I’m now blogging at http://blog.damonregan.com. I suppose this notice is long overdue given I stopped blogging here after the class I created this account for ended. I enjoyed the WordPress system so much I decided to install WordPress on my own hosted account.
If you stumble on this site, please come vist me at the new site.
Manhunter: An Action/Adventure Video Game
A terrible crime has taken place and the public is outraged. Finding the fugitive is up to you and time is of the essence. You must manage your small team of detectives and specialists to find those responsible.
Each game starts with the player choosing an easy, medium, or hard scenario. A news report and internal briefing provide the context for what the fugitive has done. The player is then placed in a strategy room with his or her team. The strategy room is a square room with computers lining the walls. Each of the player’s team members is at a computer waiting for the player’s next task. Each task requires resources (time, money, etc.). The player’s objective is to find the fugitive as soon as possible within budget.
Scenarios typically will last days or weeks. Hard scenarios involve large conspiracies that continue to unfold and present new challenges to the player. An example scenario might be a presidential assassination or a local tourist murder. The player is notified of task status, task results, and news stories via email or in-game messages. It is up to the player to respond to notifications with new task assignments.
By default, the simulation time equals real time. However, if the player wants to take a more active role in the game, the player may assign themselves tasks. The player may then conduct interviews, analyze data, generate reports, or engage pursuits. In such cases, simulation time is faster than real time. A task that typically takes a staff member a day or so to do, might be possible to complete in 15 minutes.
Once the fugitive is brought to justice, a news story is generated that replays highlights from the investigation. Awards from management are given for excellent performances.
I came across an interesting trend observation in Karl Kapp’s blog:
According to an interesting Business Week graphic called What are People Doing? only 12% of young boomers (41 to 50) and only 7% of older boomers (51 to 61) and only 5% of 62+ people are creating content on the web.
Meanwhile, 34% of young teens (12 to 17) and 37% of youth (18 to 21) and 30% of Gen Y (22 to 26) are creating content (check out the chart). There is a trend showing a difference in how the web is used among different ages.
While some wonder what is lost with the introduction of technology, I wonder what is gained that we just don’t yet understand.
I couldn’t help thinking of this scene from the matrix when I read the first chapter of Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck.
If a picture says a thousand words, then how many words do you get out of an annotated picture using flickr?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/damonregan/593497078/
Growing up watching Cubs baseball on TV gave me a desire to go to Wrigley Field. I finally had the chance when I almost blew it. My friends and I had traveled up to see the Cubs play their rival Cardinals in Chicago. A heavy night drinking sake and some late stumbling fetching tickets almost prevented me from getting into Wrigley. However, once we got inside and eventually found some room in the bleacher seats, the magic of Wrigley came over me. I looked up in the air at one point and I saw the blue angels flying practice runs for the Chicago Air and Water Show taking place the following day. I was contemplating moving to Chicago and buying season tickets when it got into the 9th inning with a tie game. Albert Pujols, the Cardinal’s slugger, stepped up to the plate. He hit a long ball… back, back, back the Cub’s outfielder went. He caught the ball at the fence. When the Cubs went on offense, they scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. I went nuts in the bleachers with my friends. I had a smile on my face ear to ear as we celebrated with the locals in a little bar and grill in Addison.
Brief synopsis of the Good Shepherd (2006)
Edward Wilson, a meticulous and devoted citizen, leads the CIA’s failed efforts in the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion. Just after the failed invasion, Wilson receives a cryptic audio clip and image that he attempts to decipher to reveal the leak that led to the failure. As he examines the audio clip and image, he revisits his life in the CIA (induction into Skull and Bones society, recruitment into the Office of Strategic Services, and role in the emergence of the Cold War). In the end, he’s asked which is more important, family or country.
Intentional State Entailment
Bruner suggests that the protagonists in narratives have intentional states that allow us to interpret the reasons for characters actions. The intentional state is what we might imagine is going on in the mind of the character before they encounter an event in a narrative. What are their beliefs, desires, theories, values, etc.? What is their purpose? What are they intent on doing? As Bruner explains, the state doesn’t fully determine what will happen when the character is thrown into an event since a character is free to do practically anything. However, the intentional state does allow us to predict how the character will have perceived the event.
Discussion
In the Good Shepherd, Edward Wilson’s actions can be interpreted by analyzing his intentional state. This state includes a desire to be a good citizen, a value for brotherhood, the lack of value for family, and a strong sense of duty. The value for citizenship and brotherhood always remain priorities, but they blend and grow into a devotion to the CIA.
Edward Wilson’s greatest desire is to be a good citizen. This intentional state is tested in the first event with Sam Murach, an FBI agent. When he clarifies with Murach that he is being asked to spy on his professor, Murach responds by saying he’s just asking him to be a good citizen. Once the FBI agent says this, Wilson reluctantly performs the duty.
Wilson values an elite brotherhood in place of a family. We never see him develop family bonds. We see him when he is six years old standing over his dead father’s body and that is the only scene we see of any immediate family. The first group we see Wilson be a part of is the secret Skull and Bones society. When a senior “bonesman” urinates on him during his induction, he attempts to leave. Another bonesman chases after him and says, “We’re all in this together. Come back inside. We’re all brothers for life.” This appeal to brotherhood is enough for Wilson to reluctantly turn around. This value for brotherhood is perhaps Wilson’s greatest value. His wife externalizes this priority when she mocks at a skull and bones dinner, “Brotherhood first, God second.”
Wilson has a strong sense of duty with respect to his brotherhood. When he gets a fellow bonesman’s sister pregnant, the brother tells him he knows Wilson will do what is expected of him. Without much hesitation, Wilson ends the relationship with his girlfriend and enters into a shotgun marriage. He never develops a sense of family in this failed marriage, but remains in it out of obligation, which he states during a fight with his wife later in life. He tells her that he has stood by her and states the only reason he married her was because of her pregnancy.
His desire to be a good citizen and his eternal value of brotherhood unite when he is asked to join the fledgling Office of Strategic Services (OSS) by General Sullivan. Sullivan tells him during the recruitment that he is looking for patriotic, malleable, bright, young men. As the OSS transforms into the Agency, Wilson’s value of brotherhood transforms into a value for the Agency. His wife again externalizes this transformation when she mocks at a dinner, “Agency first, God second.”
Wilson’s dedication to being a good citizen and love of country are tested in several events that end in murder. The first involves his former professor. When the UK asks him to help silence the professor, he at first resists. A fellow member of the Agency who is a former bonesman tells him that if he won’t do it, someone else will. Wilson reluctantly complies. Before the professor is murdered, the professor tells Wilson, “Get out while you still can… while you still believe… while you still have a soul.”
Wilson doesn’t get out. Later, his boss and fellow bonesmen in the Agency asks him, “Why is it that people like us choose to serve for nickels a day in a profession that makes us constantly look over our shoulder to see who is watching us?” He suggests the answer to his own question is out of a desire to “do what is best for the country.” But this idealism is questioned most vividly when Wilson authorizes the torture of a Russian defector leading to the Russian jumping out of a window to his death.
In the end, his Russian counterpart, Ulysses, asks him “what is more important to you, your country or your son?” He chooses his country, which we might predict from his intentional state that didn’t include a value for family. Indeed, Wilson’s intentions to be a good citizen and eternal brother left everything else subject to death and destruction.
Tommy woke up on Friday knowing he had a dreaded dentist appointment. He got ready as normal, but couldn’t shake the fear out of his mind. He was a strong man; a veteran of World War II and a golden gloves boxing champion. He knew it didn’t make sense to be so worked up about a dental visit. Trying to clear his mind, he sat down to write a check to one of his sons.
“Pay to the order of: Danny”
“That should be enough to get him on his feet,” he thought. The act of giving was a natural one to Tommy and it filled him with satisfaction.
He began eating the breakfast his second-wife, Gloria, had prepared for him. She always took care of Tommy and Tommy always took care of her. Their interdependence was not obvious given that they didn’t share the same primary language. But perhaps that is what made it so strong. Gloria grew up in Venezuela. It seemed their late marriage in life was perhaps one of mutual support.
Gloria left the kitchen to get ready to leave for the dentist. Tommy took a bite of his breakfast thinking about Danny.
“Why hasn’t Danny moved out? I know he can work hard. I know he’s smart. Have I sheltered him so much that he will forever be dependent?”
As he chewed he began feeling a sharp pain in his back molar. It twitched. In a flash all the dread of the dentist was back. Gloria turned on the sink in the bathroom and it sounded like a drill.
When Gloria returned to the kitchen, she thought Tommy had fallen asleep. It took her a few minutes before she realized he wasn’t breathing.
—
Gloria returned home from the hospital with Tommy’s ex-wife, Nancy, and his grandson who went by Junior. Nancy had always remained close to Tommy and Gloria. As phone calls arrived throughout the day, it was Nancy who did most of the talking.
Gloria, Nancy, and Junior ate lunch at the same table Tommy had died at hours ago. Gloria only picked at her food. Nancy and Junior encouraged her to eat.
Gloria leaned over to Nancy and said, “I want Danny to live here with me.” Nancy nodded her head slowly as if she expected the statement.
The phone rang. Junior answered. It was Tommy’s sister. She asked for Nancy.
They expressed their sorrows to one another and then quickly turned to the matter at hand.
“Who is taking care of Gloria?” The sister asked. She explained to Nancy that Tommy had always ensured that Gloria was taking her prescribed medications.
“I think Danny is going to help support Gloria,” Nancy replied.
“Well has Gloria taken her medicine this morning?”
When Nancy hung up the phone, she immediately turned the attention of the room to figuring out what pills Gloria had taken and what pills needed to be taken. As they scrambled through paperwork, pill bottles, pharmacy numbers, and physician brochures, Junior’s head began to spin. He wondered where Danny was in this hour of need that had quickly developed.
Frustrated and in desperation for help, Junior packed Gloria and Nancy into his car and started driving to the doctor’s office who had prescribed the medications. He was on the phone with the office asking for directions as the clock approached 4:00pm. The receptionist at the office told him it was too late. “The doctors have patients waiting and the office closes at 4:00pm,” she said. It was Friday and Junior didn’t want this hour of confusion and potential danger to turn into a weekend. He cautiously sped up.
When they arrived at the office, the staff was waiting at the door with open arms. The story Junior had prepared on the drive over to convince the staff to see Gloria was apparently unnecessary. No questions were asked. They simply began speaking in a warm and soothing familiar Spanish that immediately put Gloria at ease. The hugs continued through to the doctor, who listed out on a piece of paper precisely what medications Gloria needed to take. As they began to explain the particulars, they asked who would be taking care of Gloria. It was never made clear and the staff looked amazed when Nancy introduced herself as the ex-wife.
—
The next day, Junior’s mother, Doris, arrived in town. Doris was the only daughter of Tommy. Doris raised her children while pursuing a career. She valued independence.
Doris and Junior sat and talked in Junior’s living room Saturday night. Junior asked why Danny was always talked about so negatively. Doris tried to explain by telling a story.
“When your great-grandmother died in her bedroom over a decade ago, the family was in mourning. Her body was being taken out of the house when Danny began to take the bed she had just died on. Nancy’s brother saw him doing it and lashed out at him.”
“Can’t you even wait until her body is cold before you take her belongings?” He yelled. “You are an able bodied man in his prime years of work, yet you depend on your mother working in her late 70’s to support you.”
Junior thought about the open arms of the staff at the doctor’s office. He asked, “Isn’t Danny providing a valuable service to grandma? Sure, it is not a job that pays a salary which we can assess a bottom line value of, but there is a value to the service. Isn’t there a value in family members being close to home?”
“Yes,” she said, “but too often it appears to be exploitation rather than support.”
—
Danny had packed up his bags from his mother’s house and moved in with Gloria. He had just finished making Gloria lunch when he sat down on the couch in frustration.
“What was I thinking leaving mom’s house for this?” He thought. “This house is tiny, there is no hot tub, and my responsibilities never seem to end… Family obligation baloney… What was I thinking?”
He saw a box of home videos sitting on the end table next to the couch. He didn’t recognize them. “It has to be better than the Price is Right,” he thought. He popped in one of his Dad talking about his favorite athlete, Joe Lewis.”
“One of my friends said he knew where Joe Lewis was staying,” Tommy said. “Just up off of Glebe Road it was. I went down to see him and he was just sitting on his porch. He was squishing a ball of some sort in his hand. When he pressed it, his whole arm tightened and showed his beautiful muscles. He let me try it. I couldn’t even budge it. I tossed it back to him and he said, ‘ahh… you have to get used to it.’” Tommy started laughing in the film. “You have to get used to it, that’s all he said.”
Danny sighed. He wondered how he’d ever get used to this.
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