Revisiting Darwinia

Revisiting Darwinia

I’ve been replaying Darwinia recently, a game I was shocked to see was released in 2005and which I bought soon after launch. I still love it.

Darwinia’s setting feels like a retro, Tron-like world where the subsystems of the computer software provide a whole ecosystem for the inhabitants (“Darwinians”, obvs) to inhabit. Its gameplay feels like the 3D polygon Cannon Fodder sequel we never got.

The framing device of its story is that you have hacked into the computer of an AI researcher, whose advanced world of evolving sentient beings has just been taken over by a virus. Despite this suspension of disbelief, I always feel like I should do my utmost to get my engineer units out as soon as possible, in order to save the souls of the Darwinians in time before they’re lost forever.

Why I hate photography♦

I am by no means as experienced, talented, knowledgable or dedicated to photography as Stephen, and yet there this article absolutely rings true to me in my limited experience as a hobbyist photographer for over 20 years. Certainly the part about it being unsatisfying. Part of this for me is that digital photography has made it a bit of a numbers game – just take enough photographs of something and you’ll probably get at least something half-decent.

The initial convenience of digital photography which made the taking, processing and sharing of photos a breeze, has resulted in its near-ubiquity – everyone is a photographer nowadays.

I’ve tried to listen to the people who say that Instagram is more about communication than photography, a way of quickly showing friends what you’re up to – the “I’m eating a sandwich” approach to social media. But photography focussed online spaces that I loved (basically mid to late 2000s Flickr) have fallen by the wayside in favour of tiny, phone-sized photos, it doesn’t feel like there’s a place online for people who enjoy photography anymore.

Web Feeds, not RSS

Educating people about RSS is a great idea, and taking the name to task is an even better one.

I’ve felt that the RSS name could be a kick in the teeth for some people, and I’ve imagined a conversation along the lines of:

Person 1: “I used RSS”

Person 2: “What’s RSS?”

“Person 1: “It stands for “Really Simple Syndication”

Person 2: “Oh.”

Where Person 2 is made to feel dumb for not knowing a silly acronym. “Web feeds” actually describes what the thing is.

So I reinstalled Windows for the afternoon for the sole purpose of updating my BIOS.

Fingers-crossed that this has stopped the frequent freezing and crashing I’ve had more or less since I bought the laptop 🤞