The Naked History

The fact that somebody is attracted and curious of this title proves that human has always been interested in nakedness or nudity. Although the attraction towards it may be normal, it can be right or wrong. This can be seen in the so called nudity art, with its influences can be traced back in thousands of years of human history. Ever since the Renaissance era, we can see nudity in many European paintings and sculptures. In almost heretical act, they even depicted sacred biblical figures like Adam and Eve in nude as well! European on that time was like, obsessed with nudity, not just their artists but almost everyone.

In Roman civilization, we can see their nude sculpted figures, murals and frescos. Historians know the Ancient Roman was indeed a sexist civilization. They even have the oldest known form of pornography, where male and female performer made love as some sort of live show on the stage of amphitheatres throughout many cities in the vast empire. For them, it was just another form of visual amusement other than the gladiatorial fights and public criminal executions.

Although both male and female figures were portrayed in nude in visual artworks, it is the female that is the most significant subject. It is clearly a sign of exploitation of female physical proportion. Nudity paintings and sculpted figures on that time were like a genital-concealed ‘Playboy’ or ‘Penthouse’ to the people in the past, since they have no video devices and internet like us today.

Why the women on that time did not say or do something to stop it anyway? In those times, artisans or artists were living in their own class in the community. There are times where what they are saying were deemed right. Not many people are willing to defy them because in the pre-electronic age, they are one of a few sources of entertainment. Therefore, if they say it is acceptable to be nude in the name of art, then people will definitely accept it without much argument.

Again, what would the women on that time have to say on it?With their rights are still constrained by the community, they say virtually nothing. Some might argue, if nudity really have the power to lead to sexual crime, why were there not many of it occured, despite the public were openly exposed to nudity in art? There are many answers to this. First, the women on that time were wearing full clothes in contrast to today’s females, thus reducing the propability of triggering bad thoughts among men. Besides, polygamy was not restricted and having concubines are normal especially to the wealthy like the landlords and noblemen. Furthermore, prostitution was more-less ‘legal’ or at least have ‘easier access’ compared to today, giving the men an ‘alternative’ instead of committing sex crime, as long as they have some extra cash to spend on it.

Nobody would offend them, afterall, almost everybody do the same thing to, and nobody would want to stop or would bother to stop it. That’s the difference between us and them. Therefore, if any people today say it is fine to have nudity in art, it is like they are still having a mind of ancient or medieval class.

The Melancholy of Mobile Gaming (code: Java Games)

Mobile phone games out there is a mess. There are plenty of them in the form of ‘Micro Edition‘ Java applications (often named J2ME). However, hardly any of them really stand out among each other. The reason to this must be they do not have much to offer other than the old boring level achieving missions as if all of them are puzzle games like Tetris, which is not much different from their 80’s legacies. Often, they are found not supporting gamestats saving. Is the so called sophisticated Java programming language too ‘primitive’ that it is incapable to allow gamers to save their gamestats in the middle of their hours of tiresome gaming ‘missions’ (sessions)?

Graphics wise, although we cannot expect much from the maximum QVGA screen size, the games should not have been those vertical-scroller like theSpace Invader or side-scroller like the Super Mario anymore. Why must we repeat the same thing of the past when we can do much better today? What a waste of advanced electronic mobile technologies of the present!

Multimedia and 3D acceleration maybe not great on mobile devices than that of some dedicated portable gaming machines like Nintendo DS orSony PSP but many Symbian powered phones and PDAs today (such as many Nokia products) have become much better in that terms, compared to the models of the past years, thanks to the more processing power from the more powerful new chips. Therefore, why not utilize those capabilities to its fullest instead of producing the oldschool style gaming over and over again?

Everybody knows it is hard to make even a small mobile game but at least make it in isometric or orthographic perspective (much less like bird’s eye view) like the old Diablo II if not in 3D, and do not bother to make a game if you are not willing to go through the difficulties.

Some might ask, "Why bother to emphasize too much on mobile gaming when what matters is the phone functions?". The answer to this question is another question, "Why bother to have separate phone and gaming tools when you can have both function in a single device?". The key here is being mobile, which means carrying less burden, or in other words, having less stuff on the move. That is also the same reason why we have media player in our phone. The sales record of Sony Ericsson’s Walkman andCybershot trademarked phones proves the urge for all-in-one multimedia capable ‘toys’. Besides, carrying more gadgets and gears on the go kills the meaning of being mobile itself. Therefore, if you are thinking of getting serious on mobility, you should concern on everything about it, including the aspect of mobile gaming. It should never be taken for granted, and yes, this is a view from a gamer to a gamer, not from a programmer to a programmer. Bear in mind there is a huge gap in between so do not generalize them. A gamer is not always a programmer, and so do programmer is not always a gamer, but it does not mean they cannot work together to create some great games.

In Japan, they already have Final Fantasy franchise mobile spin-offs (and perhaps mobile visual novel and eroge as well?) Envy? Anyway, happy (mobile) gaming to you avid mobile gamers out there.

I like programming but... (2nd edition)

(This is a recycled article with some minor editing)

Why programming is hard for me? I think there are at least 4 major factors that 'contribute' to the difficulties. They are:

1. I don't know all available commands or instructions for computer. OK, nobody knows all of the available commands and instructions but I know almost nothing about them.

2. I don't know what commands instructions are understandable by computer. It seems like not everything that I know are understandable by computer, especially when I only know some C while the computer can only understands (compile) Java.

3. I don't know how computer interprets commands & instructions. Yes, I can give them any commands and instructions I know but how would they interpret them?

4. I don't know the behavior of certain commands & instructions. How can I give commands and instructions to the computer if I don't know which commands or instructions do which things?

There, not to mention the logic, math and syntax structures for programming languages. I wonder if I still can start learning programing (again) at my 25 years old of age.