Dear Internet

So as you may have noticed, my posts have slowed down a bit recently. There are few reasons for this. I have been a bit busy, but this is only a minor reason. It has become quite apparent to me over these past few weeks, that despite the fact that I do have interesting opinions and things to say, it's hard to have enough of them. Since each letter is just a simple text thing, I tried to do one every day. Forcing myself to come up with something interesting on a daily basis lead to... well... a lack of being interesting. This is clear from two perspectives, I'm not satisfied with most of what I write here anymore, and the pageviews are proving how uninteresting the stuff is to read.

So what am I going to do? For now, I'm not sure. I may continue to update this blog but only when I truly have interesting things to talk about, but depending on the frequency that may be impractical. I may just go back to the old fashioned way of sharing things via social networks, they get more views and comments there anyways.

So we'll see what happens, but thanks to anyone who did actually read this regularly!
-SF

Dear Spam

I don't need any replica watches, Canadian pharmaceuticals, or any enhancements. I don't even know why you're sending me so much about replica watches, it's such a random thing and I've never heard of it being a common spam issue.

Just leave me alone.
-SF

Dear Television Intro Credits

So here's something I've never understood, why do most actors just get their name shows, and some say next to it their character? It's not just random either, it's always a list of a bunch of names, one at a time on screen, and then the very last one says "and _____ as _____". It's almost like you're pretending that all along it was a sentence, even though it was just a list of names with no other words or grammar or anything until that very last bit.

The strangest part though, is the very specific character type this applies to. This happens in shows where that last character is "much older British gentleman, in some sort of teacher-like position, who plays the role of mentor and father figure to the main character(s)". I've seen this in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sliders, both excellent shows from the 90's.

Why do you do that intro credits? It just doesn't make any sense.
-SF

Dear Pendulum

You are fantastic. Oh, and by the way, if you're an object that swings back and forth... go away, this isn't for you. I'm talking to the band Pendulum. Your music is great.

The beats are amazing, I don't see how anyone could ever not enjoy hearing it. A lot of it doesn't have words, but that's fine it just means it's even easier to just enjoy the music itself. I'm really not sure what to say about the music itself, I think everyone just needs to listen to it in order to really understand how good it is.

I think my favorite song is Witchcraft. Everyone should go listen to it.
-SF

Dear days where I have a lot to do

You are so horrible. I can't even begin to describe how frustratingly bad you can really be. Especially when a lot of it is stuff that's somewhat open about when it can be done. I can't seem to get myself to just sit down and get everything done, so you end up looming over my head all day, and at the end of you I've barely accomplished anything.

Days where I have too much to do, you're not so bad. I have no choice but just sit down and work, and work and work, and by the end of the day I've gotten a lot done and am happy with my progress. Days where I have a lot to do but it's all at specific scheduled times, that's not so bad either because I have structure forcing me to get things done in an efficient way. But when days when I can kinda do the work whenever, it can be hard to get started.

Sometimes you refuse to let me just finish everything, and you keep building up over time, until I end up with a day where I have too much to do, and I finally just have one day of solid work and am done. It's annoying.

I wish you would just let me do the work and move on with my life.
-SF

Dear Tumblr

Now Tumblr, In a lot of ways, you're a nice service. You provide a good way to share short, quick things, and easily like and re-share things that others have shared. You're not set up great for long, in-depth posts, so there are definitely certain kinds of blogs that shouldn't be hosted by you. That's fine, you're trying to provide service more for blogs that are tons of quick things, many people posting dozens of times a day.

The problem is, you're also lacking a lot of things. Now, I understand that most people follow a bunch of Tumblr's and their dashboard is filled a crazy amount of posts, and generally there's more content then they could realistically look at. So you're set up in a way with most recent stuff at the top. But here's the thing, if I follow someone, then that means I want to actually see everything they post. There is no good way to do that. I have to just scroll down until I recognize old posts that I've already looked at. You need a way to mark where I "left off" last time I was there. And ideally, I'd like to be able to start with the old stuff and work my way to more recent stuff, so I can see things in the proper order that they were posted in. I know this isn't a problem for everyone, but you should really have some sort of option to at least mark where I left off.

That's not the worst part though. When people post things, in any context, other people are going to have things to say about it. You can't have a site centered around sharing things, and not allow commenting. You really need to include a way for people to comment on all posts. That's the main reason I left you, I just couldn't stand not being able to comment on things. It's such a basic and important feature for... well pretty much everything on the internet.

Add the ability to comment, and maybe I'll come back.
-SF

Dear Windows

So, I heard you're getting a new logo for Windows 8. Now, I understand that you've been making adjustments to your logo with each new version of Windows. Generally this has been fine, making it smoother, shinier, adding colors. It's been advancing with the operating system, and this is fine. However this new logo is... horrible.

It's a massive downgrade. You took away the color scheme that we're all used to seeing. I understand straightening out the edges, after all it is supposed to be a Window and lately it has looked more like a flag.  I know Windows 8 is creating some big changes... but this icon is so different it doesn't even feel like Windows anymore.

People like consistency, I don't see how this is a good idea.
-SF

Dear Fellow Students

You always make this same stupid mistake. We were supposed to have a test next week, but of course you didn't want to take a test. So when given the option of moving it until after vacation, you demanded that it indeed be moved instead of just leaving it when it was scheduled for. In theory, this has it's benefits, and I'm sure a small portion of you will actually get extra studying in over vacation and do better than you would have if it was next week.

But what about the rest of you? I know exactly what's going to happen. You're going to happily not study now, because the test is now so far into the future. Then, when we get back to school after vacation, you'll scramble to study in the day or two before the test, studying no more than you would have before vacation if the test hadn't been moved. The result will be that you didn't get in any extra studying, and by postponing it three weeks you've now had time to forget things from when you learned them, so if anything you'll do worse. Postponing a test a couple days can be helpful, postponing it till after a two week vacation is not. Either way, I plan on acing this test anyways.

Enjoy worrying about the test all vacation when you could be relaxing.
-SF

Dear Avenue Q

You are one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a long time. Everyone, including me, could use a good laugh every now and than, and you gave me a couple good solid hours of laughter. You were funny in all sorts of ways, social commentary, silly songs, quirky characters... just generally amazing. And all your songs were were well written and catchy.

But the best part was how you weren't just funny. You also had a legitimate story going, and once we had time to care about the characters and were confident everything would continue being hilarious, BAM you throw some sad emotions in our face. Hooking into your audiences emotions like that is a great way to stick in their minds as something a lot more than just a funny show.

Thanks for being so awesome, I just might go buy your soundtrack.

-SF

Dear Internet

Hello there internet, thought I'd talk directly to all you wonderful people that are reading this. I've updated the site a bit, adding an archive section where you can get to the letters by category, in addition to the chronologically ordered tree on the right side of every page. I couldn't figure out how to make that tree only appear on the archive page, so for now it will remain a static a part of the whole site as it was before.

What are your thoughts on this? Is organizing them categorically a good idea? Should I further sub-divide some categories? Are there new categories I should create and start writing letters in? Are there categories that are consistently rather boring and I should stop using? Is it silly to have a whole category for dreams when so far I've had only a single dream that I both remembered the next day and was even remotely interesting enough to talk about?

Let me hear your thoughts!
-SF

Dear Resident Evil 4

I'd like to just start off by saying wow, fantastic. I've played through you a total of at least four or five times now, and that's really saying something. I almost never re-play games. You really nail every aspect of the game.

Your atmosphere is perfect. Everything around me was nice and creepy, in an old, middle of nowhere town. But it's not just the visuals, the your sound really adds to it too. The noises the enemies make, the more dramatic music that plays when enemies are around, everything works together to really make me feel like I'm  in over my head and at any moment an enemy might be right behind me about to lop my head off.

The gameplay is good too. The inability to move and shoot takes some getting used to, but it works really well. Sure I had guns and the enemies are mostly armed with random hatchets and whatnot, but I never actually felt like I had a massive advantage. Even with my superior weaponry, I really had to be careful and strategic in taking them on. I couldn't just run straight forward firing everywhere. Ammo is very finite at as well, which also helped force me to be strategic and careful.

Your story and writing are the only place you fall a little short. The story is fine overall, but there were some things that only would have made sense if I had played your predecessors. There were also definitely some things that you could have explained better. A lot of the dialog was rather cheesy at times, but I can overlook that since otherwise you were so great.

The variety of weapons you provided me with, and the ability to customize them to my liking, was also a nice touch. I always like being able to upgrade things, especially when I'm provided with choices so I can upgrade then in ways that best benefit the way I play. Your inventory system was nice too, though for people like me who like keeping it organized, it sometimes led to spending more time than I probably should have rearranging items in my case.

You're amazing, 9.5.

-SF

Dear Cars

You really need to stop breaking down. Let me tell you a little bit about what's been happening to my roommates lately.

So a couple weeks ago, my roommate's girlfriend's car's battery died. After jumping it, the car would run but the battery wouldn't hold a charge because it was simply really old. So she took it in, and got the battery replaced. In doing their work on it, the mechanics had the car running for a while, and ran it out of gas. When she left the mechanic, she made it about 30 yards to a stop light, and then her car just stopped running, because she was out of gas.

Then last week, we tried to go grocery shopping. My other roommate and I got in his car, turned it on, and it wouldn't move. The front wheels were on just a bit of very slippery ice, and just spun. Despite our efforts to push the car and everything, we were unable to get it to move, even though it wasn't buried or anything, just on a tiny bit of ice.

Then yesterday, I had an important test to get to. My roommate had agreed to drive me, and we get in his car (the one previously on ice), and attempt to leave. Now, it had been rather warm many days over the past week, so we were confident the ice wouldn't be a problem anymore. However now, his car wouldn't start. He thinks it's his battery.

So today, we try to go grocery shopping again. So my first roommate, the one who's girlfriend's car was the first to have problems, tries to jump-start my other roommates car. However, as he goes to do so, he attaches the cables to his car's battery, and then as he goes to bring them to the other car, he drops them, the ends touch, and fry something in his car. We still aren't sure exactly what broke in his car, it still sort of runs but won't go forward and sometimes works in reverse... it's strange. He's going to have to take it in somewhere to get fixed, and he never got the other car jumped, so now both cars are currently unusable (thought luckily we believe a call to AAA at some point will be all we need to get the dead battery car fixed).

Please cars, just work, is that really too much to ask?

-SF

Dear Friday

You're such a wonderful day. Sure you include all the responsibilities of a normal weekday, but they're much easier to deal with when we know that as we reach the end of you, our responsibilities end for a couple days as well.

Sure in some ways Saturday is better, but as the day goes on you start become more and more aware that all that's left is Sunday, and then it's time for a dreaded Monday. But not with you Friday, all day all you do is get better and better. Even as the night get's late, we know that we have Saturday to look forward to. We can stay up, we can ignore any responsibilities we had for the weekend, we can do whatever we want. In a lot of ways, you can be the most stress-free day of the week.

If only Monday through Thursday could learn to be more like you.

-SF

Dear Metroid Prime

Just as I expected, you were quite good. I had played all the other games in the Metroid Prime series, but never the original. The second and third ones, and even the spin off for the DS, were all really good. I think this first person shooter style is a good direction for the series, now that everything is three dimensional these days. So anyways, when I saw my roommate playing you I figured it was about time I sat down and actually played the first Metroid Prime.

You were definitely good, not quite as good as your sequels, but still good. You laid a very good base for the series, and I noticed some things missing that I had become used to in the later games, which in a way is actually a good thing. I could see some ways in which you had actually been improved upon as the series progressed, unlike a lot of things (in both games and movies) where everyone agrees the first one was best and the sequels were just quickly made to make more money or something.

Anyways, on to actually talking about you instead of just making comparisons. The gameplay was fun, with a variety of enemies to fight, and some interesting boss fights. The variety of weapons you provided me with was nice, and most of them were well balanced so they all stayed useful in different scenarios (except the last one, which was just plain better than everything else). And you included some interesting puzzles and challenges, and provided just enough direction to prevent wandering aimlessly through the decently sized world not sure where to go next. For the most part, the controls work well. Keeping the view stuck perfect horizontal, using one joystick to move, and having a button to "lock on" to enemies is a little different than most first-person shooters and takes some getting used to, but for this game it works. It does occasionally lead to some awkward bits where it was hard to get aimed in the right direction, but overall good. I like that I get to constantly feel like I'm getting more and more powerful as I collect things throughout the game, though it was a little weird that most of the game was just wandering around collecting power-ups. This brings me to my only real negative point, that you had basically no plot. I landed on this planet following a bad guy, and then spent the entire game just wandering around collecting things so that I could finally at the end actually find and fight that enemy, with very little else actually happening. This is a particular area where your sequels drastically improved though, which is good.

A really great game, which started a really great series. I'll give you a 9.

-SF

Dear Education Related Websites

You often have some requirements of your users to make sure everything works smoothly. Since you can often involve taking tests, watching lectures, and submitting homework online, it's important that everything does work smoothly. So I understand why you want to make sure we use a browser that you specifically support... but you need to support real browsers.

Now, I understand not necessarily supporting browsers like Chrome and Firefox, or at least not always supporting the latest versions of them. This is mildly annoying to people like me who like using something other than Internet Explorer since it's pretty crappy, but you need to focus on making sure there's something you support that everyone has. The problem comes when you don't even fully support IE.

I have to use Blackboard for an online class, and yet I don't know how I could even get a supported browser. Blackboard supports IE 7 and 8, and Firefox 3.5 and 3.6. I use Chrome, but of course my computer has IE on it since it's a windows machine. But I have IE 9 because Windows updates it automatically. I suppose I could go get Firefox just for this one class, but Firefox would want to give me it's latest version (last I knew they were on 4.0). I shouldn't have to go out of my way to try and find some old, crappy, outdated browser just to take an online class. And what are Mac users supposed to use for a browser? It doesn't support Safari at all.

At the very least, everything needs to support the latest version of IE.
-SF

Dear Instapaper

You're an incredibly useful tool. Before I discovered you, Instapaper, it was annoying when there was something I wanted to read or watch or whatever on the internet, but didn't have time right now. I could add it as a bookmark and then remove it later, or leave the tab open, or try to remember it... but it was a hassle.

Now it's incredibly convenient to just click the simple bookmark, and it's instantly added to a list of things for me to read later. You couldn't be easier to use. Now I have a convenient way to keep track of things I want to read later, even across different computers and devices.

Thanks for being so useful and simple.
-SF

Dear Super Mario Galaxy 2

Overall, you were a pretty good game. It definitely felt like just more of the first Super Mario Galaxy, but hey it was a good game, so you were too. Plenty of levels, lots of variety, I definitely enjoyed the experience.

The story wasn't great, but that's never been what Mario's about so that's fine. Good platforming, some interesting puzzles, some unique challenges. Very much lives up to exactly what Mario is supposed to be. You had 120 stars to collect, some harder than others. This included some "hidden" stars but you had a very nice system of showing what levels were complete and which ones had stuff left to find in, so searching for hidden ones wasn't frustratingly tedious.

There were definitely some frustrating bits. There were parts that required some very precise movement, which was awkward to pull off because of the realistic way I had to accelerate from stopped, starting slowly and working my way (pretty quickly) up to a run, as well as the inability to magically control myself midair just as well as on the ground as many other games let me do. In general this added a bit of a realistic feel to the controls, adding a bit to the difficulty too. Occasionally there were spots though that felt like they were designed for an older style game where I would have had much more control mid-air and much more ease starting and stopping and turning, and those spots could get rather frustrating. You also had this tendency to have the camera at a slight angle, which may look slightly better than it being more perfectly straight, but created annoyances. The joystick, as it always has on Nintendo controllers, has an octagonal outline instead of circular, making it easy to push it perfectly straight up, down, sideways, or diagonally. But since the camera was at a slight angle, this resulted in me moving at a similar slight angle, which in certain parts was incredibly annoying and it was very difficult to move perfectly straight the way I wanted to.

The extra 120 green stars to get after finishing the game seem a little... silly. Like a cheap way to double the length of the game. I probably won't bother getting them, one extra level at the end just doesn't seem worth basically re-playing through the entire game.

Overall, you do exactly what you're supposed to, solid platforming with a variety of levels. I give you an 8.5
-SF

Dear Textbooks

So, we all know you're ridiculously overpriced. There is no reason you should cost the hundreds and hundreds of dollars that you do. You abuse the fact that when students buy you, they have no choice but to pay the exorbitant prices that you charge. This is a huge problem, and the main reason I always avoid buying you if possible, but still not even the reason I'm writing to you today.

If I'm going to be stuck paying hundreds of dollars for you, how about you at least proof-read yourself a bit. It is just ridiculous that despite your crazy price, and the fact that you constantly revise yourself, you still end up with errors. For example, today we were going over a problem in class. The textbook we were using was a fourth edition, so by now there really shouldn't be any stupid errors in it, and I paid $130 for a used copy of it. At prices like that, you better be perfect.

So we're going over this problem, basically it boils down to deciding for some hypothetical company how many TV, magazine, and newspaper ads they should buy to get the most exposure for the least cost. They tell us that each TV ad gets exposure to 1,300 thousand people (and they give us the rest of the information we need, but that's not relevant to my point). We solve it, it has an answer, everything's fine. Then later they add more constraints to make it a more complicated problem. Now they want to make sure they get at least a certain amount of exposure to young children, and young children's parents. Each TV ad will supposedly be seen by 1.2 million young children, and .5 million young-children's parents.

Let's convert this all to plain numbers. As told to us in the first part, 1,300,000 people will see the TV ad. The second part says that 1,200,000 young children and 500,000 young children's parents will see the ad, combine those for a total of 1,700,000. So of the 1,300,000 people that will see the TV ad, 1,700,000 are young children and their parents. How is this possible?

This is not the first time I've seen problems in you stupid textbooks. It would be nice if something that I have to pay way too much for, would at least be correct. I've seen answers in the back to problems be wrong, I've seen problems that make no sense like the one today, I've seen typos and grammatical errors.

I don't think proof-reading is too much to ask.
-SF

Dear Wikipedia

Honestly, you are one of the best sites on the internet. Sure Google can get information on just about everything, but most of the time the way it does that is just by linking to you. Your an incredibly valuable resource, and provide vast knowledge to everyone. Hell, having access to you basically gives each individual person the combined knowledge of everyone.

Wikipedia, you are often called an "unreliable" resource by teachers, and students are told they cannot use you. Don't let that get you down, the students understand how useful you are and try to find ways to utilize you anyways. I bet teachers are just frustrated because you're so useful, that you have turned comprehensive research papers into simple, one-night projects.

So stick around, we'd all be lost without you.
-SF

Dear TV Tropes

TV Tropes, your site is wonderfully interesting. Somehow you often manage to take what was meant to be quickly looking at one thing, and turning it into hours of clicking on links to other articles and reading more things that lead you to other articles, and so on. Sometimes you can even be better at this than Wikipedia.

The best part is that you have way more than just stuff from television as your name might imply. You have a vast archive of things from video games, literature, tabletop games, and probably plenty of other things too. I'm not really sure if you have an actual purpose other than just entertaining reading, and honestly most of the stuff I read on your site is about things that I already have a basic understanding of what they are and why they are a common occurring, but somehow you still make it incredibly interesting.

Like today, when I was on my computer, thinking of who I wanted to write a letter to, I ended up getting linked to an article on your site. Then, suddenly, it was like half an hour later and I had read like a dozen or more pages and hadn't actually accomplished anything.

Thank you for being there, and being so interesting.
-SF