Happy treason day, Americans!

Original from CNN.

And now, my new and improved verison:

I was visiting my nephews, again. Within seconds of seeing me fiddle with my Kindle, my older nephew, Jack, who is 8, asked me, again, if my Kindle had any books on it.

“Uh, no, sorry Jack,” was my reply, letting a white lie skip through my teeth. I knew his mother and father might be none too pleased to see the two of us hunched over the tiny screen reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” or “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

What his parents are doing is difficult. They’ve chosen to keep Jack book-free for as long as possible. Of course, Jack has gotten a taste of books. He gets to read on special occasions, and will probably read at friends’ houses where the rules are different.

I suspect his parents will persist until they can’t hold out any longer, until peer pressure from schoolmates, combined with the reality that kids of Jack’s generation will be inexorably bound to printing technology like none before them, forces them to relent.

Perhaps it’s a lost cause. Still, key questions can be raised here, and they are good ones to consider. What is the appropriate age to let kids loose in the paperback playscape? Are books OK for 8-year-olds? Seven-year-olds? Six? How young is too young?

Some books are appropriate for certain age groups and some books aren’t; obviously, no one is allowing their 5-year-old to read “The Lord of the Flies.” (Jeezum, let’s hope.)

I’m no expert, but I’ve been reading up on some of the research. For one, the trend is that each year, younger and younger kids are experiencing page time.

This article references a study saying that since 2005, “the average age that U.S. youngsters started to use printed materials had fallen from just over 8 to just over 6 1/2.”

Educational psychologist and author Jane Healy recently wrote: “My position is that children are better off without books before the age of 7. By age 7, their brains have undergone a great deal of maturation and the basics should be in there. They can start to expand the type of thinking they can do so they can actually start to get something worthwhile using good literature, for example, good travel guides.”

To my mind, the issue goes beyond the debatable ill-effects of book violence — which I debunk in this op-ed, suggesting that book violence can be a good thing.

To me, the issue isn’t about fears that books instill violent behavior, but rather that books are usurping the power of more conventional toys. There may be merits to shielding boys and girls like Jack from their vellum futures, at least temporarily, if kids can first learn to amuse themselves without automatically reaching for a bound sheaf.

The truck, the toy sword, the soccer ball, the sandbox, the board game, the pad of paper, the videogame: All can be as magical and entrancing as anything a publishing house can cook up. Perhaps this is the rule of thumb: Once a love of digital play is instilled in young minds and habits, then let kids run free through the wild world of words.

Obviously there are no definitive answers. These are questions that have been discussed on Wired.com before. But I hope this space can continue to provide an excellent forum to discuss the issues. I’m curious to hear your viewpoints. Please comment below.

And, next time I see my nephew Jack, I’ll have a better idea of how to counter his whining — sweet whining, but whining nonetheless.

So as you may or may not know, the press preview beta of Deus Ex: Human Revolution was leaked to the general public a couple of weeks back. Using entirely legal methods and the appropriate channels, I have been playing said beta recently, and I’m here to tell you something about it.

But first let’s take a stroll back in time. You’ll recall from my top five games that I rank Deus Ex rather highly, and you may further be aware that this is hardly a rare position to take; it is widely and justly regarded as a true classic of the medium. Then along came Invisible War. Now, I want to stress, I don’t think IW is a bad game per se, I just don’t think it comes close to living up to the standard set by the original.

In today’s climate of nickel-and-dime DLC, two-weapons-only, and ready cash-ins rather than a desire to make a serious game I was therefore deeply skeptical of DX:HR. It sounded like they were saying what we wanted to hear, but just because the PR says something doesn’t mean it’s true. I was not at all convinced that it would be worthy.

And you know what? It is. It really, really is a sublime game. It hits all the right notes – the atmosphere is strong and though not as gloomy as 2052, 2027 still has an edge of cyberpunk dystopia to it. The game itself plays very well, and most of all – this is the bit that really sold me – it has divergent solutions to problems. I went a particular path with my augmentations and later found that I really wished I had done otherwise, because a task would have been a lot easier if I had made different choices. That’s far too rare these days, and I deeply appreciate it. The dialog is very solid as well, characters are well-developed and a joy to interact with. And Faridah is my waifu.

Reaction to the leak has been so roundly positive that some rumor it was a deliberate one; I’ve seen no evidence for it (Though a conspiracy surrounding Deus Ex is far too enjoyable to write off entirely), but I can safely say that regardless of who was to blame, it was the single best way to get me on board, and from what I’ve seen around the Internet, a lot of other people feel the same. Further, and to their great credit, Eidos and Square-Enix not only said they’ll take no action against those who play the leak, they have specifically asked for feedback on the forums from people who play it. Don’t know about anyone else, but for me this all adds up to a preorder.

Just going to throw up a little thing I recently wrote in a game of Hearts of Iron II: Darkest Hour that I played. I was Japan, and I was stunned by how vicious the Chinese defense was. Enjoy!

The Heroes of Ningbo

For decades the Chinese resistance to the Japanese advances during the Second Sino-Japanese War has inspired patriotism and pride in the Chinese people. It has served as a model for all those who since resisted Japanese rule, from the remains of the Communists to the various abortive warlord attempts at semi-independence from Tokyo. Arguably none are as lauded as the men of the First Battle of Ningbo, Nov. 26th 1938-Jan 3rd 1939 by Western dating.

With a paper strength of just over 70,000, the 18 months of war had left divisions in tatters and brigades missing from the face of the earth, and most historian’s estimates suggest that the true number of Chinese soldiers involved was approximately 56,000. They were led by Field Marshal Tang Shengzhi, who had grown dissatisfied with Premier Chiang’s leadership and perceived personal betrayal, but had nobly put aside these concerns in the name of fighting for China. He had been earmarked by Chiang as the leader for the defense of Nanking but the Japanese amphibious assault on the region had been so rapid that the city fell before the Chinese could muster a defense.

The Japanese forces numbered some 60,000, all regular infantry supplemented by six brigades of Tankettes (Japanese armored car and tank technology having lagged greatly in comparison to the European belligerents of WW2). Having driven Chinese forces out of the surrounding regions of Jinhua and Wenzhou, the Chinese had been cut off in Ningbo and its environs. Some of the units had been stationed in the region for some time but the majority were those who had hastily and continually retreated from the fighting in the north. Nevertheless Tang managed to inspire his men – who were at this stage a rather ragtag group of KMT troops, absorbed warlords, and refugees from the Communist enclave which the Japanese had so brutally overrun in the spring of 1938.

Armed with outdated equipment, run ragged by over a year and a half of constant retreats and fighting, the men in Ningbo were given a stark speech by Field Marshal Tang as the Japanese drew close. A British emigrant to China in the 1900s who lived in the city had the foresight to record the speech as he sheltered a Chinese soldier who had been wounded in the fighting, and this is generally taken as the definitive copy thereof.

“Men, we have come here from many paths. I have myself served both the Kuomintang government and have served some who oppose them. I know among you are soldiers from all over China, some of whose homes are now in the hands of the vicious Japanese, some of whose remain behind out lines. It makes no matter now: We are all Chinese, and while these eastern barbarians remain on our soil we have no differences, we have no ideologies, except liberation of China for the Chinese!

“I will not lie to you. We face a grim task. Many of us shall perish in the coming battle. Our enemy, barbarous as they are, are well-equipped and well-trained. We make do with outdated and mismatching equipment, scrimped from local collections or donated by friends abroad. But we have things they do not: We fight for our homes! We fight for our country! And we fight in land excellent for defense! We have already put much effort into preparing our defense positions, and any Japanese advance shall come at a high cost in blood.

“We know taking Ningbo is crucial to the Japanese advance along the southern coast of China. As long as we remain here their forces are tied down. So do not hope for only survival! China depends on us! Hope that our actions, whether we win or lose, whether you live or die, cost the Japanese time! Every day we hold them here is a day for our brothers to train. Every hour we hold them is an hour for new guns to be built or bought, for trenches and pillboxes to be dug and built. I cannot promise you all survival, for we know the brutality of the Japanese even to those who surrender. But I can promise you victory, if you do your duties and hold to the last!”

Stunningly, the defense of Ningbo went even better than Tang had dared to promise. Casualties were very high on both sides; over 12,000 Japanese dead (Their second-highest losses until that point, only exceeded by the Battle of Yan’an) and over 15,000 Chinese estimated dead among the military alone. Yet with their outdated equipment, poor training (Only two of the seven Chinese brigades were infantry proper. The rest were militia units.), and near-total lack of heavy equipment, without hope of retreat or escape, and with supplies rapidly dwindling, the tenacious Chinese forced the Japanese attackers to withdraw after five weeks of brutal combat.

To the eternal chagrin of Tokyo, their second assault on Ningbo went little better than the first. Despite using fully rested and reinforced units, naval bombardment, air support, and facing an encircled and trapped enemy, the Second Battle of Ningbo lasted from January 30th until February 28th. Casualties on the Chinese sides were considerably lower – the Chinese had had time to dig in formidably and could repel the Japanese attacks with much greater ease. The Japanese lost almost 16,000 troops in the second battle. For the Chinese some reinforcements had been drawn from the locals of the region – not exactly front-line troops, but the few weeks of training had allowed at least a few hundred more vaguely competent soldiers to face the Japanese. Moreover, some dozens of brave souls had volunteered to assist Ningbo and had traveled there on supply ships, which faced increasingly dangerous Japanese interdiction attempts.

It was not until mid-April, when new units who had recently been readied in the Home Islands arrived in Wenzhou, that the IJA was finally able to crack the nut that was Ningbo. It cost them a total of over 60,000 lives, held up the Japanese advance along the coast for four months, and required the reallocation of two full IJN fleets to provide offshore support as well as four wings of the IJAAF’s air fleet, and a doubling of the commitment of troops from 6 divisions to 12.

It was not enough to stop Japan. But the defense went down in Chinese history as one of the most tenacious, brave acts of the entire war against the Empire of Japan, and it gave districts further down the southern Chinese coast a great deal of time to recuperate, regain strength, organize themselves, and dig in, making subsequent battles much more costly and difficult for the Japanese. Supplies smuggled in by sea helped to keep the Ningbo army in something resembling fighting condition, and it required an embarrassing degree of effort on the part of the Japanese to succeed in their attack. It was the first time the Chinese had prevailed to such a degree in engaging the Japanese and gave an enormous morale boost to the soldiers who remained facing the Empire throughout China.