That Dragon Cancer

A video game to cope with grief...that was a topic I never thought would leave that much of an impact.

Amy Green in a Ted Talks video talked about one of her children that she lost to cancer. The child, named Joel was fighting a brain tumor that was aggressive and would not stay away no matter what. During the time Joel was fighting, Amy sat down with her two kids and told a continuous bedtime story of a knight who fought this dragon named cancer. Over the years, as Amy was telling her story, her husband Ryan began to work on a game, retelling the story of Joel and his fight against the dragon that was cancer.

Sadly, after 4 years, Joel lost the fight to the dragon. This is what led to the impact of everything. Video Games are a dime a dozen. Yet so few can actually get me to almost break out into tears after playing them. The story behind this and that Amy and Ryan told is very sad. It is a story about love and loss. And the game is all about dealing with grief. And it's done in the best way possible. There are not many games that can leave such a big impact. The beginner's guide, Dear Esther, The static speaks my name are all games that left a HUGE impact on me. And this one is right up there with it.

In the game market, impact games like this are stories that NEED to be told. They need to be heard, and I'm still heartbroken but happy I heard this story. And everything about Amy’s story on ted talks was done perfectly. Pacing, visuals, tone, she did a great job talking about this, and I was happy to hear it.

Link to the talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_green_a_video_game_to_cope_with_grief

The block on Chip Updates

On the March 17th podcast of the WAN show from Linus Tech Tips, many topics were discussed.

One big topic that stood out was Microsoft is now gonna be blocking updates to the newest Intel and AMD chips on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 in an attempt to get people to go to windows 10.

I saw this topic and I felt like sharing my thoughts on this topic. Ever since windows 10 was announced, Microsoft has been trying in many desperate ways to get people to upgrade to it. From that annoying pop-up, to forcing it onto the computer, and now to this. It has gotten to the point where Microsoft is looking like they want all of their previous OS to just go away and never come back. For me, I feel like this is a stupid move on Microsoft's part to block chip updates and upgrades. These are crucial updates for any PC user and blocking them can only cause problems. I do understand what Microsoft is trying to do, but they are doing it in a way that is unnecessary. If Microsoft wants to gain some trust back with their audience, they need to stop with these stupid boundaries on their chips.

Long story short, I think that blocking updates to the chips is not needed by microsoft as its forcing users to do something they clearly don't want to do.

How different companies use Social Media

How different companies use Social Media

With the growth in social media, it has much easier to connect with friends and family as well as keep up with the local or even global news. Everyone uses social media in a different way. Some may use it to talk to friends, others may use it to give information, and some may just use it to just post random stuff like a cat trying to get a box off its head. However, for companies, every one of them will use social media differently, assuming that they are two completely different companies. The two companies I’m looking at are Linus Tech Tips (@LinusTech) and Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine).

Both companies use the Twitter social media platform for different reasons, however both of them do have one thing in common. They, along with pretty much every other company, use it to give their respective audiences updates, or notifications about certain things. That is really the only thing these two companies share. From there, these two companies are completely different.

Linus Tech Tips is a tech review youtube channel which also covers the latest in technology such as the new AMD Ryzen. Their Twitter page is used mostly for giving updates on when new videos are posted, when something gets changed to videos or just short behind the scenes stuff. They have also used twitter to keep up with the audience they have formed over the years by sometimes taking suggestions and giving timely updates about big changes, like when a video may go down, to us the audience; which mostly consists of tech enthusiasts like myself.

The Unreal Engine is a game engine for making pretty high quality games. 99% of the games that I have seen produced on the engine have turned out beautiful. The unreal engine notably makes tweets about updates to their engine or tweeting or retweeting some images or videos of games being made by developers on their engine. Most of the audience includes developers, or, in my case, people who are interested in the games that devs are making on this very beautiful engine.

             As stated earlier, both companies use these services to stay in contact with their audience, as they should. Yes both use it for different reasons, however the connection with the audience is something made perfectly clear. The customer/audience is the most important part in running a company. They provide the service to make these companies stand out and be the best they can be. In the end, social media is a tool that will continue to be the most powerful object for a company.

Why am I at MATC?

Why am I here at MATC?

Most of the time if you ask someone that question, they’ll answer with “Because it was cheap”. However, that’s not why I joined this school. Yes, this school is a great price, but it’s not the reason. Originally, when I joined up, it was for the Computer Simulation and Gaming program. It was my dream to be part of the gaming world in some way. What better way to be part of that world then to make them? Well, after a year of doing that, I realized that the dream was not meant to be. Getting into the gaming world is a competition; in other words, you had to be the best. That’s not what I wanted to do. I want to have fun with my job, not compete with others just to get it, let alone keep it. So after a year, I stepped down from the program.

After that, I kinda wondered what I was gonna do. Being a worker at McDonalds for over 3 years didn’t help much; and I knew I wanted out of fast food business. It was at this time that I decided to put my coding skills to good use. Not as video game programming, but as a Mobile App programmer. I knew that the IT field was growing every day. There is and always high demand for new people to come into the field. That is why i chose to go into mobile apps. Mobile devices are growing, and I know that the programmers are gonna be in high demand for it. That is where i plan to take my career in the future after graduation.

Now, why did I choose to go to school here instead of some four year college? The answer is pretty simple. There is no better school in my eyes. Sure some schools can offer similar experiences, but those cost way too much money.  Here at MATC, i have one of the best hands on experiences than any other place that I can think of. I learn what is needed for the field, instead of what might be needed. The teachers are amazing, the atmosphere is outstanding, and the learning experience is perfect. That is why I am here.