John Walker's Electronic House

I’m in my Kingdom. San Francisco, this time, for GDC. I’ve not been before, but think I’m going to do it very well. If my head will stop loop-the-looping.

Flying to the West coast is always a novel experience. Usually eleven hours in the air (although today some favourable tailwinds brought it down to a far more bearable ten), but you only advance through time by about three or four. So leaving at 9.45am, I arrived finding the afternoon had ripped loose from its moorings and started itself over again, and Friday is showing no signs of ending. It’s 2.10am according to my brain and laptop clock, but this city refuses to agree.

So in attempt to stay awake I’ve filled my tummy with pulled pork, beer and coffee. What’s that you say? Food and beer will make me sleepier?! Try telling me an hour ago that.

I’d like to congratulate San Francisco for its unique ability to be both too hot and too cold at the same time. It’s a rare skill, and you do it with a flourish. And for your hills, which are faithfully modelled on Crazy Taxi.

In Rum Doings 99D we don’t discuss whether it’s time we should regulate our schools and hospitals, but instead ponder the 99thness of our existence, and then turn to our tweeted questions.

Things begin with Disney cartoons of the 90s, ponder silence, and might John be a robot? Is the BBC anti-Semitic? Are Easter cards acceptable? Did we do Valentine’s? Bad sugar, rotting beetles, where is Half-Life 3? Lots of other things! Can coffee be bad?

Rum Doings will be away next week, as John’s off to his Kingdom of America.

We really do ask you to write a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference, and helps other people to pay attention to the podcast. Thank you to everyone who has – we’ve some lovely reviews. The more that appear, the more likely iTunes is to take us more seriously. And keep on tweeting and so forth. Please – it’s the only thing we ask of you. And don’t forget to give us a million pounds.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

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Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e99d.mp3]

In episode 99C of Rum Doings we don’t even have time to tell you what happened, so quickly have we recorded it and uploaded. Find out for yourself by listening! But we do mention the Muppets, and swearing, and Nick goes on about something or other.

We really do ask you to write a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference, and helps other people to pay attention to the podcast. Thank you to everyone who has – we’ve some lovely reviews. The more that appear, the more likely iTunes is to take us more seriously. And keep on tweeting and so forth. Please – it’s the only thing we ask of you. And don’t forget to give us a million pounds.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e99c.mp3]

Rum Doings 99B doesn’t discuss whether a cat or a dog is better, but begins with SCIENCE, as Nick engages in a blind test to see if he can identify the difference between bad tea and decaffeinated tea. We recognise that podcasts are marvellous, ponder if it would have been so bad if SOPA had won, and ask whether there’s a way to find out what words mean.

Which fish is the biggest nob? Why might we not move to America? Was Nick looking forward to FOSDEM because he’d obviously already been. Do we want 3D printers? That’s a question you obviously can’t ask without inevitably talking about making a dildo in the shape of your own penis. Top Chef vs Masterchef: the ultimate battle. Which race does Nick like the least? And John reveals a horrible prejudice. Another one. And we talk a bit about how Rum Doings isn’t copyrighted in any stupid way – see the link at the bottom of this blog for the copyleft license it’s under.

We really do ask you to write a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference, and helps other people to pay attention to the podcast. Thank you to everyone who has – we’ve some lovely reviews. The more that appear, the more likely iTunes is to take us more seriously. And keep on tweeting and so forth. Please – it’s the only thing we ask of you. And don’t forget to give us a million pounds.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e99b.mp3]

In episode 99A of Rum Doings – the podcast for the new generation – we don’t discuss whether it’s about time we abandoned the TV license and reintroduced the dog license. And then we took to Twitter to find out what it was we were supposed to be talking about.

Which we then ignore for ages and talk about the importance of rum for preventing heart disease, how you only exist if you podcast, and then finally turn to a tweet for how copyright will be interpreted by the next generation.

Is it more humane to keep a robot pet? Or how about a robot wife? Why aren’t there boobies on children’s TV? And why can’t Sherlock Holmes investigate the missing grammar?

We consider the difficulty curve of petrol stations, the most bestest academic discipline, and then someone flicks the vegetarian-rant switch on Nick. Can a Morman be president of America? And are gays icky?

We really do ask you to write a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference, and helps other people to pay attention to the podcast. Thank you to everyone who has – we’ve some lovely reviews. The more that appear, the more likely iTunes is to take us more seriously. And keep on tweeting and so forth. Please – it’s the only thing we ask of you. And don’t forget to give us a million pounds.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e99a.mp3]

Oh my goodness, I’m boiling over with rage. Yet another gaming site is trying to deceive young writers into believing their work is worthless, and the only way they can get anywhere in this job is to work for free. (You can read my previous rant here.)

Pocket Gamer, who until now I’d always naively thought of as quite a cheery site, are offering three month unpaid “internships”. Which means they take their writing, publish it on their advertising-emblazoned site, and then keep all the money that article generates for themselves. The author gets the magical treat of “experience”, and we’re all to thank the publisher for their charitable efforts.

What’s made me quite so angry this evening is the realisation that I would FAR prefer the editors/publishers of such a site just admit that they’re taking advantage of a culture where young writers are easy to screw over. But instead we get told these ridiculous stories about how it’s for the exploited writer’s own benefit, that it’s to help them, and most of all, that they’d never get paid work without doing unpaid first.

That is a LIE. An absolute lie. And it’s a ridiculous one at that. Never mind that most the writers I know never did any prolonged stints of unpaid work. Never mind that I wrote for PC Gamer for a decade, and saw lots of young writers with no paid experience being given a chance with paid-for work in the magazine. Never mind that RPS hired the extraordinary Adam Smith despite his never having had any published games journalism experience at all. Nor that we’re not requiring it for our next hire. But because the lie is usually backed up with the stupidest logic imaginable. “I did unpaid work to get into this industry, and I’d never have got here if I hadn’t.”

Presumably people willing to make this argument are also aware of every other of the billions upon trillions of alternate paths their lives could have taken should they have turned left at the lights rather than right, or left the house on time rather than five minutes late. The capacity to contain the eventualities of every possible version of their existence must be the thing that exhausts them enough to be of a frame of mind where they believe published writers shouldn’t get paid. It’s such a monumentally lazy thing to say, to believe that because they did one thing – that they were personally exploited – that no other pathway was open to them. It’s illogical nonsense, and that it’s people’s best defense for the morally bankrupt practice is a touch problematic.

It’s not ambiguous. If your website makes money, and you publish someone’s article, you pay them for it. Otherwise you’re making money from their work and giving them nothing, which is exploitation.

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Annoyingly in Episode 98 of Rum Doings, we don’t discuss which letters of the alphabet should be removed. But instead we gain insight into the tragedy of John’s life.

We learn how Philadelphian trains cause rampant terrorism, paedophilia and puns. Nick dunks himself into a nice mug of tea, and we consider the artificial nature of jellyfish, the artifice of Hollywood, the artistry of The Artist, and how we hit our wives.

Did Nick ever microwave his baby? Does Dexter still have a pee-pee? Are Smarties right for you? And then we talk about Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s hack, before we move onto Nick’s extraordinary array of retro computer floppy disc sound effects. It’s a thing to behold. Finally we celebrate American diners, then question whether such a thing is possible without poorly paid illegal immigrants.

We really do ask you to write a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference, and helps other people to pay attention to the podcast. Thank you to everyone who has – we’ve some lovely reviews. The more that appear, the more likely iTunes is to take us more seriously. And keep on tweeting and so forth. Please – it’s the only thing we ask of you. And don’t forget to give us a million pounds.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e98.mp3]

In a pre-recorded episode 97 of Rum Doings, we don’t discuss this week’s SOPA activities because we recorded this weeks ago. But it’s the final part of our Judge Coxcombe trilogy, where we take questions from the audience. We begin with some real life, and then quickly get into cuddly character as we question Nick’s absence. We celebrate making money by letting things be free, and then impressively we DO talk about SOPA! We are prescient.

Then we turn to the Twitters to solve your woes. The choice between trifle and banana crunch! Whether Mark Kermode is a big twit (he is)! Dealing with txtspk! The future of newspapers! These exclamation marks feel inappropriate!

We ponder Kunstler, whether it’s okay to associate with people who like George Galloway, how marshmallows predict your future, and the hypothetical kitchen of Nicholas Mailer. And who will Baby Judith grow up to be?

We really do ask you to write a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference, and helps other people to pay attention to the podcast. Thank you to everyone who has – we’ve some lovely reviews. The more that appear, the more likely iTunes is to take us more seriously. And keep on tweeting and so forth. Please – it’s the only thing we ask of you. And don’t forget to give us a million pounds.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e97.mp3]

I recently received the most extraordinary press release, ostensibly sent to me because I’m a games journalist, about the dangers of “Text Neck”. Often when you see something like this it’s a joke, a spoof that eventually links to a game. But this one was entirely serious.

This new phenomenon is caused by “frequent texting or looking down at your mobile device for extended periods of time”. And guess who says this? Why, it’s chiropractors. According to these bastions of medical science, “it is on the rise and is quickly becoming a global epidemic.” That’s honestly their quote.

Ignoring the notion that perhaps people’s propensity to read books for the last few thousand years might have generated similar symptoms, these not-doctors inform us that such activity can cause check soreness and headaches, and even arthritis! If left untreated. Of course. And how?

Why, you could use Topical BioMedics’ Topicin Pain Relief and Healing Cream! And what is Topicin, that this press release fails to mention? It’s a homeopathic remedy, and thus a tube of placebo.

On their website, which hilariously has blocked right-clicking, they state:

“Topricin’s patented homeopathic biomedicine technology is proven effective for arthritis and joint injuries, carpal tunnel and other neuropathies, lower back pain and muscle cramps, night leg cramps and restless leg syndrome.”

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I’ve been bleating away on Twitter all day, probably to the horror of anyone who doesn’t follow me via RPS or Rum Doings, and making my opinions on SOPA and PIPA well known. Rather than repeating the definitions of these Acts, and why they’re the most dangerous infringements of free speech and a free internet imaginable, you can learn all that from here.

But there’s something I want to comment on specifically, and it doesn’t fit in a tweet. I’ve tried. Lots of times.

This line from Kotaku’s missive on why they haven’t blacked out their site as part of today’s international protest sums part of it up for me:

“It’s no wonder that an outfit like the League of Legends creators at Riot Games read that and worry that a livestream of a great LoL match could be found in violation of SOPA the moment someone starts singing the lyrics of a copyrighted song on it. Is that really the kind of stifling of the Internet the writers of SOPA and PIPA are seeking?”

Yes! Yes it is. That is precisely the internet they’re seeking. It seems so outlandish that so many news outlets are phrasing it as if it’s a reductio ad absurdum, throwing their hands up and saying, “This bill’s so crazy it would lead to these wacky outcomes!” as if such a result is a parody of the poorly written nature of the bill.

This is to so frighteningly miss the point as to be all but helping those crafting such bills. By reducing the very intent of terrified industries – they who built their empires around plastic squares and discs that have since been rendered pointless – to a perceived exaggeration, something apparently so laughable as to parody the bills’ intentions, is to ignore the reality of what we are facing.

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