Staff Col_StaR's Ask Me Anything!

Who/what was your childhood role-model?

What are the winning lottery numbers? (you know everything)

Fave starwars character?

Fave videogame?

Spirit animal?

Vanicle said:

If you had to describe your life in 20 words or less what would you say?

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Conformity and anarchy are dangerous extremes. Learn to find a middle path, and walk it with a smile. Life awaits.

(You definitely won't find that on a fortune cookie. On a related note, your lucky numbers today are 11, 15, 19, 21, 34, and 40)

KitMencha said:

SNIP

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1. I'll think about it taking a "selfie". Unfortunately, I am very self-conscious about how terrible I look in photographs. Add on a family that takes pictures every chance they can, and I have a natural aversion to photos.

2. I would visit the following places:

• Beijing, China, just to see what life in my ancestral homeland is like; I'd hate to deal with the pollution and the communism, though.
• Normandy, France. I'd especially like to take my father there, who is a hobbyist military historian. I think he would appreciate a walk along the beaches, imagining that fateful morning of June 6th, 1944.
• Somewhere in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or New Zealand. I enjoy broadening my experiences of life around the world, and I'd love to visit somewhere where life is different from a traditional western comforts.

3. Best experience is tough, since there were quite a few. I remember my introduction speech at the first mod meeting I ever attended, though. Apparently I really blew people away with that, and made a good first impression. I hope I've been able to live up to it since.

Worst experience is also pretty tough to answer, since I haven't had that many, and I've been patient enough to tolerate most. Post-update drama and hate always kills me, same with when people try to "take down the corrupt staff" (which inevitably leads to me getting my hands wet over stupid petty drama), and I've been a part of my fair share of failed projects. But I don't think I can isolate a single thing as, "the worst", considering I think my poor experiences skirt, "pretty bad but manageable" at the most.

There's no point on looming on negativity. Push it aside and focus on the present, because we have work to do.

4. I have never broken a bone. I don't plan to, either.

5. If I were in a traditional Genie and 3 Wishes situation, I would ask for the first two wishes of whatever I wanted. But for the third wish, I would ask for another genie whom could grant me three additional wishes. It's not asking for unlimited wishes (since three is a limited number), but I would be able to exploit that technicality for practically-infinite wishes.

6. Will I ever part from MCGamer? Inevitably so, and I already have my departure date in mind.

My schooling is picking up as I will transfer colleges soon, and I do not expect myself to be able to uphold both my academics and this position at the same time. However, I do not plan on just up and disappearing as many Admins in the past have done. I will uphold my professional obligations and courtesy by announcing it ahead of time. Chad already knows my expected departure date, and we are working together to plan accordingly.

(Also, jeez dude, do you have enough questions here?)

7. If I ever had the chance to visit Hong Kong, I would likely stay in a hotel; I am very picky about my rooming situation, which is why I am afraid of what dorm life will bring. However, I would definitely make a point to hang out with you, bro.

8. No, and I will never pull a prank on Chad.

The last thing you want to do is pull a prank on your boss. They might not find it funny (see my April Fool's resignation previously).

9. When the world around me and the world at large is going to hell, what keeps me going? A lot of things, too many to list: family, social pressures, instinct, confidence in myself and my abilities, an optimism for the future paired a fascination of the morbid present, and so much more. But no matter what happens, I always prefer to take action in the face of adversity instead of accepting such adversity as inevitable (or worse, justified); whether it's the rise of Islamist terrorism, the currently poor status of Western democracies, or the situation last week where both my car and my computer died, I know that these situations can be changed with enough time and effort, no matter how impossible it may seem. It took me many years to learn this, and I wish others could learn this as well.

• Remember this common mantra: "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome".
• Remember that pain is temporary, but glory is permanent.
• Remember that no matter how bad you have it now, life can always get worse. So you must take control of your life so that it doesn't get worse.
• Remember that many of the barriers in your life are only barriers because you think they're impassable. With enough initiative and cunning, you'll come to learn just how easy it can be to overcome such obstacles.
  
• Remember that no one path in life is, "right" or "wrong". Make your own path, do what works for you, and blaze a trail such that others may wish to follow you.

The more I learn about myself, unpacking the layers and baggage that makes up who I am, the more sophisticated this question becomes. This was a great question.

Thank you for providing like 50% of the questions so far, Nick.

Where do you want to see this community in a year from now?

Top 5 favorite games?

Happy birthday!

Col_StaR said:

Beijing, China, just to see what life in my ancestral homeland is like; I'd hate to deal with the pollution and the communism, though.

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Ah yes, dreaded communism. The domino effect is strong here in Asia, China has fallen, and soon the rest of our Asian countries will fall. Prepare yourself Col, as the Asian servers will soon be filled with Mao Zedong supporters.

BTW, off topic

I may have underestimated how many questions I would get, on top of overestimating how quickly I would be able to answer these questions.

I apologize for my lack of timeliness. Instead, think of it as savoring the anticipation!

JLioner said:

What's your favorite task here on MCGamer?

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Support Tickets.
Getting yelled at by kids 1/2 my age.
Having misguided parents threaten to sue the network/report us to the police.
Being called corrupt and biased by people who don't understand what those words mean.
My lovely mountain of paperwork.

Truthfully, my favorite task here is setting up a solid, intense, and important project with a good team of people. Operation Clean Sweep, the Hacker Recidivism Study, PSA writing, and other such projects could not have been done by myself alone, and they would have easily failed were it not for the quality of the help I'd received. The success of those projects is very much dependent on the quality of work put into it.

That's the thing about management and leadership: it's about so much more than having authority and telling people what to do. It's about knowing the goal, planning how to make it all work together, getting a team organized, and then putting each person on a task that they work best at whilst compensating for their weaknesses. It's like a puzzle where the pieces and images are always changing, but once everything comes together, it can be quite marvelous.

Scott said:

Philosophical questions. I think yes.

1. If you could remove one item from it's entire existence, what would it be? (Example: removing all guns or removing all nuclear weapons.)
2. If you could change anything, but only one thing, about Earth, what would you change?
3. What defines you?
4. In your opinion, what makes a "good" friend?
5. Who decides what morality is?
6. Where is the line between insanity and creativeness?
7. Do you even?
8. Is it more important to be likes or to be respected?

Less philosophy questions, more personal ones.

1. I know what degree you're getting, but what job do you plan to get once you are older?
2. What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you?
3. How many bones have you broken, fractured, or sprained?
4. What are your religious beliefs?
5. What is the largest story, essay, or thread you have ever made?
6. Family? (Not names, that's a bit too personal)

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Welp, you officially beat Nick's question record, Scott. But for brevity's sake, I will only answer a few.

Philosophical questions:
1. Assuming that they can only be man-made material goods, I would not remove any items from its existence, since it would be pointless. If humanity made it before, it would inevitably build it again. And if it can't build something specific again, it will find a way to build an alternative. Human industry is persistent like that.

But if I could remove a man-made item and the notions associated with it, I would remove all religious texts and scripture. If there really is a higher deity whom wishes to communicate to humanity, then they should not have to convey their message through the fallible and imperfect human kind. Removing all of the human-filtered creations of religion would remove the entire idea of a permanent religion itself, thus removing an entire aspect of human kind that has proven difficult as of late.

5. The individual decides what morality is. The complicating issue is that morality is often influenced by the society they grew up in, and vice versa. Morality as a concept is easy to understand, but morality's fluidity between people is what makes the entire concept imperfect.

8. It is more important to be respected than liked. Ideally, being liked also means that you are also respected (which is what I personally try to strive for), but the same is not true of the reversal. But being liked only means people think well of you and enjoy your presence; there is no inherent influence if you are liked but not respected. But if you are respected without being liked (i.e. a tyrant), you still exert influence over others. And it is with that influence, you can do something good to benefit others and thus gain appreciation, or you can do something selfish to benefit yourself and thus exert your influence further. Being liked just means people smile for you; being respected means history will remember you.

Non-Philosophical Questions
1. I'd like to get into Data Analytics, preferably something related to video games without being a grunt-work developer. However, I would also like to make some passive income as a hobbyist game developer. I live and breathe games, and I'd like to maintain that as I get older.

2. I've nearly drowned in a pool when I was 12. I've almost died after an asthma attack and nearly getting run over at the same time in Singapore last year. I've nearly drowned (again) in a river rafting accident where our boat overturned and I was nearly knocked out underwater after my exposed head hit a large rock.

But oddly enough, none of those really "scared" me at the moment. I think back on those near-death moments, and recall how okay and accepting I was of basically experiencing my own demise. Asking myself, "what does that say about me as a person?" is the scariest thing that has ever happened to me.

4. I am an athiest, but I'm absolutely accepting of tolerant religions, and I'll change my mind once I'm convinced of a higher power. Heck, I often even encourage religion on a conceptual level: it's a powerful unifying factor that can be used for social good, like the religiously-charged American Civil Rights movement. But whenever I see people look at Islamist terrorism and say, "Islam is inherently a violent religion that should be banned", I feel compelled to tell them, "Islam isn't the problem. Those terrorists are just terrible people with political motivations, and Islam is their excuse".

5. When I was 14, I wrote a 303 page, 109,545 word fiction book as a hobby, titled, "The Soldier Among Us".
The premise starts with a black-ops-trained child soldier is reintroduced to civilian life as an American high school student after their unit is decommissioned. He struggles to adjust to civilian life, but after his school is caught up in an invasion of the United States by an unknown organization, he steps back into service. With himself, a rag-tag team of volunteers, and a convoy full of refugees and students under his leadership, he has to guide them out of enemy territory and back to safety, no matter the costs. (God, that premise is awful... but that's what 14 year old avid-Tom-Clancy-fan-me liked.)

The book took me a year and a half to finish, and was done with the help/competition of a friend of mine who professed himself to be an aspiring science-fiction novelist, and I wanted to one-up him. It was absolute self-insert garbage that can be attributed to a first-time writer whose skills barely exceeded Honors English.

But looking back on it, I'm nonetheless proud of it. It might be a book that stinks, but it's a book I wrote; how many others can truthfully say that?

I've also started another short story for a previous Gmod RP community (abandoned and now non-canon), written entire 5k word count biographies for some previous characters (there were at least 3), and I have an in-progress story that I chisel away at once a week or so. As you can see, I have a pretty good word count under my belt. I just wish I could write more eloquently as opposed to more verbosely...

This is the most I have ever know about you, my question is If you could meet up with anyone on the staff team who would it be?

If you could take a break anywhere but only take one item with you, what would it be? Where would you go?

If you had the chance to redo your life, What would you do differently or would you follow the same path? xD

What do you do for fun? I find it hard to fathom how someone like you can just be an admin all day. When you disconnect from the emails, support tickets, drama. All of it. What would be your definition of a chill and fun day?

Anything left on your bucket list?

What did you get for your birthday?

What was the most difficult decision that you had to make during your time here?