=== Net Neutrality ===

     I don't have a clever title to start off this talk about net neutrality. Rather here we are jumping right into the thick of things. For those of us who don't know anything about net neutrality, it was a set of rules which were put into place in 2015 which stopped internet providers from promoting their own things over others by offering faster speeds to their own services and slower speeds or even entirely blocking other services they don't want their consumers to see. This can even go as far as promoting one brand over another in a way which would mean anything new to the market could fail completely because it's not promoted by any of the service providers.

     Basically these rules were put into place to make the internet a more even playing field for everybody, thus making it more fair no matter the size of your company or your popularity. Essentially what this means is that something small like myself and this blog COULD fade into existence because it's not promoted by anybody but myself. That means when searching for something similar to this here, instead of finding a fair assortment of search results which may hold this blog in a reasonable place, there may be so many unfairly promoted results in front that you never get down far enough to find me.

     I don't really enjoy or understand a lot of politics; most things I just don't really care for all that much. But this is actually quite crazy to me to learn about this. From all the news that I've read, apparently the people in charge of making this decision only cared about legal arguments and largely disregarded the record 22 million feedback comments.

     It's difficult to say what exactly is going to happen due to this ruling; whether they go back on their decision or put something new in place... or if everything stays like this. I guess at this point we can only wait to see what comes about in the future. We likely won't see many huge changes right away as there would be much ruling and other things the various companies would have to put into place. I'm all for equality, so I can only hope things still work out well in the end.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Caught Red-Pawed ===

     Alright, so Isabelle is down for a nap and I'm sitting on the couch playing Dying Light on the Xbox and into the living room from the kitchen runs Furgle and he immediately picks up the doll I had left on the floor for Isabelle to play with. I looked at him and said "What do you think you're doing?" He immediately sits and looks at me, but doesn't put down the doll. 

     So here I am thinking he's adorable and waiting for him to put the toy down, but no... he keep holding onto the toy as though it's his own to play with now.

     I got up and slowly took the toy from him by pulling gently and he let go very gingerly in the cutest way possible. I don't know what we did with this dog, but wow is he ever adorable with pretty much everything he does. Him doing things like this is why I can never stay mad at him no matter what trouble he gets into.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== What A Good Doctor ===

     So we've been watching this awesome show recently which has just been an absolutely amazing watch called The Good Doctor. is show follows some surgical residents including one by the name of Sean Murphy who has Autism. So far throughout the show, there have been a lot of cases of both patients and doctors who don't think he's capable of doing things the same as a regular person, but he continues to prove people wrong in many of the episodes.

     One of my favourite things about watching this show (usually with Kylie) is how much I learn about people with autism... and about my dear Carley. I won't go into super detail about it, but it turns out that Carley shares a lot of the characteristics as the main character in the show. For the most part, Carley is a pretty normal person and I love her very much. There are a few things which seem to make a little bit more sense to me as I realize she could be described as a high-functioning person with some level of autism.

     I don't know if I've explained this idea very well at all, but it certainly makes sense to me. Knowing more about our situation certainly makes things much easier for me to understand how Carley works and helps me to be much more calm in situations I wouldn't normally understand. Basically, this show is not only a fantastic show to watch, but it has also helped to change my life and my understanding of things in it.

     Now would be a wonderful time to go into great detail about how awesome the Fall finale was for the show, but I don't want to ruin anything for anybody who may be watching or may be interested in watching the show. So... I think I'll just leave you all to go look into it with the recommendation that you should all watch this series as it seems to have been accepted as the number 1 show at this time and I can personally say that it's the best show I've watched in a while. For anybody who used to watch House, this show was made by the same creators... so you can imagine this one is pretty awesome as well.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Dark Reign - Game Review, Real Time Strategy - 10/10 ===

     Today I'm here to review Dark Reign: The Future Of War. This game is an oldie made back in the good old days of 1997. This game was one of the first RTS games which came out at around the same time as Command & Conquer and Warcraft II. Considering the age of this game, I'm not reviewing it completely as though it is a new game considering the age of the game; but even considering how the game has held up over the years, I think it's going pretty great.

     Many RTS games these days tend to have at least two types of resources to work with. One basic resource and one advanced resources with which to make stronger things or research new things with. Some have even more types of resources; Dark Reign has one... and a half. The most important resource in this game is water; the story goes that most of the water has been poisoned and now fresh spring water is a valuable resource. So you collect enough water until it gets launched off-world in exchange for credits which you use to spend on things. Easy enough, right?

     Now, why would I say there's a half of another resource? I say that because you also have to power your buildings using a resource known as Taelon. That sounds pretty important.... but if you have enough credits, then you can keep building new power plants to power your things without filling them up with Taelon because every power plant is already half full when it's completed.

     The campaign in this game I think is done wonderfully. There are 12 levels in total and you can play each one in control of either of the two factions in the game. That means there are technically 24 levels in total... but if you only want to play each level from one side, you only have to complete 12 of them to get to the final level in which you  play a "third" faction which has access to all units from both sides in the game.

     The two factions in the game as seen above, are the Freedom Guard, and the Imperium. As this is an early RTS game, the two sides really aren't very different. They have nearly the same tech tree with some differences in units, but for the most part, everything is quite similar even when you get down to the units available to each side. I could take some points off for this, but as it is quite early in the timeline of RTS games, this isn't a huge concern for me. The game seems pretty well balanced and I can see how it could be quite competitive as a result.

     So from me, Dark Reign will get a 10/10. If you haven't played this game but are a huge fan of the Real Time Strategy genre, then you have to pick this up from GOG and give it a try. This was and still is one of my favourite games of all time. Yeah, maybe I'm giving it a higher score than it deserves, but this truly is a wonderful game and you really should give it a try.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== World Kindness Day ===

     I'm honestly unsure how I feel that we have designated a World Kindness Day. That makes it sound like we're never nice to each other on any other day... or that we need some kind of excuse to actually be nice to the people around us.

     Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for people to show respect to others and I wouldn't want to take something like that from the world, but I do question whether it's something we should truly need. Wouldn't the world be perfect if we could all be nice to each other all the time?

     Unfortunately, I think there are a lot of people who are driven by a desire to be successful in some way; whether that means being rich, or powerful, or whatever else a person wants which would make them feel like an accomplished person. And when these factors come into play, we end up with a lot of people who would much rather treat others quite poorly for their own gain.

Well, here's hoping we can find some balance in the world.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Idle Kingdoms - Mobile Game Review, Idle / Active City Builder - 4/10 ===

     I'm always on the lookout for new games to play especially when I'm looking to kill some time on the go. Unfortunately, this one isn't one of the best games I've played. As with all idle-type games, this one has an aspect of it where you still make progress even when you're not actively playing the game.

     Strangely with this game, there's an option whenever you turn the game back on to watch a video to get double rewards. This means you get more out of NOT playing the game for a long period, then turn the game on, upgrade a bunch of things, and do it again. I'm not sure I agree with this approach; while I do think it's good for there to be a level of progress in some way while not having the game turned on... I wouldn't want to encourage people to not play at all.

     Now we must keep in mind that this game is a game in progress. There are no sounds or music to listen to, so at this time this game doesn't get any bonus points on that front. The gameplay also seems to not be set in stone. I started playing Idle Kingdom when everything was immediately gathered by clicking the gather button. Recently there has been an update where you have manually sent out carts from your castle and gather points to bring back resources. A little bit of it is automatically gathered and there is no limit to the stockpile of resources which can sit at each location. This update seems to have made the game slower which does not feel as fun to me.

     As with most other idle games, there is a system of restarting the game to gain prestige which makes you produce and carry more with each point. Unfortunately this doesn't really solve the problem of the game still being quite slow and then rewarding you for forgetting about it for a while.

     Progressing through the game involves saving up enough food to buy the next tile which you can then build on. Every once in a while you come across a shrine which unlocks new structures or bonuses such as more prestige or faster production. There does come a point where things get so expensive that once again the game becomes so slow that it doesn't hold much interest.

     Idle Kingdom at this time gets 4/10 from me. At this time it's unfinished and I'm not a fan of the current gameplay and rewards.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Discovering A New Show ===

     Recently I've discovered a new show to watch and keep up with. Star Trek: Discovery is finally out after such a long time of hearing about it and waiting for it to come to the TV screen. I love things to do with space, and so I've always been a huge fan of all the Star Trek shows. Finally having an updated show to watch with all the new content and ideas and everything going on in it is breathtakingly amazing.

     There's something about space that really gets to me. I can stand outside on a clear night and look at the stars and start wondering and thinking all about how amazing it is that we're here; so small in the grand universe of things. And then when I think even more about that... how something so small as an ant exists as a living thing, and even smaller than that can be alive as well. All of these things are as small to me as I am to Earth. And yet, Earth is only an ant to the other planets, stars, and space around it.

     So here I am watching a wonderful new show all about these amazing things which is first of all is a great show with awesome content in the Star Trek universe, and secondly is about one of the very things I can lose my thoughts in.

     I don't watch a lot of TV shows, which is another reason why this is so great for me. It's nice to have something to sit down and watch or listen to where I don't have to be constantly at work all the time. I spend a lot of time thinking and planning and doing all sorts of things because I always want to be busy and productive. Every once in a while... it gets to be a little too much. As much as I would like to be the superman who never needs to rest, even I can get tired of working absolutely all the time. Speaking of working all the time... it's time to stop working for a bit. :)

Have a great day everybody! Don't work yourselves too hard. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa