Recently I became fascinated  by reading old journalism from
Tycho  Brahe,  starting  from his perspective  on artificial
intelligences.   Tycho and Gabriel are the comic personas of
an  author  and   artist  doing  comparatively  gonzo   game
journalism for the last three decades. 

While  I know about  their  comic  from before  I knew about
computers  - when I thought my Warcraft 3 NE 1v1 ranking was
a serious  part of who I was decades  ago, I think it is now
interesting   to ask why Tycho  Brahe  - a clear  orphan  of
Netscape - seems on the wrong side of some picket lines. 

If you can imagine objecting  to anything that has ever been
done in satire, do not look at the comics. One comes to mind
(well, I can't forget it) about the characters  bonding over
the  guilt  they feel about visiting  aquariums   for  their
sexual attraction to jellyfish. While gratuitously  violent,
in my opinion they are not misogynistic at all. 

Tycho  Brahe in particular,  the author character,   cannily
scratch-builds  and maintains  custom gaming rigs, and has a
deep passion for computer hardware old and new. I don't have
a citation,  but I believe  I came across writing about  the
imperative of open source in gaming once. 

The pair struggled in their early decades of game journalism
compared   to  other  game reviewers  due  to  their  strong
principles,  needing  to find ways to make their daily bread
other  than  taking   money from the  companies   they  were
reviewing the performance of. 

All this said Tycho Brahe bashfully  uses Windows, Microsoft
Edge Browser  and has written pro-DRM.   It's hard for me to
review  this reviewer because I can't conceive  of knowingly
touching  a closed-source  operating system or software,  or
hence ever interfacing with digital restrictions management.
I   feel   guilty  and  morally   compromised    adding   an
@binary-redistributable    exception  for  proprietary  wifi
drivers and do not own a phone. I have never played and will
never play any of the games under review. 

I've buried  the lede.  Brahe writes  extensively  about the
corporate   evils  of  freemium  and  DownLoadable   Content
business  models,  especially   those  targetting   children
gambling and has no illusions  as to whether the video  game
corporations  are amoral  or immoral  morels growing  on the
decaying body of his life-long love of gaming. 

He   is  scathing   about  games  that  increasingly    play
themselves,    fostering   a  passive  feeling   of   player
involvement    to  shepherd  their  carriers   towards   the
micropayment business model. 

Brahe,   like our own  smoler  anthonyg  spoke  out  against
Wizard   of  the Coast's  water-testing  a new  Open  Gaming
License for the Dungeons  and Dragons game rule setting they
own,  which  was controversial  for whether  they  would  be
legally  allowed to exercise  the dark powers  granted  them
thereby. 

Brahe pioneered  and leads the field of tabletop roleplaying
podcasts, which he did for and in coordination  with Wizards
of the Coast to popularise  their Dungeons  and Dragons.  He
and his team did this without pay, being allowed to sell D&D
t-shirts  to help cover their costs until a published  novel
tie-in paid their podcasters. 

Their other income  appears to be contributing  writing  and
art  to small-time  proprietary  game companies,   and  then
promoting the games they have a stake in. 

I would like to identify  with, then morally  improve  Tycho
Brahe as a role model. 

He writes thoughtful 500 word pieces prolifically on his own
website - should be geminispace or the gopher. 

He reviews popular megacorporate proprietary video games for
proprietary  operating systems, albeit scathingly.   It is a
moral imperative to participate only with freedom-respecting
licenses.   Except-  it's hard to name a  freedom-respecting
game at all. The dwarf fortress  alpha, years ago?  And even
that's kind of a smol reference point. But this brings us to

He should be writing (collectively,  providing art to,
promoting,    radio-showing)    freedom-respecting      game
initiatives (including businesses). 

But-  but- these joyous freedom-embracing   gaming  forests,
fjords,  skies,  oceans  and badlands  are a wholly   virgin
expanse and there is the tinge of melancholia that corporate
reality  must  die in a train  crash  to get there  (without
Susan). 

https://linkerror.com:11175/Eternal/Eternal