PC Gaming

Video Games – one of the best time wasters ever invented. We’re talking classics like Pong, DOOM, and Myst, to new age games like The Last of Us, Portal, and Bioshock. These games have come a long way in terms of technological and graphical advances, and storytelling. However, some people still argue on which is the best way to fully appreciate and enjoy these titles to the fullest potential.

As someone who has been playing video games nearly my entirely life, I also have my own preference and opinion as to how games should be played. I prefer the power and stability that my computer offers over a traditional console any day, as “…it depends on how powerful your PC is, but you don’t need a top-of-the-line $3000 gaming rig to run games at higher graphics then consoles can handle. A $400 computer can easily equal or outperform even the Xbox One or PS4.” (Villas-Boas, Nov.17,2015, Business Insider) I paid just over $1000 for my current computer nearly two years ago, and it could already run certain games a lot better then my PS4 at the time. Although over the two years I’ve had it, games have become much more graphically intensive and I’ve since put another $300 in terms of upgrades into it, with further upgrades planned to keep it cutting edge in terms of technology. I’m currently using an i7-4790 paired with a GTX 1050 with 16GB of RAM, and while it’s not the most powerful system one could build, I’m very proud of it. The thing about consoles is that you can’t upgrade what’s under the hood the same way you can with a PC.

Modding is another thing that computers can do. While some consoles are very slowly allowing such things, modding has always been a prevalent feature in PC Gaming. “”Modding” is just jargon for “modifying” – altering – video games. Savvy fans dive into the back-end of their favorite games to fix bugs, update graphics, or introduce new elements.” (Letzter, July 20, 2015, Business Insider) This is incredibly hard to achieve on consoles due to the nature of how the software runs, which is primarily caused by the data being encrypted, or coded, to run specifically on that console. In contrast, a computer has its data stored on local files that can be accessed.

But alas, a video game is a video game, and can be enjoyed on several different platforms. PCs are simply the most widespread, the most powerful, and perhaps the most expensive way to really enjoy these games to their fullest protentional.

References:
10 Reasons why playing games on PC is better than consoles,
Antonio Villas-Boas, November 17, 2015, Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-why-pc-gamers-prefer-pc-2015-11

Online communites are changing video games to make them better, weirder, and much more wonderful
Rafi Letzter, July 20, 2015, Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/video-game-modding-2015-7

For further reading: (seriously, people are proud of their machines, as am I)
PC Master Race Subreddit
www.reddit.comr/r/pcmasterrace

Money not well spent.

Bike lanes in Victoria; are they really needed? Truth be told I really don’t care much. No wait, I do, but not for the reason people think. Every time I go downtown to Victoria, I’m met with the exact same sight I’m met with every time I make the trip; endless traffic, idiotic pedestrians, and the odd bicyclist. Note how I said, “odd bicyclist”, that’s because I don’t see any, all I see is empty bike lanes, no matter what time I go down. Maybe it’s just me? Maybe it’s that all bicyclists have invisible paint on them to combat the idiotic drivers? Whatever the reason, I’ve never once seen the bike lanes used, and the fact that the Times Colonist is saying just one lane down Pandora is costing well over 3 million dollars? It’s absurd. More attention should be put towards the Colwood crawl, which is getting worse each passing day with the explosive growth that is Langford. I live all the way out in Sooke, and it takes me under two hours each morning to make it to the Lansdowne Camosun campus for my classes, whereas at night, after peak hours when I’ve got nowhere to be, takes me under 50 minutes to make it all the way home to Sooke. Why are we spending well over $3 million dollars for a few bike lanes in the city centre, when we should be focusing on the main arteries in and out of the damn city.  I want to point out, I'm all for going green and bikers and whatnot, but from where I'm sitting, I don't see them getting used at all, so that makes them just a waste of money. AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THAT DAMN BRIDGE.

Free Tuition Rant

Tuition can come in two forms, either it's manageable, or it's not, and in my case, it’s not. I’m currently enrolled in Camosun Colleges Digital Production, Writing and Design program, and slated to begin the Film Production program at Vancouver Film School in January 2019, and I am in no way close to paying off my tuition for the latter.

Going to College full time makes it incredibly hard to work full time, as I should know full well as I’m in the midst of doing full-time night shifts while attending day classes, just to make enough to pay some of my bills; you see, the tuition for Camosun costs just over $10,000, which does not include parking (I’m not going to calculate this extra cost, I’ll just get sad) and the tuition for my Film Production program in Vancouver will cost me just over $35,000. While I’ve fully paid off Camosun, it’s left me with no cash left and close to $3000 dollars in debt (thanks to my car breaking down) so to try and pay off my debt, pay my rent, and keep food on the table (I’m not even making enough to save for tuition at the moment either) I’m working as much as I can during the night, which is incredibly difficult due to homework assignments and that one thing needed to keep a human sane; sleep.

The costs of tuition and lack of sleep, coupled with worrying about getting homework assignments in on time (this one will be late I guarantee you) is incredibly stressful, but that’s what whiskey shots at 4 in the morning is for.

Tuition should be completely free in some regards, or at the very least, have the cost of such lowered considerably. “If you're graduating high school with a 95 per cent academic average (or higher), Lakehead University gives you a free ride through your entire first year. And, if you can keep up a 90 per cent average while there, you can extend that free ride all the way through your entire university degree” (Huffington Post, 2017, November 6, Blog).

I feel that Lakehead’s example of this is an incredible idea, not only does it push its students to work harder for a literal money reward, but it gives people hope who simply just cannot afford the entry fees, but also the 90 per cent average requirement would weed out anybody who was not legitimately serious about the programs offered.

If Camosun were to offer such an incentive I would have absolutely jump on that, and slash my working hours to compensate for homework time, rather then have to work so many hours and get at most 4 hours of sleep a night and be in debt for the next 10 years.

References:

“Yes, there is such thing as free tutiton in Canada”, Huffington Post , November 6, 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/campus-rankings/yes-there-is-such-a-thing-as-free-tuition-in-canada_a_23268498/