Checking In...

Man, it feels like it has been forever since I've really checked in to Steem. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

On my end, we had some good news and some bad news. The good news is our serialization package met or exceeded the requirements for Unity's Asset store. The bad news is, the marketing graphics were not up to par. Dammit Jim, we're engineers not artists! ;) However, we are upping our Photoshop skills and should be well on our way to our second submission for the serialization package and by all intents and purposes it sounds like its going to get approved. We have a lot game systems we can dissect out of our projects and put on the Asset Store but the hardest one to get out is always the first, so it will be great to get this milestone behind us.

I don't have a definitive answer about the tutorials, so I'll have to punt on that for the moment.

So, that leaves me with some personal thoughts I guess. One of the big things on a lot of people's minds, at least in the United States, is the presidential election. For anyone who is not American or doesn't care about our presidential election, don't worry; it will be over relatively soon so you won't be bombarded with it for much longer (well, that isn't exactly true, there will probably be a lot of aftertaste on this one).

Anyway, a friend of mine two days prior to the final debate decided to run an experiment on a social network. He proposed the question, can each and every one of us find at least one reason - just one - regardless of who we are, what party we typically associate with, or who we are planning to vote for in this election - why we would vote for each candidate (the first candidate in this post, the second one in a 2nd post the following day) and if so, comment. The following day he took the other candidate for president and asked the same question.

I decided to participate and in fact, I found more than one thing for both candidates, but I only mentioned one just to keep from breaking the terms of the experiment. I found it interesting because I feel that most of us make our judgments on clipped audio/visual bytes that news outlets use to drum up views and ad revenue or vote on party lines for no other reason than to declare victory for that party.

The vast majority of respondents didn't take the experiment seriously, using it as an opportunity to take a jab or a cheap shot at the other party's nominee. Truth be told, that depressed me. The people I have always enjoyed being around are not the ones that necessarily share my own views, but those who demonstrate objectivity in subjective matters - people who, for whatever reasons, believe in a certain set of values but can understand why others would see things differently and thus respect that others have come to different conclusions or resolutions on the issues that we face today.

So then it comes down to this: are we doing this to ourselves, making ourselves less objective in subjective matters? What about our kids, are we passing down that mentality to them? What about the media? Are we letting ourselves be corralled down that path by what we watch, what we read and who we interact with? Perhaps its both? Sure, I'm guilty of it but I try to check myself as best I can.

And then, of course, the big question - can we get people to turn their behavior around to become more objective? It would have to be something an individual decides on their own; they would have to see the value in doing so. Maybe that's the problem, that individuals don't see the value there.

Anyways, just thought I'd give an update and share some of the things I've been thinking about lately. Maybe one day my friend will be able to run that same experiment and we could actually be proud of the results.