Accuracy Is Important

Verity. It's not just for pedants any more.

Yesterday, I got into a small difference of opinion with Tim Buckley via Twitter. He draws the popular web comic Ctrl+Alt+Del. I've been reading Tim's comics for years and they're pretty enjoyable. Usually his work is about the shenanigans of his characters, video game jokes or some such similar fodder.

On Friday, he posted a comic about the AT&T security breach in which hackers obtained the email addresses & ICC-IDs of a ton of iPad 3G owners. Click the comic to go to the CAD site and read it full sized. 

This is, of course, an analogy to the BP oil spill in the Gulf. The comic has what I feel to be a pretty egregious error in it though. The pipe that's leaking emails is labelled Apple. This is highly misleading and implies the blame belongs to Apple.

I decided to point that out to him via Twitter. He wasn't very receptive to my commentary, but not because he disagreed about my point necessarily. It seems that he just disagreed whether or not it mattered.

Here's the conversation...

@r3v: @timcad That pipeline in today's CAD should say "AT&T" you know...

@TimCAD: @r3v Not really. Their vulnerabilities caused the leak to happen, but the leaked emails were still iPad owners, not general AT&T customers

@r3v: @TimCAD That's a strange conclusion. AT&T is what leaked, not Apple or the iPad. In this scenario, if the data is the oil, AT&T is BP.

@TimCAD: @r3v You're mistaken. iPad owner account emails are what leaked. The cause of the leak is irrelevant to the image.

@r3v: @TimCAD Right... the iPad owner account emails are what leaked. The oil. AT&T is the pipe they leaked from.

@TimCAD: @r3v The pipe is just a pipe... it carries oil (or in this case, email addresses). Who the pipe belongs to is still not relevant to the joke

@TimCAD: @r3v It's what's in the pipe that matters and that's what is displayed in the comic.

@r3v: @TimCAD I get your joke. But it's also commentary, even if inadvertent, which is why I wish your analogy was accurate.

The conversation stopped there. Possibly because, like myself, he had figured out that we weren't going to convince each other of anything or he got bored. Who knows. It's pretty clear we weren't getting anywhere, though.

So, while I have an obvious bias towards Apple and prefer not to see it get undeserved bad press (hey, there's times we deserve it), it's the conversation that I find interesting. He said, "[i]t's what's in the pipe that matters and that's what is displayed in the comic." But the pipe itself is also displayed in the comic, and it's clearly labelled... and it's clearly labelled incorrectly.

I think it's interesting that he didn't care that he had something blatantly wrong because it wasn't the point, or joke, he was trying to make. Even intended as humor, the comic is commentary, and it's inaccuracy turns it from a joke to a lie. That kind of thing bums me out.

Accuracy is important.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

If you don't know what Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is about, then try Google or Wikipedia.

You can not earn respect through violence and intimidation. It just doesn't work. It makes things worse and on the internet, it makes things exponentially worse and it does it at an incredible speed. This is something that the extremists do not understand. They probably never will.

It's a shame that there are so many peaceful muslims the world over who will be insulted or offended by this day. It's a shame that I have friends who may be personally offended by my involvement. It's a shame that this sort of thing divides rather than unites.

So, why be a part of this? Why contribute to this blatantly disrespectful act? Because I feel like we have no other choice. I think it's the only way to clearly demonstrate that we will not be silenced by threats of violence and fear-mongering. By terrorism.

It seems self-evident to me, but it still must be said: I will not be governed by your religion.

With that, and all due apologies to my muslim friends and the three stooges, I present my Everybody Draw Mohammed Day picture:

Cheers.

Ebert vs All Gamers Everywhere Ever (I guess)

Once upon a time Roger Ebert said something along the lines of "video games can never be art". I don't remember anybody caring, but I also don't remember hearing about it at the time. Then again, I don't even know when it happened. I think this was before Twitter took over the world, thus enabling us to hear about everything instantly and get all riled up within seconds.

Fast forward. Kellee Santiago gives a TED talk in 2009 about how video games can, in fact, be art. The talk makes it's way to Mr. Ebert's inbox about a year later. He watches it and decides to expand on his original statement, sticking to his guns. Ms. Santiago then offers a rebuttal via an open-letter posted to Kotaku. (*spit*)

Somewhere along the way gamers flipped the fuck out.

In their somewhat indirect exchange, both Ebert and Santiago are civil. It comes as no surprise to any one, though, that much of the internet had a considerably less controlled response. Gamers slid down their batpoles, grabbed torches and pitchforks and set out to lynch Mr. Ebert post-haste. (Hey, I bet that's gonna be great for our image!) Instead of attacking his statements, of course, most attack the man. I suppose torches and pitchforks are better suited to ad hominem than intellectual discourse.

At least it wasn't railguns and crowbars, I suppose.

While I disagree with Roger Ebert's views on movies often enough (I was more of a Gene Siskel fan back in the day), I also agree with him on other stuff, and I do like and respect the man. I was bummed that the vitriol from gamers was the chorus of the response though, and not just a few off-key warblers making us look bad. Bummed, but not surprised.

It really doesn't matter that he's wrong though. (And oh he is, but more on that in sec.) He's admitted to never playing video games. He's not an game critic. He's not in a position of political power. Art is subjective. It's just an opinion. So, he doesn't think that your hobby or maybe even career is art. So what? Do you think criticizing movies is art? (Hint: I don't care about your opinion on that either.)

I summed up my initial reaction on Twitter thusly:

So @ebertchicago is wrong about video games. So what? Lots of people I respect are wrong about stuff.

The most interesting part of this whole thing, though, is the debate itself. This little dust-up has spawned some interesting conversation in some of the more rational corners of the web. Gamers debating gamers on the concept of art. That's pretty cool.

Funny enough, neither of the original debators really did a good job of arguing on behalf of either side. Ebert dismissed the entire medium and never really explained it except pointing out that checkers and chess are not art. Santiago parried, but never delivered the riposte. Also, neither of them defined art.

Here's where I wuss out and skip defining art too, by the way.

What I will point out, however, is that games contain art. Writing can be art. Sculpting and painting can be art. Animation can be art. Acting can be art. Cinematography and direction can be art. Music can be art. Video games contain all these things and more. By that alone, I think it's clear that games can be art.

Beyond that, it's important to recognize that video games are a whole new medium and can be more than the sum of it's parts. The medium deserves judging on it's own right. How do you judge or critque something that's subjective unless you have actually subjected youself to it?

You can't.

Game over.