The Breeze of Change

Gonna be reformatting here before long. Too many people have the title "The Daily Rant" for something so I'm going to be racking my feeble mind to come up with a new title. Also, when I get the chance, I'm going to completely redesign the site. Cheers!

Now Which One Is the Ampersand...?

An Austin, TX exec named Daniel Guermeur has released a new keyboard he calls "Das Keyboard". It's a standard 104 key keyboard, pretty good feel according to the report, black with what appears to be a nice texture and very quiet. Also, the keys are unlabeled. 104 completely blank keys.

Das Keyboard is designed for "uber-geeks" according to Guermeur: people who are far too haughty to even dream of looking down at their keyboards to find a letter, number, special character, scroll lock (like anyone's actually used that one in a decade), and so forth. There is certainly a market for this, and not a bad idea from a marketing standpoint. The thing costs 80 bucks.

80 bucks.

It's fairly identical to a model you could find for 20 or 30 bucks at your favorite neighborhood computer store, but it lacks some painted markings.

80 bucks.

And people will pay for this, to earn themselves the titular distinction of "uber-geek". Asinine. Personally, I'd think someone who considered themselves a "geek" would have the arithmetic capacity to realize that 80 bucks for what is basically a run-of-the-mill keyboard, minus some paint, is ludicrous. Here's a thought: if you want to look cool for not having to look at the keyboard, DON'T LOOK AT THE KEYBOARD! But hey, if other people want to buy it, it's not my money...

"But Rockstar Told Me To..."

Seems this young man, Devin Moore, was charged with murder. His plea was not guilty, on the defense that he was brainwashed by playing too much GTA.(Source) The jury found him guilty. As the venerable Gomer Pyle might add, "Surprise surprise surprise!"

Jack Thompson, our favorite Quixotic gameophobe, had this to say: "What we're saying is that Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator..." Really now. I just got done playing a brisk game of March Madness 2005 on my XBox and I assure you, I will not be going out onto the court in Rupp Arena this winter and posting up on Shagari Alleyne.

This all comes down to accountability. We are ultimately responsible for our actions. Yeah, you can try to blame society, the media, games, whatever you like, and all those things are factors that can sway a person's feelings, but in the end our choices are our own. We can't go around trying to find ways to say "It's not my fault", that is what's leading to the rising "victim-ocracy" in the world. We have to accept our choices and face their consequences. And hopefully try to make the right choices in the future.