b+?!

Recently I saw this ad on TV for Stouffer's frozen dinners... or something like that. I forget what type of frozen food package it was. Well that doesn't really matter. The narrator was from the POV of the mom of a household and how she was all proud of her son and they were going to have a *special* dinner.

Well, as special as you can get with frozen dinners I suppose; advertisements are an odd form of manipulating the facts don't you think? You know, creating fake scenarios and acting as if they are commonplace. Maybe they are commonplace; just not in my place...

Anyway, so the commercial proceeded with the family setting up dinner and the mom ruffling her son's hair - awww... And then at the end it pans to the refrigerator with the Stouffer's logo and some text overlayed on the video. And guess what was on the refrigerator? (I suppose I ruined the resolution of this story in my post title...)

Yes; an assignment with a big, fat, red, circled "B+".

...if I had ever brought home a B+ during grade school, there would have been a beatdown to be had. But it's so close to an A!.. yeah right, it's not an A - end of story.

So you see, I scoffed at the ad. If it had been an A+, I may have somewhat conceded to the ad - with all it's odd glorification of a frozen dinner. But instead, it made me sad to think that a B+ is considered acceptable, or even commendable. B+ means not an A. That was the truth of my childhood.

*sigh, difference in cultural value scales? Why am I criticizing the ad? Beats me... it was something to write about. And it seems, I've noticed, that people find complacency in finding the faults of others. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing... On one hand it allows growth. For, without criticism, one cannot improve as quickly. On the other hand, it just seems like a poor mindset to hold; poor form to fixate on the negative instead of praising the positive.

What do you think? Antagonistic or stimulation? Do you see yourself doing this as well? Or is it just the type of people I associate with. Being in a school of engineering, we always seek precision and improvement. But picking at the wrongs of things is a dual edge - reveals points of improvement but could it create a constant cynical mindset?

Just some things to think about - or not to think about at all. It's all just a big circular argument anyway. Well then, take care dear readers. I'm happy you read until this point =)

org

So for those of you who know me, you've probably found out that I'm kind of a neat-freak. Not to the extent of OCD - and certainly I can tolerate stuff being messy - but I love the sight of organization. Even those of you who don't (which is hard to imagine b/c this blog sees no virtually no activity - from both author and visitors) may be able to pick it up in some of my posts. Seeing things tidy, clean, and sharp makes me happy inside. Sure, you could say outer appearance is superficial, but the counter-argument to that is: there are circumstances in which superficiality is arrogant, and others where it's ok. I'd like to group organization with the latter.

Anyway, back to the point. My folder and file organization on my computers is no exception. In fact, I said before that I'm not OC on organization. Maybe I take that back. File/folder organization is paramount in computers, in my opinion. There's the analogy of files on a computer being similar to your belongings in your house. Sure, you could just throw everything on the floor of your room. In physical space, this works for many people. You know, the "It's messy, but I know exactly where everything is!" argument. You could say, hey let's put a buncha files into one folder, it'll be like my room. This analogy breaks down when you account for the sheer order of magnitude difference between items you put in your room and number of files on your PC.

--See, I originally started writing this post in between classes one day. But, it's probably been at least 2 weeks since then.... and I forgot where I was headed with that analogy. I think it was somewhere along the lines of me trying to set up a background story so that I could justify my own file organization habits. And here I shall explain my habits (you know, it's bad form to announce what you're about to say in papers?, whatever.)

So, what brought on all of this talk about file organization? Well, I was recently organizing my hard drives and was observing that my "My Documents" folder was ugly. If it was my fault that it's ugly, I'd be ok with it and just clean it up. But the problem lies (mainly) with game developers. I'll get back to the "(mainly)" later.

What irked me was that game developers are now deciding it's OK to invade my personal space. What do I mean? Take a look at this screenshot:Stop putting save data folders in MY DOCUMENTS~! Don't think that you're all high and mighty and can invade my own organization space with your company names! I wouldn't be so mad if they put the a subdirectory inside the My Games folder (which some games do). But to blatantly put its own folder in the root of My Documents is ridiculous. I count 3 extraneous folders that could be collapsed into the My Games folder (Bioshock, GTAIV, and FEAR 2). These are all great games, BUT! they should not be cluttering My Documents folder. My directory list could be more compact, and more importantly, more precise.

Remember the old days when games used to save their files in their own installation directory? Has it become more user-friendly to now put them in My Documents? The people who will edit their saves and screenshots should be smart enough to locate the installation path of the game. Thus, the user-friendly factor has been rejected. I wouldn't have a problem with this if these save paths were configurable; you know, ask the user where they want their saves to be placed! Don't force us to comply to your save structure.

I suppose I've been saying the same thing over the past 3 paragraphs, so I'll give it a rest. If only all developers could ask us where we want our saves. Or at least place them all in the My Games folder...

Anyway, I think I've been beating a dead horse. Here's to a post a month or two after the last! Enjoy life

P.S.
Oh yeah, (mainly) was referring to the fact that even non-game applications do this. Some of the tools I use for class automatically generate their own stupid folder. But at least these applications have the ability to change the location in their preferences later.