The Past, The Future, Omnipotence and Playstation Network

Introducing The Actors

The Past has plentiful experience but lacks resource (time) to participate. Makes a king of logic.

The Future has abundant time and energy but lacks control, easily led by emotion. Makes a prince of appearance.

Omnipotence is the collective corporate brain that lacks a concept of family. Makes a queen of process.

Synopsis

Throughout Omnipotence remains passive. Without the intervention of Omnipotence, The Past and The Future become locked in endless battle. Everyone aboard the Mother ship is plunged into conflict. There are no survivors.

My Dad bought a PS3 for my thirteen-year old this Christmas. One of the features of the Sony package over Xbox was that Playstation Network (PSN) is free. So you pay more for the hardware, but the running costs are cheaper.

Depite a warning from the The Past (me), The Future created a Playstation Network Account without supervision (it was 7am on Boxing Day morning). This was the opening shot, a declaration of war. Omnipotence (Sony) rely on self-certification to govern access to it’s services. The Future had (accidentally, yeah yeah) certified himself as the-same-age-as-his-mates. They apparently are all allowed to play COD (Call Of Duty) on Playstation Network.

The accident involved typing a 97 not a 93. Although it wasn’t clear to ThePast until many weeks later this digit difference was going to become the axis of the conflict. Omnipotence disallow it’s subjects to change some key pieces of information about themselves (a) date of birth and (b) email address. Accounts may not be deleted.

Omnipotence doesn’t advertise these policies. In fact in the case of email addresses it looks as if you can change your email address but in reality you can only ever add new addresses. Once added an email is locked into the vault of Omnipotence’s blacklist. The old addresses are still remembered, so you can’t re-use them from any other account.

Despite Sony’s leaving all these trap doors everywhere I was determined not to give in. I did not want my son to pose as an adult whilst online. Here’s what happened.

The Chapters

• The Future declares the PS3 is faulty
• The Past investigates and concludes that the TV has an intermittent fault
• The Past and The Future have serious dispute over where to put the PS3 in the bedroom
• The Past locks the console in a cupboard as The Future has said too much

-- time passes --

• The Past repents and use magic to install the PS3 in bedroom
• The Future gets up the next morning and makes the Master (Adult) account
• The Past finds out and makes himself a Master account
• The Past changes the password of The Future’s Master account
• The Past creates a Sub account as a replacement for The Future
• But The Future failed to enter the realm of Omnipotence because the Sub account IS BROKEN (email addresses cannot be re-used Dad)
• The Past locked the console away again as The Future has said too much
• The Past procures a “Mains Conditioner” to fix the TV but it is a complete waste of money
• The Future tells The Past he can shove the PS3

-- time passes --

• The Past changed the Sub account (then hit date of birth rule, silly Dad)
• The Future again failed to enter the realm of Omnipotence
• The Past locked the console in a cupboard once again unalble to tolerate offence from TheFuture
• The Past takes TheFuture shopping and buys him 2 new PS3 games
• The Past meets an Angel who bears the gift of a working TV
• The Future is bright
• But The Future still cannot enter the realm of Omnipotence
• The Past begged Omnipotence for mercy
• Omnipotence remained impassive