Author: harold

Minimax and fanaticism

From Wikipedia:

Minimax (sometimes minmax) is a decision rule used in decision theory, game theory, statistics and philosophy for minimizing the possible loss for a worst case (maximum loss) scenario. Alternatively, it can be thought of as maximizing the minimum gain (maximin).

I first heard about the term through Olivier’s blog title and it struck me like lightning: this is what I’m doing and keep doing all the time and if not achieving it, going toward it. Minmax, maxmin all the way, all the time.

Minmax example: staying in shape even slightly underweight for that moment where I’ll indulged myself for a while. It will have less impact on my pants. Keeping my relationships friendly with everyone so that hate or resent doesn’t add up when shit goes down (which will happen, right? Always does). Less furniture, faster cleaning. Reusing things as much as I can. You got it.

Maxmin example: getting the best deal on a precise laptop when I could just get the new laptop du jour. Rarely eat dessert so that when it happens, it’s joyful. Do few light abs exercises everyday instead of a few heavy workouts a month so that back pain from playing bass disappears while my belly could be used in commercials or music videos. Instead of going hard on my body, I smooth it out through small routines for maximum efficiency and minimum hassle. Maximum pleasure, minimum hassle as much as I can.

Even for big events in my life I feel like I did minmax. For instance one of my bullet point to make game audio was that I was minimizing competition (everybody wanted to record music or score movies, almost none did though) and maximizing possibilities (less creative dictatorship and conventions, so much more to explore/get paid for). Sounded good to me, at least to sell it to my skeptical parents.

It’s all good except that this engineered, long term efficiency is not that popular. Actually society is almost entirely going the other way, wasting and being inefficient everywhere it can. On the other side minmaxing leads to OCPD and some kind of fanaticism about things being a certain way. It’s hard for me to witness inconsistency and wasteful behavior, even though I know that nothing’s perfect, that the world is born from chaos etc.

That really creates a tension, socially that I feel everyday a bit more.

Me Myself&I

Webvolution

2000-2010: the Far-Web

Freedom. Everything was about exploring, searching, finding stuff outside our local possibilities. Connecting with people liking the same stuff as you do. Real sharing and communicating, not for the likes. I’m starting to feel nostalgia for this amazing playground where I learned so much. Damn.

2010-2013: it’s over

Friction. Incompatibilities. People stay in their little web corner checking the five websites everybody is on. People don’t even search anymore. “How am I going to get my news now, advice?” is something I saw a lot with Google retiring Reader. Fake geek and nerd, move your little arm over your touchpad, spend ten minutes to search and find the tool you need to read your own damn news. You know how to search, right? You do it for one-time things but you can’t do it for something you do every single day? What is wrong with you people.

The recording industry -profits up this year- Hollywood know they’re on the verge of winning back their control (never forget how we got milked to death in the 90s with CDs, never forget) pushing their agendas, relentlessly (The Pirate Bay story last news, unbelievable, CISPA back). People cave in, for the sake of convenience (iTunes, Spotify). It’s not that people can’t learn it’s that they won’t (and then complain about the new order). In the digital world they’re used to have someone/something do it for them.

Companies are smiling. “Suggestions” is simply “give up your freedom of choice, now you have nothing without me.”

And now you are a geese, force fed until your bank account dies.

Definitely not something I wanted. It ain’t over.

Me Myself&I Music

Double Lamar

Kendrick Lamar.

I heard about him through Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog, analyzing Kendrick’s work.

Good Kid is not simply one the best hip-hop albums I’ve ever heard, but one of the most moving pieces of art I’ve seen/heard in a long, long, long time. I sort of initially bristled at the notion of comparison to Illmatic–my personal favorite ever–but it is exactly the right comparison. Nas was able to do was conjure the chaos of inner city black America in the late ’80s and ’90s. Now Kendrick Lamar summons it nearly 20 years later (with more focus, by the way) and virtually nothing has changed.

"Good Kid" is narrative told from behind the mask. Fantasies of rage and lust are present, but fear pervades Lamar’s world. He pitches himself not as "Compton’s Most Wanted" but as "Compton’s Human Sacrifice." He loves the city, even as he acknowledges that the city is trying to kill him. "If Pirus and Crips all got along," he says, "They’d probably gun me down by the end of this song…."

So when my white friend sees the mighty folder with the songs on my portable hard drive, he’s like “oh Kendrick Lamar I have it too, it’s good right?’”

Good. How can it be good or bad for you? Sorry if it’s offensive.

For him, it’s the last hip-hop album people are talking about. There’s Dre on it, white people’s favorite hip-hop artist (they always will be over enthusiastic; “dude, The Chronic!”). It’s probably been announced on PitchfuckingFork as one of the hottest hip-hop album of the year or some shit. For him, it’s a piece of music you have to listen to because it’s hot. It’s a product.

To me, it’s a look in the soul of a young black man in Los Angeles. As I understand lyrics probably much better than my French friends now, it strikes me hard how great Kendrick’s raps are. To me, this album is a blog. To me who rode through South LA, Compton, who read the construction of this city, segregation, civil rights, fights to live a normal life, the BPP and its assassination, the crack epidemic… It’s powerful to have someone tell you a story from the inside, how his world functions and how fucking alarming it is, narrated with cold humor and cold facts from warm LA.

And then there’s the connection with the universal struggle black people and black men have to deal with. Remember, a Newton every four months in black Chicago. This fucking hopelessness. The system is running over our hopes, hard work, everything. There’s no fixing anymore. Do what you can to escape.

There’s a great connection happening to me and I don’t see where my friend is getting any. So somehow, I don’t see where this album is good or bad to him. Like I wouldn’t be able to say if some indie rock band is good or not as I can’t really connect to this music therefore I wouldn’t be able to have an opinion about it nor act like I know what I’m talking about. Double standard in yo face, Harold. Which I don’t care so much about, compared to consistency and making sense.

This is where I have a big disconnection with my white world, even if we listen to the same stuff.

Me Myself&I

Achtung baby

Me, holding my sister for the first time.

It’s baby time in France. So many of them in a couple of months. I’m afraid for them, their future. But for now when they are babies and discovering the world, being the cutest tyrants literally pooping the weirdest shit with their brand new buttholes, they’re great. You don’t see time go by. I remember that with my lil’ sister. I took that time very seriously, observing how fascinating it is to have a small human grow up. The first laughs and first steps, fucking amazing. The puppy effect.

But that’s the start, the easy part. Then they are twenty and don’t know what to do in life and in the world of today, it’s more dramatic than at any time previously in history.

That early 2010 generation is going to end up hating us so hard when they’ll understand what world we’re leaving them with. "hey it’s the boomers’ fault, those greedy fuckers” would be my answer but that doesn’t solve anything.

I think I would do a pretty good dad. I know too much attention is the worst and I know what damages no attention at all brings in, so I’d be able to balance it out. Thanks to a life filled with great women, I took notes and I’d be good at nurturing her/him. I already have this role business wise. Counseling stuff, I’m good at that.

But maybe I would be the worst a “I’ve been through this you’ll go through this too you little bitch” asshole-ish type. Or maybe I would destroy his hopes and trust because I would tell him how the world is everything but far from being fair.

Whatever. I don’t have kids!

Me Myself&I

RSS be rising

You don’t explain RSS. You show how it works, the person uses it the next day and then it’s done. He/she’s hooked. Things you see on Twitter and Facebook? They most likely come from people using RSS readers to fetch news like mad men.

Google Reader is dead and that’s a good thing.

Now, we’ll be forced to fill the hole that Reader will leave behind, and there’s no immediately obvious alternative. We’re finally likely to see substantial innovation and competition in RSS desktop apps and sync platforms for the first time in almost a decade.

Very true.

Also, YES FINALLY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. I’m still a bit mad at developers, working with an undocumented API for years without thinking about that day when Google will do whatever they want, as they always do. I don’t understand how developers can be fine with hours and hours of work being ditched forever. Shutting down a service is much worse than making a technology evolve, it’s better to have something broken than non-existent at all. Fixing VS crying.

Now dear developers,

Desktop: I don’t want my news in a browser tab, ever again. I don’t like chilling, reading news and have my machine spin like I’m rendering 3D for LOTR when I know that I can load these feeds really fast with a desktop app. Go desktop. This slow ass web shit has to stop.

OPML: I know it sucks for developers because it makes people able to jump in/out of their apps, it makes them independent the total opposite of what Feedly Flipboard and others are trying to do. Do not lock me in with sign ups. The WEB is the service, you provide SOFTWARE, I take care of the rest thanks.

Otherwise be wild, innovate (Dave Winer is right about the unread items count BS, but I don’t necessarily want a river either). I know sync is a big deal for a lot of users but it’s also a complex problem for developers. I think we can live without it, missing a couple items or reading them again isn’t a big deal when the app is fast (I used GreatNews now Veen Feed Reader and Weave). Keyword being fast.

I dream of being able to click a rss link that would open my rss client and ask me in which category I’d like to put this subscription in. All private. I share through the Windows 8 charm thingy where/when I want. All neat.

Almost a decade reading RSS everyday. I can’t think of an internet without it.

Audio&Games

The missing device

Your PC is an amazing peace of kit, it’s amazing because no other computing platform is as versatile and no other platform is so open for innovation. You can buy hardware for it from thousands of vendors, you can hook it up to just about any display or input device and you can make it do just about anything. While maybe no longer being the latest buzzword, the combination of screen, mouse and keyboard, is still the best way to be productive, get a headshot or to create the next software wonder. Whatever cool mobile app or console game you think is the hot stuff, it was conceived on a PC. If we could only choose one computing platform it would have be the PC, for the simple fact that no other platform could exist without the PC.

Eskil.

What pisses me off is how bad PC manufacturers are at creating what people want these days: the perfect blend of HTPC/Gaming PC in the living room. Go around, people are really waiting on that machine to show up. No manufacturer did it. All could (Apple still hasn’t because they hate gaming, you can tell). Lenovo Dell Asus Samsung still see the market as very distinct between desktop, laptop and non-general-uses devices. Fools (but yes I know, money)! It’s only computers now. We hook them up everywhere. We do everything on them. Phones have 2 Gb of RAM. The size, form factor are nearly irrelevant.

It’s the real Personal Computer Era beyond the beige box. It’s the tech stabilization that we were waiting for. But we’re still missing one really core element. Let’s build that home device that will once and for all blend the old PC and the old console paradigms together.

You probably didn’t notice but we can do everything fanless now.

These are fanless machines that can be today more powerful than any current console, easily. It’s an important step because game developers financially, humanly can barely max out this generation. They can now focus on making games instead of needing more tech.

No more maintenance or planned obsolescence like we’re so used to with laptops and towers full of failing fans. Think 90s TV set or fridges. You buy one, it lasts up to the point where you want another one, not because it’s underpowered or broke but because the old one goes to the bedroom and the new one is for the living room.

These fanless machines, PCs yes there I said it, will provide peace of mind and choice for consumers and will fund a more homogenous ecosystem that will help game developers to stabilize their shit and stay away from too much vertical silo-ification of the business.

I’m out.

*drops the mic*

Me Myself&I

Moving the slider through time

Post author By harold
Post date March 13, 2013
No Comments on Moving the slider through time

Another life form alive!

Last weekend I went to my foster home family, catching up with the new baby delivered by my cousin, sister. I don’t know, we grew up together that’s all. See why I hate categories and labels? Always fucked my life up.

I never can do anything there. I’m just back. I’m just there, like I started. I legally have not direct connection, culturally feeling so much wider but staying in the picture. Like she told me “you are here, you are in Paris, Hollywood, you can feel comfortable anywhere!” I guess it’s true, I am a chameleon man. But you need to be a bit invisible to do that well, sometimes it’s weird to be in the background, Bruce Wayne was once again crying on the phone the other day about that.

The thing when I go there is that it’s like playing with the radio, moving through frequencies from left to right. I get to see or go by my past from being a kid in a village, to driving to parties with a girlfriend to a city I used to go to skate all the time, memories jumping in and out let’s move the slider to the right, fast forward to hopes and desires of “making it” in France, the bitter side of realizing that it’s not going to happen because we’re all stupid.

Then I’m back at my parents to park grandpa’s car that I use and which also, contains memories. Then it’s dinner time with them, the kind, sweet and horribly stuck up parents. Then I’m back to the crib, English resumes. And the internet, the world at my fingertips.

Twice a year. It’s fucking amaz-hausting. The dreams I get from all this shit? Priceless.

Audio&Games

Game developers you need to be like, way cooler

Post author By harold
Post date March 12, 2013
No Comments on Game developers you need to be like, way cooler

Talking business here. Looking at skateboarding history and how their creators started their own stuff, own brand, developed them to great success.

Young adults, culture supposedly stupid and useless, born around the same time, same problems of “how to make a living out of this weird passion?” computer games and skateboard share some stuff. Also, they’re so hard to master.

But skateboarders thrive man. Creating their brands and selling them.

So why game developers are such crying babies (I include myself, chill) who cannot envision a world where they are having a hand on their shit and their future? It boggles my mind to see guys fight to be the bitches of whoever is going to tell them how it works (Sony, XBLA, Steam whatever) and complain about it at the same time, despite knowing how it works with middle men. WTF.

In late-1989, Mark Gonzales approached Rocco with the desire to be involved in his own company. Gonzales was riding for Vision at the time, which, at the time, was the largest skateboard company. Gonzales and Rocco decided to name the company Blind, in contrast to Gonzales’ former sponsor.

I think it’s genius. Skateboarders use to ride for big companies (usually divisions from even bigger sportswear companies). Then they started their own because you might want to have a bit more of a plan in your life than just riding a skateboard, right? Between one or three riders together would start their company. Create a brand. New riders coming in? Let’s create another company/brand! Repeat. One dies? Another gets a bit bigger or another one pop out. It’s fluid.

Independent, 35 year old sub-company From the Santa Cruz Skateboard mothership. Biggest brand in the game.

Now game developers. They used to work for big companies. Then they start their own because they want control and not just being chimps in a giant mechanism. But they do so, reluctantly. It’s almost not a choice, it’s by default if you want to keep your mind sane. It’s the first problem IMO. Then names! Hey how about we choose the weirdest, nerdiest name we can possibly come up with? Studio Pixel, Metanet, Mojang, Nifflas, Number None Giant Squid of course no one can remember that shit. Element, Real, Independent. Plan B. Now these stick, send some kind of message from seriousness to total goofy (Girl and Chocolate skateboard??? Apple anyone?) but you remember it. You associate. The brand. I never can’t remember Jon Blow’s Number None studio thing. I think it’s the second problem which follows the first one: no seduction, no “vibe”, weak concept you know? Just dead cold and almost auto-generated words that make no sense. The game studio name is so important, it seems like only Japan understood that a long time ago.

Skateboarders running businesses, they have to build shit! I mean, real shit with machines, wood, plastic, steel. Distribution issues, so many things to deal with. Game developers can just set up a website, use the awesome Humble Store and spread the word. That is all.

But for a very large part, we still fucking don’t do that. All the discussions these days are about how app stores are awful with curation problem etc. So let’s state the obvious: don’t go on them! At some point they’ll reconsider how they treat developers see Sony’s case these days. And maybe we can even not give a fuck because there are hundreds of millions of computers sold every year and we have the damn internet. Game developers, do you measure the luck we have compare to other businesses??? It’s mind-blowing. Minecraft should have started a massive shift in the game industry, it didn’t.

If skateboarders are eternal teenagers, sometimes I feel game developers are eternal 9 year olds. It’s a bit too young.

Documentaries to watch and analyze branding through: Bones Brigade, The Man Who Souled The World.

Me Myself&I Music

In the house

I always liked house music. I mean, I hated it in the 90s as a hard rock/trash metal listener that wasn’t my thing (so mainstream, ew) for sure but hey, I was young.

What drove me to it is hedonism, just feeling good and dancing is a great, great feeling. House music is kind of the king for that. But also, it ages well.

I listen to some electronic music from the past decade -broken beat and what not- and so many things sound dated, gimmicky. House music, especially deep house never does. The great house tracks from 96 still are awesome in 2013. Too simple, too funky and soulful to feel outdated (except for very early acid house, it sounds like today’s phone ringtones).

I also love it as a background music when doing something that requires focus. When the kick comes in, your head banging while you grok some stuff on your computer, the rain hitting the windows… It makes you warm inside. I mostly like house music in the winter, it’s like a call for summer and sun. Chicago’s deep house is the best for that.

ANYWAY. I made two house tracks (that you can buy on Bandcamp!). One love,

Me Myself&I

Archives shit I have some

Post author By harold
Post date March 4, 2013
No Comments on Archives shit I have some

It’s going to be a theme this year I guess, I’m going to look back a bit. Ten years that I’ve been living in the same place -a bit less the past few years- and ten years that I’ve been blogging. Next year right but I was already blogging in 2003 on my friend’s site so you shut up.

It’s like all of sudden I realized that I had archives! I have never really spent any time reading back. But hey, let’s look at March 2006, seven years ago. BAM, mind blown: I was already crazy about games and developers, watching documentaries, taking care of my grandparents, complaining about France’s stupid ass work laws, scrapping the surface of the black planet and its struggle, high fiving feminists… And sex. Which I don’t write about anymore though it is kind of central in my life these past few years.

But for the rest, same. Consistent as fuck. Seven years later I can say that gamedev has lost some magic, the world is fucked as dozens of documentaries showed me since then, the grandparents are still a concern but it really feels like it’s not going to be for long…

Also it’s the little things but stuff that I was dreaming of having well, I have them. My fanless computer and Fender Stratocaster are standing there on my left. It’s really enjoyable to read back on your fantasy and dreams, and realize that some happened. All right, that’s like really small ass dreams but I didn’t dream of living in LA, experimenting some epic moments there and yet it totally happened so suck on thisss. It’s the thing to me these days, I realize I’m part of this extremely small number of totally free black men in the world, I’m part of the 0.0001%.

So I’m really asking myself where to go from there, besides nowhere. Pondering. I need to stop watering down my intensity. I need to fuel it into something that grows. More work is always a good answer, amirite.