to vote for you.

But I would first like to know if you understand the need for real change in this election. According to recent polling, there’s a possibility that the party that comes third in terms of share of the vote will actually have the largest number of seats in Parliament.

Whatever your party, I hope you agree that this is grossly unfair to voters and a perversion of our democracy. Our “winner takes all” system of first-past-the-post is broken. We need and demand change.

As a voter in your constituency, I want you to know that I will only support a candidate who will commit to a referendum on the introduction of a proportional voting system during the next Parliament.

Will you make that commitment?

Thank you.

Gary Watts

Related articles

• Election 2010: the data you need to vote in your constituency (guardian.co.uk)
• This can be the election to change all elections. Vote Lib Dem to make it so (guardian.co.uk)
• How can we sell the Single Transferable Vote to the public? (libdemvoice.org)
• Here’s how to hang parliament (newstatesman.com)

@karlmccartney does not seem particularly friendly.

Continuing e-mails with the Conservative Parliamentary candidate… I’m not even going to put forward my thoughts this time and just let them stand on their own merits (or lack of?). I cannot believe a person can be so rude.

On 26 Mar 2010, at 12:06, garymarkwatts@gmail.com wrote:

Mr Karl McCartney

Dear Mr McCartney,

I am writing to you as one of the candidates standing in my constituency to find out more about your views.

I am deeply concerned about the financial crisis our country faces, and the prospects of cuts to our essential public services.

I find it very difficult, given the constraints we face, to understand why the UK is set to spend an estimated £97bn on a new generation of nuclear weapons.

There has been a lot of press coverage recently about the budget challenges the MoD faces. At the same time more and more military people are saying that they do not see nuclear weapons as relevant to the threats we face now and in the future. Threats like climate change, competition over diminishing resources and cyber-terrorism.

I have also heard people like President Obama speaking out about the need for the world to embrace the aim of getting to zero nuclear weapons and negotiating cuts with the Russians.

What I don’t understand is how politicians can say that the UK – which they admit faces no known nuclear threat from another state – must build more nuclear weapons in case a threat ever comes up in the future.

I can’t see how this position does anything other than say to other countries that it is acceptable, even desirable, to build nuclear weapons of their own.

I know we have a complete review of our defence and security planned for after the election. This will be the chance to take a long hard look at the different challenges we face, how they can be best dealt with and where our limited funds should be focused.

I hope you can reassure me that your party would view it as essential that the question of whether to build new nuclear weapons is included in this review.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Watts 

On 19 April 2010 14:24, Karl McCartney <karl@karlmccartney.com> wrote:

Dear Mr Watts,

Thank you for getting in touch with me.  

Our position is clear – we are committed to keeping and replacing the submarine-based nuclear deterrent and it is the only programme that will be exempt from the defence review. The new deterrent will enter service in the 2020s and will likely be in service until the 2050s. No-one can predict what will happen over that time and the nuclear deterrent serves as an insurance policy against nuclear blackmail. It is also an unfortunate reality that the proliferation of nuclear weapons remains an significant issue in current international affairs. The concerns shared by the international community over North Korea and Iran illustrate this. Given this reality we feel it would not be wise to be contemplating to scrapping our nuclear deterrent and we feel this expenditure is crucial for the security of this country.  I hope this addresses your concerns.

Regards,

Karl McCartney

On 19 Apr 2010, at 17:19, Gary Watts wrote:

Thank you for your e-mails regarding the Trident system and the war in Afghanistan. Unfortunately I will not be voting for you in the coming election as I do not feel you will represent my views in Parliament.

I also note a certain arrogance in your correspondence, especially your initial e-mail to me in regards to Parliamentary reform; where your response has shown you did not care much for engaging with your prospective voters via e-mail, and you suggested that I take up the matter with you should you be elected as MP. For younger voters like myself e-mail has been vital in communicating with and deciding who I should vote for in the election.

Additionally, your e-mails seem to show you are not willing to stand down or compromise so you can represent the people who may elect you. Instead you appear more bothered about representing your party than the people.

I hope these comments might help you in future decision-making.

Regards

Gary,

You read into my reply what you like, my beliefs are mine only, if you don’t like them your democratic right is not to vote for me – that’s the great democracy we live in – live with it.  Your incorrect interpretation of anything and everything seems to indicate your great unhappiness.  Stand yourself if you believe you would do a better job than me, many others have, perhaps you would like to vote for them, but do at least use your vote.  If you are so inclined maybe your future decision making and email writing will be more circumspect.

Kind regards,

Karl

Refrain From Political Ramblings Until After Election

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I will be refraining from political ramblings on this blog (well as much as possible anyway!) until post-election and instead by making more focused political moanings at my campaign blog. However I will still be posting on mental health activism and other randomness here. This is all in a personal capacity, and may not always reflect the views of the Lib Dems. 

However, as far as I am aware I am still able to maintain my independence on this blog. Although if you have comments on what I post here reflecting my ability to become a Councillor, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave the comments on the campaign blog instead.

Part of me feels I’ve gone morally bankrupt for even thinking about going into politics. However you can rest assured my choice of political party was based on my beliefs of openness and equalness regardless of peoples disabilities. And if any organisation/company discriminated against myself or others based on mental ability/disability, I would head for the door immediately!!

So, see you at http://gwatts4council.wordpress.com

Response from Lincoln Conservative MP candidate @karlmccartney on Parliamentary Reform

Image by ** Maurice ** via Flickr

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but there seems to be an arrogance in the response from Karl McCartney on Parliamentary reform. It is almost as if he is saying “I have no need to answer your question but will be happy to talk about it when I am MP for Lincoln.” He also does not seem to take communication via e-mail seriously- when for many, especially younger, people it is so important. And why would I e-mail him if I could just go onto the Conservative website myself?! I’ll let you figure it out for yourself… But why would a party backed by a millionaire proved to not be paying UK taxes care anyway?

Dear Mr Watts,

Thank you for getting in touch with me to raise your concerns.

As you may appreciate I am rarely in the office at present as I am out working in the constituency, and I hope to meet you on my travels.  Please, therefore, forgive the brevity of my response.  The Conservatives understand the need for change and will not continue with ‘politics as usual’.  Please view our website at : www.conservatives.com which I hope will allay  your fears.  If I am fortunate enough to be elected as the MP for Lincoln then I should be happy to discuss your concerns in greater detail.

Thank you again for contacting me.

Regards,

Karl McCartney

Conservative Candidate for Lincoln

On 6 Apr 2010, at 14:44, Gary Watts wrote:

From:
Gary Watts

Dear Sir or Madam,

I live in the constituency you wish to represent in Parliament. As a candidate in the election you are asking me to vote for you. But I would first like to know if you understand the need for real change at this election – or instead want to continue with politics as usual.

Our political system is broken. It has failed its people and its purpose. But there is a way for you to show that you want change – by signing the POWER Pledge.

POWER2010 ran the UK’s largest ever democratic consultation. Tens of thousands of people were involved in identifying the people’s priorities for cleaning up and reforming our politics – and over 100,000 votes were cast. The five most popular reforms became the POWER Pledge. These are:

1. Introduce a proportional voting system

2. Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state

3. Replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber

4. Allow only English MPs to vote on English laws

5. Draw up a written constitution

To sign the POWER Pledge you don’t have to agree with all five reforms. All you have to do is back a majority of the ideas – and then join our call for a reforming Parliament that will act on them.

If you support at least three of these ideas I urge you to click the link below to sign the POWER Pledge:

http://www.power2010.org.uk/PPCpledge

If you sign the Pledge your name will be added to a list on the POWER2010 website of PPCs who are willing to stand up for change.

Thank you!

Gary Watts

Related articles

• Electoral reform is top of the pops (leftfootforward.org)
• Power2010 Picks…Tony McNulty (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)
• And the winners in the Power 2010 poll on political reform are… (libdemvoice.org)

Songbird to lose support for Linux?

Image via Wikipedia

Despite being late with my news, I have just learnt that Songbird is to lose support for Linux. For those not in the know, Songbird is a free software (as in free speech, rather than free beer) music player based on the well-known Firefox. Linux is basically a “free” operating system anyone can download and use without paying for, as well as looking under the hood and changing or learning from the code.

It quite frankly puzzles me why the team behind Songbird would get rid of support for Linux, especially with the statistics they used to come to their decision that Linux actually had a higher share of Songbird usage then Mac OS X (which will continue to be developed for). However, it’s also interesting to note that these statistics split Linux into their 32 and 64-bit variants. Trying to misrepresent the figures, are we Songbird?

It seems to be much more for commercial reasons, however. They are launching a feature called “NOFX” which seems to include video support, and it seems they have gotten deals with hardware manufacturers as well.

At the end of the day, I guess the problem with “Free/Open Source” software is the same problems I have with mental health charities. Just because you label yourself a charity, it doesn’t mean you are all heavenly good and have no ulterior motives. Also interesting to note is the fact Songbird is actually owned by a commercial company. It is trying to piggy-back on the friendly, do-no-wrong, not-evil open-source bandwagon that Mozilla pioneered with Firefox. The difference is, however, Mozilla is genuinely a charity/community interest company run by members of the public. Songbird is simply trying to join in the fun so they can make money.

Related articles

• Songbird drops Linux support; Why this doesn’t matter (omgubuntu.co.uk)
• Songbird Singing a New Tune (blog.songbirdnest.com)
• 6 Linux Music Players To Replace Songbird (makeuseof.com)
• Songbird Drops Linux Support (linux.slashdot.org)

Gimp Basic Video Tutorial

Image via Wikipedia

I’m starting to work on the University of Mad hashtag again. Starting on this very basic work on GIMP Basics. The tutorial can be found here

Not exactly a work of art but I needed something to get me started.

Related articles

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My Definitive Final Fantasy XIII Review

Image by Ultimaknight via Flickr

The Final Fantasy series will always have a soft spot in my heart, being the main series of computer games that saw through my teenage years. Each one tells a separate story set in an unrelated universe, with the only themes binding them together the fact it is a role playing game (where you develop your own characters and select your attacks in battle, rather than having direct control of them) and some sort of fantasy elements. Or in the last few, science fiction elements. The one other irony regarding the title is the original “Final Fantasy” was so called because in the late 80s, the company behind them were losing so much money in video games they decided “Final Fantasy” would be it.

The series hit its peak with FFVII (Final Fantasy VII); the series’ first proper foray into the science fiction world, and also the first 3-D game of the series. It was released on the Playstation and was one of the biggest selling games for the console.

The problem for me is Final Fantasy X was when I first developed the serious depressive symptoms of my bipolar, and I never enjoyed the game, even though I wanted to so badly. I finished the game with this sense that I’d just wasted so many hours of my life. But it’s not because it was particularly bad (although the voice acting was terrible); it was because my subconscious had decided to ambush my enjoyment of the game for no real reason other than to see me suffer. I had similar problems with each subsequent game.

So fast-forward to now, and here is Final Fantasy XIII; a game I thought would bring me back to the old days and loving the series again. In fact, I think everyone was thinking the same; as the game’s director was the same one that worked on Final Fantasy VII.

And here I introduce the big problem of this game: not only was I trying my hardest to enjoy it, but this game was obviously trying its hardest to be enjoyed. From a character heralded as the female version of FFVII’s main character Cloud (hell, even her name was fairly similar, being Lightning and all…) to stupidly detailed cut-scenes (that really give away how bad most of the graphics actually are in the game), this is a game that wants to be loved so badly. OK, I lie; it’s a game that wants to make Square Enix money.

The in-game graphics really are quite horrible for at least the first half of the game, where they look no better then the previous FFXII’s environments. It’s not just the graphics are bad, but the environments seem carelessly designed. For example, in one part Sazh (one of the few decent characters I will come back to later on) and Vanille (a horribly “australian” voiced character who, thankfully, I will not come back to again) are travelling through a forest. This forest just looks like any bog-standard, generic one you would see in any other game. But it looks boring, too. It’s not until you get in the last third of gameplay that we begin to see some of the wow-factor and huge environments a Final Fantasy game should be. And I don’t want to sound like a graphics whore, but when compared to in-game graphics of a game like Uncharted, you begin to feel the frustration that Square could have actually created something arguably just as good as in the already mentioned amazing cut-scenes.

Well, amazing definitely described the look of the cut-scenes. Their editing and direction leaves much to be desired.

Maybe I’m coming at it as I have done video-editing, but you get the feeling they let a child or something mess about with the footage before the game was released. Horrible, sweeping camera angles I’d associate with lesser games unfamiliar with cinematography are used to death. Scenes and lines cut-short, along with music that rarely properly reflects the atmosphere or what’s happening on screen. The voice acting is terrible. But the worst thing is the writing. Whoever wrote the English script should find a whole to crawl into before I find them, as it was extremely disappointing. Forget decent characterisation or trying to tie and emotional bond with the gamer. No, it’s just full of bad cliches and a horrible narrative.

Which leads to the biggest problem. I really don’t care what happens to just about all the characters. Rather than take a primary character who we see develop, with well developed supportive roles, we see a narrative that tries to make all the characters have a more or less equal role. Which simply doesn’t work; by the time we start to develop some sort of feeling for the characters, it swaps to the other half of the team for a few hours.

There is one exception to the rule: Sazh. In my opinion, he has the best character, voice actor, and role in the game. He’s an older guy who has been thrown into this mess because he wants to save his toddler son. He is also really likeable, compared to the rest of the gang of freaks.

But I think the ageism in the game says it all: in his mid-thirties, he’s an “old man”. All the other characters are younger, (apparently) sexier, and just as fake and one-dimensional as the probable target audience of the product. He ends up taking a back-seater by the middle of the story, being used from then on as someone to give the odd annoying one-liner. The annoying thing is this is meant to be a role-playing game. But the dialogue is so awful you can’t ever fit into a role.

There is also no exploration whatsoever, at least until the final chapters in a section full of side-quests which seems more like it has been bolted on to please hardcore fans. And this is one of the few parts that looks amazing; it is so huge. There is no “world-map” you can explore, and most of the game you are getting from a-to-b. Not even any “exploration” exists, as your map in the top-right corner makes it pretty obvious that the very rare off-shoot of the path probably hides some treasure. There’s no sense of “home” throughout, and no more towns you can explore or find useful things out from the townsfolk. In the few sections you can converse with people, they repeat the same thing over and over.

Finally (and arguably the flagship of any RPG) is the battle system. And in all fairness, at the beginning you think it is really well done. You control one character by selecting their attacks/defence in battle, and can select the “stance” (or paradigm, as this game decides to call them) the other two people in your team have. i.e. whether you want them to keep healing, keep using magic attacks or physical attacks etc.It all starts off well, but very quickly you see it’s limitations. It all feels too on-rails, like the rest of the game. They’ve even provided an “auto-battle” mode so you don’t even have to control your main man/woman!!  And more usually than not the other two party members act in a way you never would if you were actually controlling them. Indeed, I doubt any sane man would act that way either.

They made one massive, massive mistake with the battle system though: if the party leader gets knocked out, it’s game over. Why the hell did they decide that? Do your other party members, who are quite happy to use revive magic to any one else on the team, suddenly forget how to heal you? There isn’t even any logic for this decision in terms of the battle system as a whole. It seems just a lazy decision on Square’s part to make the game a bit harder.

So overall, I was very unimpressed with the game. It is trying too hard to make money and look all glitzy and great, but you can’t base the soul of a good game or storyline on making money. You don’t feel the passion they put into their games anymore… it seemed to all disappear after the 10th instalment of the series (which compared to this really wasn’t that bad). If they wanted a guaranteed cash-cow that I would buy and actually enjoy, they should have re-made Final Fantasy VII like everyone begged them to.

Interestingly, the related game/tie-in/sequal Final Fantasy Versus 13 really doesn’t look that bad. In fact it looks a lot darker, like in FFVII. And it has a world map to explore. Seeing as they seemed to lose their way after getting rid of a world you travel around, maybe it’s a sign they’ll go back to their roots. Maybe.

Bear Rating: 6/10

Related articles

• Dear Squre Enix: Just remake Final Fantasy VII already (crunchgear.com)

Taking Responsibility.

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One of the things I find most difficult is to take responsibility for my actions. Sure, I’m happy to say/spray it- but the second someone comes up with an argument against it, unless I’m extremely well-prepared, I usually stay quiet and regret saying anything because I now obviously look stupid.

There are a number of problems with this kind of thinking. The first is I am very likely to be upset extremely quickly because I’m going to come across people every day that disagree with me. The second is that it really does nothing for the topic I’m arguing for/against if I’m more bothered about how it might make me look. This is because I have personalised the idea to me; therefore I believe the idea is part of me, and if the idea is disagreed with I must be wrong as well.

That is the thing. I take ownership of the idea, and add it to the fragile building blocks that are my ego. As I mentioned in a conversation to a friend today, it does have some good points. I am extremely articulate in how I express my views, whether on paper or with my voice. I try my hardest to work everything I say into a way that doesn’t offend anyone I’m speaking to. But mostly it seems to knock my self-esteem. And the reason I use these melting lego blocks of ideas to build up my ego is because, in some ways, it isn’t a very well planned building from the beginning.

I find it difficult to apologise for acting wrong or out of order, as it damages me. I think I also do the same to other people; I avoid or dislike other people solely because of their beliefs and ideas. I see these people as reflecting these ideas. So, as a lame example, I hate David Cameron because he is conservative (both in political party and in his beliefs). But does that make him an evil person? Does he even care if a few loonies think he is an evil person? Probably not. Because he can accept the responsibility; can accept people disliking his ideas. And the same with Gordon Brown; at the very least he is able to make unpopular decisions that he feels is necessary to make the country better. People might question whether he’s more bothered about the power than the good of society- but in all fairness I trust him a lot more than David Cameron.

OK, politicians were a very, very bad example in people taking responsibility. Winston Churchill might be a better example. Millions of people voted him to be the “Greatest Britain”; but the fact is he produced and contributed to many, many more cock ups in his life than successes. However, he was the Prime Minister when Britain went to war and won. I think just about any leader of any country that could have a speech written for him throughout those difficult years would be seen as a hero.

At the end of the day, we are all human beings. Our ideas help shape us, but they are not who we are. Sure, if you’re willing to say something for a cause then you should rightfully be prepared for an argument against it. But if you have made a mistake, as long as you can genuinely own up to it, there is no reason to feel bad. Even though Tony Blair and David Cameron we of opposing political parties, David was still man enough to show his respect for Tony. You could argue this is one right-wing capitalist giving a handshake to another- but, even from reading Mr. Cameron’s books, he seemed to have genuine respect for Tony Blair.

Why the hell have I turned the entire post into a rant about politics? I guess because I have politics on my mind a lot.

My main, main aim of this post was to discuss with you (or rather, myself) how I can transform my ideas so I’m able to take responsibility and also accept criticism on the chin. But there’s nothing wrong with saying another person’s idea is better. It doesn’t mean you have to take an internal battering for not being able to stand up for what you think. Arguments are good for us, because they challenge our thinking, which is good for the brain because otherwise we would stay in our own little worlds where everything we say and think is right. Then we can combine those ideas into our own, which ultimately strengthens our own ideas.

So Tired

Image by IndiepoprockJesse via Flickr

After my unusually huge amount of posts on Blogger yesterday, today I’m feeling extremely tired and lethargic. It’s not something to worry about too much at the minute- I mean, just looking at everything I did yesterday, it was a lot more academic “work” I have done then the last few months put together.

However, I wanted to add a post here so that I didn’t feel alienated from posting- which is too easy to happen after not using it for a while. So really this post is here as filler, to keep me blogging.

Although I guess I can throw around the thoughts I’ve had throughout the day. I’ve been working with a friend on my novel- which I briefly posted about a few days ago. It’s set a decade in the future where Parliament has been privatised and society is micro managed and engineered so that the populace created are mindless hosts without the ability to think, or leaders that are quite happy keeping the status quo.

Mentally I feel like I’ve been doing strangely. I’m feeling a little bit depressed, yet not too low. I guess I have found that (temporary) equilibrium point. Though I doubt that’ll last for long. I’m not in any particular phase at the moment I don’t think anyway. I’m just being me.