The rise and fall of the part-time techie...

Once upon a time (probably in the region of about 12 years ago), getting computer game running was a pain in the backside. Now while there were always options available for choosing a console game, the possibilities of "glorious" VGA colour and "lifelike" sound were such an allure that many were enticed towards the PC. The tax however for doing so was that you had to understand a little bit about how the PC worked. For those familiar with these times, the choice of how you used conventional memory (Extended or indeed expanded!), which drivers you could afford to bump off your autoexec.bat or as was most common, trying to find that one and only bootdisk that actually made Wing Commander work, were very common problems. The result of which, a community a love for games, but a hobbyist interest in personal computing.

So for all of the efforts to improve the consumability of software, has something been lost along the way?

Now while not for an instant am I suggesting that we return to the dark ages of spending days trying to get software to work, this forced education and basic empartment of pc knowledge managed to stimulate a community much wider than today's bedroom techies. It spawned curiosity, gave problem solving experience and exposed people to a new work of innovation and technology. Why should we care about this? Because the job market needs them.

IT recruitment is becoming an increasingly polarised marketplace. It's well documented that the number of people pursuing science, engineering and technology degrees has been dropping for some time, but as a recruiter myself there also now seems to be quite a split in quality between applicants, but not an even one. It seems that there are a lot of people now who are purely 'in it for the money'. The technology hobbyists are now very much in the minority, and in a sea of application forms that read like a history lesson in computing rather than a declaration of interest, those who passionately talk about linux, open standards and pervasive computing stand out head and shoulders above the rest.

So what can be done to engage the technologists of tomorrow? I'm certainly not advocating a return to non-startable computer games, but maybe the next generation of hobbyists can be inspired once again through the push to user generated content. There was a flurry of quality applicants in the midst of the 1st dot com boom, maybe the next evolution of the web could present the same kind of calibre of new recruits. Whether this is through the emergence of something like 3d Internet or peerhaps technologies that are not even around yet I don't know. But in the mean time, good techies are hard to find....and if you think that part is difficult, then you should try retaining them.

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and in the mean time, if you thought it was hard getting the games running then, its even worse now! Check out this cool site for info on how to coax your old dos games back to life.

Hot off the press...

Well it looks like my timing for writing an article about the generation y obsession with Big Brother could not have been better timed. Today Endemol announced that they are to launch a "virtual big brother" in partnership with Electronic Arts. Virtual Me they are calling it, and it will allow people to spend their time immersed in a version of their favourite TV shows such as Big Brother, Deal or no Deal etc. This story is featured on a few sites at the moment, with bbc and gwn giving particularly good reports. So now it's going to be even easier for the public to get closer to feeling like a D List celebrity.

Reminds me a little bit of artist Banksy's revisiting of the Andy Warhol saying...

(definitely one of the most interesting artists around at the moment, more of his work can be found at http://www.banksy.co.uk/)

Declarative Living or Big Brother State

Privacy is a very strange thing, and while one generation is increasingly concerned about it being taken away, another seems to be doing it's best to make the big brother state a reality. Many of us should have seen this coming a mile off. All you need do is look at the fixation today with celebrity culture and knowing absolutely everything about their lives and the idea of joe public wanting the same seems like a natural evolution. Suddenly the idea of having someone write about the ins and outs of your life has become a kind of status symbol, but what if nobody wants to write about you? Then write it yourself.

The phrase of choice at the moment is 'declarative living', and it is taking place on the web in many forms. Blogging is of course one, but through sites such as facebook and twitter it is possible to find out what any of your friends are up to at any given time. So what has happened to privacy? At the moment the major distinction is that you only post what you want people to see, but there are already extreme examples to be found. Take a look for example at 'The Nerdman Show'. While this might seem a little bizarre to most people (me included), here is someone literally broadcasting their life online. So where is the next evolution of this?

The ability to give status updates about your life is becoming more and more pervasive. From being able to blog from your mobile, to your online status in MSN, technology is making declarative living a reality. The next step of course would be for this to be automatic. But change who is viewing your life from something as inoffensive as 'friend', to something like 'government' and suddenly the altitudes change. While we worry about what records the government might be keeping about our lives we suddenly find out that it is us who are making it easy for them to maintain them. But again, maybe this is a generation thing. Maybe the rights to privacy are not as important an issue for Generation Y, and soon the idea of the state knowing these details and acting upon them will become the norm. But for those of us who have taken to this new trend (myself included), don't be surprised if that information gets used for something you hadn't intended it too. Because you only have the source of the information to blame. And that's you.

Enabling creativity or devaluing it?

An interesting link was sent to me today, concerning the union of EA, MTV and Harmonix to produce 'Rock Band', a collaborative online music game allowing people to play guitar, bass, drums and vocals together either in the same room or over the net. As far as playing music together in the same room idea goes, sounds a little bit like what bands have been doing for the last...well....2000+ years. The difference of course is that you are not really playing an instrument...but does that matter?

Some would argue the music industry has been going this way for years, with miming, sampling and endless covers proving that the ability to perform a song is a very different aspect to the song itself. But then perform is a loose term too. I mean you could say pop bands give a good performance through their dance routines, and its not often you actually get a DJ with keyboards and a drum machine at a night club. However, while their is an acceptance over the use of live music in pop, hip hop and dance music, rock has maintained a very traditionalist viewpoint. Which is why a band like Keane can cause a few feathers to be ruffled.

Typically speaking most bands are accustomed to having their sound augmented by samples these days, whether its because its impractical to tour with the London Symphony Orchestra or the sound itself is the product of digital jiggery pokery, this is something we the public have come to accept. But when can you take this too far? Keane are a band consisting singer, keyboard player and drummer. Listen to their songs and you'll be thinking, but can't I hear a bass line, guitar etc? and indeed you would be right. But while other bands might typically get session musicians for their live performances they have opted for the sampled approach. So should we be happy, as after all the live performance will have components every bit as sonically pleasing as the record, or are we paying £20 a time to witness a glorified karaoke version?

On the other end of the spectrum I also went to see a Led Zeppelin cover band last week, Whole Lotta Led. As an admirer of the music this was a great opportunity to see it performed, and I was totally blown away by their ability to re-create the Led Zep found, and my thoughts turned to the fact that maybe the band were 'wasted' as a tribute act. Any guitarist who has the ability to digest Jimmy Page solos and reproduce them near perfectly is certainly incredibly talented. But of course, the ability to play an instrument does not mean you have the capability to create it.

And it was with this in mind that I entered the world of Guitar Hero. As someone who plays the bass (all be it rather badly), I was initially very hesitant in trying it. Surely this devalues the process of making music? But then, I'm not using this as a creative tool, merely one for performance, and yes ultimately you can play things more easily than with a 'real' instrument, but guess what...it was fun.

So instead of these innovations devaluing the creative process, maybe they are just making it more accessible? Maybe the capabilities of the mind to produce something new and creative, will no longer be hampered by a lack of co-ordination. But instead, creation of music and its live reproduction will become as polarised now as indeed the different music genres are, and just because an instruments sound is analog (for now), does not mean its exempt from this debate.

As for the true greats? These will always be the people who have the ability to combine both talents, but maybe through this progression the de-coupling of the two abilities will now make music more accessible for all.