Fan fiction
Something occurred to me a couple weeks ago. I love geeks.
Let me back up. The phenomenon of fan fiction (and to a lesser degree, fan art) has acquired a horrible reputation because of what it represents: People at least as interested in participating in a fictional world as in their own. Fan fiction and those who write it are considered a joke. Only someone who has no life would possibly want to (and have time to) detail further adventures of their favorite fictional characters, right? I've always just written it all off as silliness. "My Babylon 5 Fan Fiction web page." It's still funny.
Well screw that mess. I love those geeks who write fan fiction and make fan art. I love those geeks for their willingness to live within their own imagination. You know who else has that? Children. Why the fuck am I going to ridicule a bunch of folks who've managed to stave off cynicism and hold on to a quality of childhood?
Good fan-created work amazes me, not just because it's legitimate art work, but because these people *care* about their subject matter. More so than the original creators, in many cases. They care so much about their subject matter that they devote their own energy to extending those characters' lives in their spare time.
If I some day create something that touches somebody so much that they're inspired to make works in homage... well, it's hard for me to think of a greater honor.
And I'm finished laughing at the Star Wars kid, and the B5 fanfic, and the "lightning bolt!" LARP kid. If you make it out of childhood with that willingness to live within your imagination, then I say more power to you.
Who am I? Where am I?
What am I doing here? Oh, right.
Been very busy for the past year. And.. also... busy.
Anyway, go buy Psychonauts!
Also, this is just about the coolest thing ever.
My favorite picture on the Internet
 | I was telling a friend about what I once considered to be my favorite picture on the Internet. It's a shot of an Indian actress named Tanuja, who I guess was big in the 60's or 70's. Yet when I went to find this picture it seemed to have disappeared off the face of the Net. Well that won't do; luckily I had a backup. So here it is, back on the Internet. |
This brings me closer to my inner commie
Seriously. From this post over at Slashdot
Re:Significant (Score:5, Insightful)
by emtboy9 (99534) on Tue 30 Mar 12:17PM (#8718024)
(http://blog.jefflane.org/)Not sure I would look at it that way... although I do very readily admit it is difficult to get out of bankruptcy without A: folding, or B: being bought out/liquidated.
I tend to view OSS companies more like the farmer's market. In small towns and country settings you have the farmer's market. All the farmers come there to sell their produce, eggs, honey, etc. they all pretty much have the same things (tomatoes, beets, lettuce, eggs, etc) and so all are basically in competetion with each other. HOWEVER, listen in when the farmers are talking to each other, and you will find that they very readily help each other out with tips, advice, and even labor. Even though they are technically competing with each other, they share what they know amongst themselves to assist their neighbors.
Open Source is a lot like that. Red Hat may be in direct competition with Mandrake and SuSE/now Novell, but at the same time, work done on Red Hat linux ends up in each of the others to some degree, and vice versa.
The proprietary world is more like a pack of wild dogs... they run in packs together until they find prey, then its every dog for himself, and the weakest is killed/devoured by the pack, or left behind to die alone and be picked apart by scavengers.
Now the true test is when the Farmer competes against the wild dogs. Farmer usually wins in the end, because the farmers all band together, track the pack of wild dogs, and remove them from the equation. Thus ALL the farmers livestock is safe.
Not a big fan of Mandrake, personally, but cheers to them for getting back on their feet. The more OSS companies there are at the farmers market, the more endangered the pack of dogs becomes.
Immediate gratification and the free market in entertainment
"The demand of immediate gratification is death for any art that takes place over time. That the audience be teased, disappointed, reassured, frightened, and finally freed is the essence of dramatic/musical form. It has to take place over time, and it must contain reversals. And the greater the art the more upsetting, provoking, 'dramatic' those reversals are -- it is only, and necessarily, garbage that 'makes us feel good all the time.'"
-David Mamet, "Three Uses of the Knife"
How do we square that with an entertainment industry which has become expert at appealing to our desire for immediate gratification? When I wonder whether I have responsibilities as a consumer of entertainment, am I just being intellectually dishonest with myself?
Body-slash-toxin repository
My cousin-in-law and I were talking about this over the holidays. He's a chemist, and recently took a new job which involves monitoring the levels of these toxins in our bodies. Pretty scary stuff.
But hey, at least America's breasts are the most flame-retardant in the world!
Canned hunting
"What they got going on now, that ain't hunting. That's a slaughter."
Hey, even the Vice President's getting some of that action!
TV: Nov 9, 2003
At least the networks had the decency to focus the worst of their dreck on a single evening. Tonight sees the premiere of both "The Elizabeth Smart Story" on CBS and "Saving Jessica Lynch" on NBC.
I know! I'll take refuge on the high road. Tonight on Nova:
Following astronomers as they seek to determine how fast the universe is expanding. Their gauge: supernovas (seen here in computer animation). They are “a very special breed of shooting stars,” says astronomer Brian Schmidt, who heads one of two teams searching for nothing less than “the ultimate fate of all we know.” Both teams are seen at work at telescopes in Chile, Hawaii and New Mexico. They're both astounded to find that the expansion is speeding up. “Space,” says Schmidt, “is separating from itself.”
Meat
I'm a carnivore. There's no way around that. Yet I'm really, honestly disturbed by the conditions on most factory farms. Killing an animal to eat doesn't bother me. Life consumes life to survive. But cruelty bothers me. So what's a guy to do?
Enter the Meatrix.
Or just go straight to their main page. Pretty cool. You can type in your zip code and get a list of local family farms and humane markets.
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Disclamer: I'm huge Crimson Skies (the original PC game) fan. Quick review:
They got the controls, graphics, and game-play down. Very well-done. Very smart making AA guns such a big (but optional) part of the game. Visuals (both landscapes and planes) were beautiful.
Missions were a mixed bag. The non-linear bits weren't non-linear enough. Money didn't have enough value. Boss battles were well-done. The game was too short, to be sure. I don't have numbers, but based on memory I'd say the PC game was at least twice as long. I also missed the ability to build your own planes and "free ride" mode, where you could just fly and fight outside the context of the main game.
What really bummed me out was the narrative. The characters were poorly done, the dialog was missing all the flair of the original, and the classy maps-plus-voice-overs of the PC game have been replaced by poorly-written, poorly-rendered cinematics.
I don't know why MS/FASA didn't let Zipper (the developers of the PC game) do the Xbox version. Or why they didn't just port the existing missions to the Xbox. It's not like there would've been much overlap in the market segments.
"No"
Interesting article at Slate -- "'No means no' is still a pretty good rule"
I had a long argument a few years ago with a female friend about this. It began with my assertion that no must mean no if we (male and female humans) are to have any basis for a civilized cooperative lifestyle. My friend, while acknowledging my good intentions, admitted coyly that "no doesn't always mean no"; that there's no getting around the fact that "no" will sometimes mean, "convince me", or worse, "coerce me", or even worse than that, "force me".
Well, I can't understand or accept that. That is to say... I can accept that some people feel that way, but I couldn't build a foundation of trust with someone who felt that way. Which is fine, because my world-view on this would sexual-select me out of her pool of interest.
Now... this isn't an argument for milquetoasty sex. Far from it. But if we can't agree that no means no, then we're being careless at best and at worst we're inviting personal disaster.
"No intercourse, please -- we're enlightened"
A really interesting essay by Ann Marlowe over at Salon.
It's like a non-parody version of the Onion's article "Study: Sex no longer worth the trouble". (Which seems to have disappeared from their online site?!?)
No intercourse, please -- we're enlightened
Sensitive, feminized and resentful, today's young men no longer have the sexual authority to please a woman -- no matter how much oral sex they perform.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Ann Marlowe
Oct. 1, 2003 | It was after seeing "Thirteen" and noticing the display rack of handcuffs at Sam Goody on Sixth Avenue that it hit me: The polymorphously perverse, gender-is-just-a-construct future that radical feminists and academics used to dream of has actually arrived. Men no longer have any authority, either in their own eyes or in women's, the genders are distinguished socially mainly by stuff they buy, and eroticism has fled from the bedroom to the store. It's sexier for most of us to go shopping than to make love, and so we do. As a friend said when I told her I'd spent much of the weekend in bed with a man, "Who has time for that? The weekend is the only chance I have to do my shopping."
And handcuffs -- well, seeing them at Sam Goody made me wistful. Once upon a time, you could still shock a guy by pulling them out. I suspect that there's a connection between the collapse of masculine authority and the mainstreaming of S/M; neither gender is too good at distinguishing power and authority, and nostalgia for male authority can translate into fetishizing symbols of power. Women secretly want men with authority, but they fall for insecure passive-aggressive guys who view every aspect of life as a power struggle, or for cranky killjoys or petty sadists.
The collapse of the patriarchy was supposed to make women happy -- we were supposed to get more sex, freer sex, better sex, more loving sex and better relations between men and women. If you went to an Ivy League college in the last 20 years or had a professor who did, you probably heard something about this.
But instead men treat women worse than ever, women are retreating to 1950s notions that sex is something men like, and the nearly successful effort to stamp out gender contrast has made upper-middle-class American sex miserably dull, with or without handcuffs. Men and women are just too much alike stylistically now for much erotic energy to arise from their conjunction.
This is especially true of those in their 20s. Here's a relevant confession: Ever since I've been in my early 30s I've tended to date younger men. I'm now 45, and in the last five years I haven't been able to get interested in men in their 20s, no matter how cute or buff. Men in their 20s -- well, the Ivy League, professional sorts I meet, with their yoga classes and exquisite sensitivity about treating a woman any differently from a man -- just aren't masculine enough to be bedable.
Thus the legacy of two decades of feminism in academia. Younger people have bought into the idea that your lover or spouse is a friend of the opposite sex -- although one who will exhibit bad manners you wouldn't expect from your friends' pets, much less your friends. The bad manners and androgyny go hand in hand; along with the erotic aura, tenderness and respect have disappeared. These young guys feel free to admit to physical fears, grooming preoccupations and social anxieties their fathers had the good sense to conceal, if they had them. They dress like overgrown toddlers, in oversize T-shirts and baggy pants, clothing that begs you not to take them seriously as grown-ups. They're pussy-whipped and tamed by 30, but just below the surface they seethe with hostility and resentment at women, because they're quite aware that their girlfriends or wives treat sex as a commodity to be doled out in return for something better. Neither the young men nor the young women enjoy it as much as they were told they would. Maybe the situation is worse for the women because, after all, it's the men who are more like women, not the women who are more like men.
The women have won, if you've won when you have worse sex than your grandmother did. Secretly they don't find these men very exciting, either. And they don't feel feminine when they're with them. What does "feminine" mean anyway, besides the result of a lot of grooming rituals drag queens can do too? Maybe it means having a baby. Sex is for corralling a man long enough to secure a "commitment" and then a baby.
The new joylessness: Talk with someone in their 20s about marriage and they bring in the word "work" in the first three minutes. I didn't think like that when I was with a man for seven years in my 20s, and I don't recall that my friends did either. This "work" goes along with the ubiquitous use of the word "relationship" in the romantic sphere, a word first used for a sexual connection in 1944, according to the OED; before that it was only used in a business context. And now that the patriarchy's gone, everything isn't pleasure, as radical theorists imagined, but business.
It makes perfect sense that the most popular sex act among younger people is oral sex, which lends itself so well to exchange. One for you, one for me. Check any online dating service and you'd have the impression that the male sex organ was the tongue. A recent scan revealed that of the 4,108 men on Craig's List seeking women for "casual encounters," 209 used the word "fuck" in their ads, 219 referred to their "tongue" and 363 to their "oral" predilections. Heaven knows what the rest of them planned to do in bed.
Oral sex is what American women say they want, and they have their men trained to do it, but do either men or women really prefer it to intercourse? No one dares say it, but the clitoral orgasm might be as much a myth as the vaginal -- or as little. If you return to the original article that debunked the idea that women enjoy fucking, Anne Koedt's "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" (1970), you'll notice that she gave no medical evidence for her belief that the clitoris rather than the vagina is the source of female sexual pleasure. You'll also notice that she has a strong aversion to the vagina. It's one thing to say that women only have clitoral orgasms, but one doubts the sanity of someone who writes that "women need no anesthesia inside the vagina during surgery." Who's first in line for that?
My bet is that just as many or more women have orgasms from fucking as from oral sex while many others don't have either and fake them. That's right, they fake the clitoral orgasms their boyfriends congratulate themselves on having the sensitivity to bestow. If we're ready to believe that many women fake vaginal orgasms, even over many years with their husbands, why are we so sure some women don't fake their clitoral orgasms too? It's likely that many men believe they can tell more easily that way -- and that, not some extraordinary new access to kindness and generosity, might be the source of the new male "enthusiasm" for oral sex. But pin them down and they'll admit they can't be sure.
Meanwhile, women who have orgasms from being fucked have learned to be quiet about it. Fucking is a suspect preference these days, as handcuffs used to be; after all, everyone knows that penetration is politically incorrect, involving all sorts of issues of gender difference and dominance and submission. Women who want a man to do what only a man can do in bed have to stick to over-40s or men from the Third World who haven't heard that they're supposed to pretend to like cunnilingus. But most American men have to pretend if they want to get laid, just as many women over the millennia have pretended to enjoy intercourse.
Nothing I say is meant to deny that oral sex is pleasurable for some people to give as well as to receive. But cunnilingus can be interpreted just as fucking can and neither is simple. Each has a cultural role. And just as some people like fucking partly for its cultural baggage, some people like cunnilingus for its associations or its lack of them.
The new American ideal is an equal relationship, satisfying our craving for justice and for simplicity. When I hear American women in their 20s and early 30s talk about their boyfriends, they seem preoccupied with whether they do 50 percent of the dishes and whether they spend 50 percent of the time talking about their problems and anxieties. Of course this is compensation for years of institutionalized unfairness, but it also sounds a lot like a defense against the powerful feelings they have for the men they love. And so with oral sex. It fits the 50-50 ethos better than fucking.
It also fits our new suspicion of deep emotions. Another reason fucking is out of fashion is that it makes us feel too much. Part of the appeal of oral sex -- and why it is rapidly becoming a favorite of teenagers -- is that it's lite sex. No one loses control, loses track of where they are, forgets that music is playing, screams, or weeps, when someone performs oral sex on them. But fucking stirs deep emotions that go to our core as animals and humans. And with the absence of tenderness and trust between men and women, we're more and more inclined to banish deep emotion from our post-patriarchal lives.
What's often lost in the insistence on equality is quality -- how the people feel about each other, how much love they can give each other. We now feel queasy about the romantic language of our ancestors, who used the metaphors of slavery and devotion unabashedly. But is there another language with which to speak of love? Love does involve two people putting themselves in the power of each other. We've forgotten that what we are looking for between men and women is fairness and compassion, not identity, and there can be justice between people who acknowledge that their balance of power is unequal. The heterosexual act of love does involve women putting themselves literally in the power of men. And we no longer trust enough to do so.
The first step in *not getting* a job as a game environment artist/designer...
1. Fill your portfolio with renderings, sketches, and animations of characters.
"revolve"
I just watched someone named Kate Etue on Wolf Blitzer talking about her new project, a version of the New Testament in fashion magazine-format. Apparently it's intended to reach out to younger women and teenage girls who might not otherwise read the Bible. So I'm thinking, "Hm. That's interesting, I suppose."
Then Kate says (mildly paraphrased), "We thought there was just too much black & white in there, that the standard New Testament can't appeal to modern young women."
I hear that and think, "Wait... that's pretty significant! Looking at the traditional dogma of Christianity, observing that there's too much black & white and no gray area; that such absolute notions of right & wrong simply aren't practical or appealing? Of course! Religion, like everything else, must evolve to survive. What if there's a movement to shift popular Christianity from a harsh, judgemental experience into an inclusive, nurturing experience? It's brilliant! Religion meets the free market!
Then Kate continues talking -- "We needed more color, a more dynamic format, which would catch the eye. 1600 pages of flat text can just be overwhelming."
Oh. Huh. She wasn't talking about "black & white" in the sense of morality and dogma; she was talking, literally, about the black & white of type on a page. Like... the bible's too boring to look at, and that's why young women don't read it.
sigh
Buying stuff is hard
Online, that is.
So I've now tried to give two different companies lots of my money. See, I'm buying a new computer to play Half-Life 2. So I figures to myself I figures, "I'll buy one on-line. It'll be so much easier than hunting down all the parts at stores."
Oh dear.
So my first attempt involved the Marauder PC Company. There was a good review of their systems in the latest PC Gamer, so I thought I'd check it out.
Oops. Nope. Web site doesn't work. Huh? That doesn't make any sense. Reload. Doesn't work. Wait... what if I load it up in Internet Explorer? Works fine. That's some ghetto bullshit. Moving on...
So then I try my old standby, Einstein computing, or ESC Technologies. I've purchased 3 computers from them before, so I figured I might as well do it again. So I go through the entire process of customizing a setup, selecting missing components, starting a new account (?!?), and what happens? The sale is "declined". Now... unless I've become the victim of identity theft or bank fraud in the last two days, my credit card is fine. But even if there were something wrong with my credit card, wouldn't it be prudent to provide more information than "DECLINED"? But no, no, nothing but a link back to my "Basket".
Man o man. Guess I'll try something else.
I've been trying to put this into words for a long time...
"The illusion of time is a direct result of memory and the way the brain is able to anticipate the future from the past."
Louis Savain
The Guardian coming to the U.S.
Fascinating. Beyond the announcement, it's a great article about the nature of The Guardian, and how it might fit into the U.S. media landscape.
(A nice reminder)
THE FOURTEEN PRECEPTS OF ENGAGED BUDDHISM
------------------
THE FOURTEEN PRECEPTS OF ENGAGED BUDDHISM
by Thich Nhat Hanh
1
Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.
2
Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.
3
Do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education. However, through compassionate dialogue, help others renounce fanaticism and narrowmindedness.
4
Do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.
5
Do not accumulate wealth while millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life fame, profit, wealth, or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need.
6
Do not maintain anger or hatred. Learn to penetrate and transform them when they are still seeds in your consciousness. As soon as they arise, turn your attention to your breath in order to see and understand the nature of your hatred.
7
Do not lose yourself in dispersion and in your surroundings. Practice mindful breathing to come back to what is happening in the present moment. Be in touch with what is wondrous, refreshing, and healing both inside and around you. Plant seeds of joy, peace, and understanding in yourself in order to facilitate the work of transformation in the depths of your consciousness.
8
Do not utter words that can create discord and cause the community to break. Make every effort to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.
9
Do not say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people. Do not utter words that cause division and hatred. Do not spread news that you do not know to be certain. Do not criticize or condemn things of which you are not sure. Always speak truthfully and constructively. Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may threaten your own safety.
10
Do not use the Buddhist community for personal gain or profit, or transform your community into a political party. A religious community, however, should take a clear stand against oppression and injustice and should strive to change the situation without engaging in partisan conflicts.
11
Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realise your ideal of compassion.
12
Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life and prevent war.
13
Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others, but prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.
14
Do not mistreat your body. Learn to handle it with respect. Do not look on your body as only an instrument. Preserve vital energies (sexual, breath, spirit) for the realisation of the Way. (For brothers and sisters who are not monks and nuns:) Sexual expression should not take place without love and commitment. In sexual relations, be aware of future suffering that may be caused. To preserve the happiness of others, respect the rights and commitments of others. Be fully aware of the responsibility of bringing new lives into the world. Meditate on the world into which you are bringing new beings.
From
Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, revised edition: Oct. l993 by Thich Nhat Hanh, published by Parallax Press, Berkeley, California
Disco sucks
I've always said the only thing I thought disco contributed to music or culture was some really good bass work. Well... I'm going to have to ammend that. Everything disco did for the bass is negated by what it did to violins and violas. Sure, most of it was synth-strings, but it was enough like real strings to do damage.
Once again, terrorismanswers.com comes through
I'm sitting here thinking... hm... then what's the difference between a "terrorist" and a "freedom fighter", since the Bush administration seems to support one and not the other?
Well, here you go: "Terrorist, Guerrilla, Freedom Fighter: What’s the Difference?"
Today, Iraq; tomorrow, Canada?
U.S. official to Canada: If you legalize pot, "we will be forced to retaliate."
Well, it's started.
Am I really cynical enough to post a link to the Gulf War 2 drinking game? I suppose so.
Howard Dean, Democratic presidential candidate
I just watched Howard Dean on Tim Russert. Dean is well-spoken and made precisely the right points on Iraq. I'd still prefer Russ Feingold, but unfortunately he announced Friday that he wouldn't be running for President. (DId he mean just in the near future, or ever?!?)
So Howard Dean looks pretty darn good. I think it's important to note that the 2000 Presidential election made a critical point: We, the United States of America, are really split right down the middle. 50/50. Well within the margin of error of the systems we use to elect Presidents. Elections are decided by two things:
1. The percentage turnout of each party's base.
2. A small but critical group of voters in the middle.
If we aren't at war during the next election, we may well see a replay of 2000.
Study on worldwide drug-related deaths
Study by Switzerland's Addiction Research Institute.
Quick breakdown:
Drugs cause 7 million deaths worldwide per year.
71% of those deaths are from tobacco use.
26% of those deaths are from alcohol use.
3% of those deaths are from all other drugs combined.
Curious...
...three giant cargo ships are being tracked by Western intelligence agencies because they could be carrying deadly Iraqi weapons. These ships have been sailing around the Indian Ocean for about 3 months now...
I haven't seen any other news service reporting this.
...compromise...
"Never go into the studio without an idea." - Carlton Newton
If I may wax didactic for a moment:
Compromise, when executed poorly, is just a set of positions that have been eviscerated to appease the parties involved.
Quality diplomacy is about breaking a position down into its constituent parts, clearly identifying them, understanding their relative value to each party, and finding intersections. It's a truly beautiful process. It's not about creating, it's about editing. It's about looking at the agreed-upon elements and testing their relationships with each other in ways that haven't yet been considered.
When examined in this light, diplomacy has much in common with metaphor.
The Universe: Definitive proof that we have no idea
"Baby picture" of the Universe over at CNN, taken by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.
In short:
* The Universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
* Only 4% of the Universe is composed of "ordinary matter" -- atoms. The rest is angels, Pokemon, and maybe pasta. Seriously -- they don't know. Their euphamisms for "we don't know" are "dark matter" and "dark energy".
* If the Universe continues behaving in a predictable way, it will expand forever, eventually cooling down to 0 degrees Kelvin. Needless to say, this paints a grim picture for the future of Life. Yes, it's a long time off, but it still really gets to me. Like, profoundly. Hm.
New bi-partisan bill to repeal October's Iraq Use of Force Resolution
Read about it here. Unfortunately, as the article details, the mainstream press hasn't been interested in covering this story...
Anosmia
I've been thinking about this. I have no sense of smell... I have to wonder if there's some job I could be doing that only an anosmic could do. Maybe not, I don't know. Garbage man springs to mind, but I wouldn't really want to do that.
You hear about those guys who get paid 60k to do cleanup in a nuclear plant 1 month out of the year, just because it's so dangerous. There's got to be a job out there that's so unbelievably and repulsively smelly that nobody wants to do it.
Misc
Not only was I pleasantly surprised by The Ring the first time, I'm now finding that it rewards repeated viewing. I couldn't ask for a better blend of horror and mystery.
Finally got my SBC DSL hardware, after they sent it to the wrong address. Predictably, the hardware couldn't connect, so SBC's supposed to send someone out to look at the line on Monday.
Death
I do not want a conventional burial. This is immensely important. Ideally, here's how it would work:
1. All usable organs should be removed and donated. I would imagine that's almost all of the internal organs.
2. Whatever remains, I want to go into the ground AS IS. No preservatives, formaldehyde, or any other chemicals. No casket. Just body into the earth, nourishing the land, plants, bugs, and what-not.
Now... unfortunately, I don't think there are any circumstances in which it's legal to just bury a body. However, it looks like you can get a casket that's made of porous wood, unlaquered, that will allow the elements in.
The best organization I could find was The Green Burial Company. They even plant trees instead of placing headstones... absolutely badass. However, they're in the UK, not the US. It seems the Brits are way ahead of us on this one : ) There's another good UK-based resource, Naturaldeath.org.uk.
Here are some US-based resources I was able to find:
*Memorial Ecosystems
*North American Woodland Burial Society
*Green Burials at About.com
*US and Canadian resources at Naturaldeath.org.uk
Back online!
4 days without Internet access at home or at work. The trauma was almost unbearable, but I'm back.
Shifters nominated for worst PS2 game of the year by GameSpot
At a time when "AAA" titles generally take 2-4 years to produce, I don't suppose it's surprising that Shifters is considered to be such a poor game. We started out with a 7-month schedule, and "slipped" to a year. There's nothing quite like the misery of knowing full well, at the beginning of a project, that you won't have the time or resources to make it good. Well, except maybe the misery of having poured your heart into it for a year and then watching the crappy reviews roll in.
Richard Hicks, there's going to be a special layer of Hell just for you, in which demons prod you with razor-sharp pitchforks while you're single-handedly forced to produce a new game every 3 months (i.e. for each fiscal quarter.) If you make your deadline, you'll be flayed to the bone by demonic reviewers and consumers for producing such a crappy game. If you slip your deadline, you'll be immersed in a scalding-hot pool filled with middle-management lampreys to suck your very soul out right through your skin.
Oh yes.
LSSU's Banished Words List for 2003
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current/default.html
I was happy to see "extreme" on there.
Joel Hruska on Microsoft
"I am not an open source maverick, nor am I anti-business or anti-profit. What I am, however, is concerned about how Redmond intends to safeguard my privacy, my right to use an operating system as I see fit, and my rights of fair use. I am, in fact, very concerned."
Read the entire article over at Sudhian Media.
Next Christmas I'm switching my mother over to Linux.
On violence in GTA Vice City...
"Since I started playing the GTA series of video games, I've noticed that I'm killing three, four, sometimes five more people a week than I did before I started playing. Although the initial killings could be blamed on other, unrelated factors, such as violent films, books, television programs, plays or human nature, I think the increase in my killing can be directly linked to GTA."
Misc
Got a Sharp Zaurus 5500. Mini-review:
* I like the physical keyboard.
* I like that it runs Linux. (And I like the Linux that runs on it.)
* I like the community that contributes software for it.
* I don't like the processor speed (200mHz) -- I can't run MAME like I'd hoped, and movies need to be reprocessed at a smaller size to be playable. Perhaps the upcoming 5600, with its 400mHz processor, will fare a little better.
A grammatical pet peeve of mine: Abuse of apostrophes!
CRAP!
My DSL provider is going out of business!
December 13, 2002Dear DIRECTV Broadband Customer,
We have some difficult news to share. With the dramatic change in the capital markets and the significant shift in the telecom operating environment, DIRECTV Broadband can no longer stand as an independent business.
It is our sincere regret to inform you that DIRECTV Broadband will discontinue operations. DIRECTV Broadband’s network will be operational for a minimum of 30 days. We are working with our last-mile carriers to determine alternatives for your broadband service.
We know you have many questions. The best way to keep up-to-date is to refer to www.directvdsl.com . We’ll keep this site current with the latest information on your account, billing issues and next steps.
If you are a DIRECTV subscriber, your satellite television service will not be disrupted in any way. Please do not call DIRECTV customer service regarding your DIRECTV DSL high-speed Internet service, as they will not be able to help you.
It has been our privilege to serve you.
Sincerely,
DIRECTV Broadband Customer Care
Sixpence None The Richer
I first heard Sixpence None The Richer when a co-worker brought their eponymous third album in. Great stuff. (Yeah, their origins are in "Christian Rock", but they don't evangelize in any of the songs that I've heard, so it's all good.)
Anyway, their new album, "Divine Discontent", just came out, and it's wonderful. Starts out a little slow, but man it picks up in the second half. Highly recommended, if there's anyone out there who trusts my taste in music.
Holy crap
Eat less, live longer and healthier. 41% longer. Oh, and they're developing this same effect in convenient pill form.
And yet... it's probably just my mood today, but I have to wonder if we'll use that extra 41% very wisely...
New letter from Bin Laden
I link to this just because I found it interesting*, and haven't seen it covered by the U.S. media at all. A new letter from Bin Laden to the American people, at the Guardian.
*TIA Disclamer: Not interesting as in "he's right" or "he's wrong"; just "interesting".
Fascinating.
How you can single-handedly help eliminate traffic jams. Like many elements of the social contract, however, it works best when people choose to work together rather than compete.
"Women's Group Blasts 'Sexist' Television"
Well, obviously. Someone should write a satirical essay about how mainstream television thoughtlessly focuses on a select group of "alpha males" who hoard money, women, and power, while tertiary "beta males" are portrayed as foolish, inept losers with no ambition or appeal. ;)
Fark photoshops the sniper's letter
Fark photoshops are usually a mixed bag, because it's first-come-first-serve, but these guys are really on today. Great stuff.
The Alternative War Works
"This will be a different type of war...a different type of enemy than we're used to."
— Pres. George W. Bush
Buy Bush a Playstation 2, part 2
Sweet! They reached their initial goal ($ to buy Bush a PS2 and a copy of "Socom"), and have set a new one: The PS2, "Socom", a memory card, "Conflict: Desert Storm", and an extra controller so Cheney can play.
Alabama.
"'Both the state and the church come under the sovereignty of God,' said Chief Justice Roy Moore. 'God created the separation of church and state.'
'It's the Judeo-Christian God that allows Hindus to worship?' U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson asked.
'Exactly,' said Moore."
More.
Jun Matsubara likes to torture cats
However, the punishment handed down by the court is mild. Perhaps a little vigilante justice is in order for Mr. Matsubara.
We'll never learn...
Want to see who we'll be fighting in about 15 years? Here you go.
"Pentagon to train Saddam's opponents"
Just like we trained and armed Bin Laden and his men when they were fighting the U.S.S.R. Just like we trained and armed Saddam's men when they were fighting Iran.
Geek out
I love this stuff. Time is a dimension, in the sense that anything can be an axis on a graph, but time is not the fourth dimension.
Our Universe is expanding, and it's accelerating, and nobody can figure out why. Dark matter. Or dark energy. Or demons. Or maybe just mojo.
And that really wigs me out. Seriously.
Strange animals, but not the human kind
Tomorrow marks the 100-year anniversary of the West's discovery of the mountain gorilla.
And then there's the alleged 14-foot mystery bird patrolling the skies over Southwest Alaska...
The Plot Thicks
Fascinating. Just as President Bush signs the resolution to use force in Iraq. I think this situation could only be more interesting if the territory-that-would-be-Kurdistan announced that they were now a sovereign nation, and that they had nuclear weapons to back them up.
Or maybe if aliens landed. That'd be more interesting.
"Peace Kooks"
I mentioned this once before, in a slightly different context. In short, all sorts of extra messages are being stirred into that of the anti-Iraqi-war "movement". At best, this dilutes the message; at worst, it poisons it.
QotD
"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
Julius Caesar
UPDATE 10/15/2002:
I just got an email from a fellow named Jeffree Lasitter regarding the origins of this quote:
FYI...
There is a marvelous quote floating about the Internet these days that purportedly is something that Julias Caesar said. Some web sites even claim that it's a Caesar quote from a Shakespearean play. The fact is, it's a pathetic hoax. Julias Caesar never said it. Shakespeare never put those words into Caesar's mouth. History has no record of it. Websites that tracks these kinds of hoaxes have confirmed this.Here's the infamous quote: "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind...
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
This false quote is one of those items that are surprisingly all too common on the Internet these days: someone dreams up a wonderful quote that they fervently wish a historical figure had said because it would perfectly underscore their own views about a current geo-political situation...and reinforce the "nothing new under the sun" idea through the mouth of a famous historical individual.
Then they slip the false quote anonymously onto the Internet and it is copied and spread around by well-meaning individuals who are taken by the 'awesome coincidental beauty' of the parallel concepts, but too trusting [or perhaps too lazy] to research the historical sources for themselves. This is surprising since ALL of Shakespeare's works and ALL of Caesar's writings can be easily scanned on the Internet for text strings.
It was hoped that the faux-Caesar quote was real because it is so darn cool, in spite of the awkward grammar. The authenticity problems started when searching for the section of the Shakespearean play that contained it in order to view its context...but none existed. That led to further digging through Caesar's writings…no such quote. Then, through the works of Roman historians on-line…again, no such quote.
Unfortunately, this quote is currently displayed as fact on hundreds of web pages, which loose credibility as victims of what must surely be a college freshman prank.
Perhaps the famous authoress Colleen McCullough [The First Man of Rome series] has run across this strange quote, since her team has done so much thorough research on the Roman Empire. It will be useful to try and track her down to find out.
Interesting. For the record, I consider it a singular honor to have been the "victim of what must surely be a college freshman prank." ;)
Representation
 | My own district Representitive in the House is Tom Lantos. I've learned that he's voted in favor of the House resolution to invade Iraq. This wonderful cartoon is by Drew Sheneman. Reprinted without permission but it's so right-on that I can't help myself. |
"Democrat"
A cynical euphemism for Republican?
I'm not saying I necessarily agree or disagree, but I think it's a worthwhile question.
Peace
I've seen several news programs now talking about "peace activists" speaking out against the Bush administration's plans in Iraq. I'm afraid this sort of label disarms the central message of opposition: It's not about being anti-war. I'm not opposed to war; I recognize it as an unfortunate and unavoidable part of human civilization. What I am opposed to is starting wars. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I always took a sort of pride in the fact that the United States isn't a country that starts wars.
It's going to suck in all sorts of ways if the U.S. invades Iraq.
This must be why I insist on watching The Simpsons every single night...
Laughter has a fundamentally positive effect on the body.
Glasses
Trading your glasses in for contacts increases your attractiveness to the opposite sex?
I beg to disagree. I'm quite fond of women who wear glasses, and it seems that I'm not alone.
Sunday misc
The good news? We've discovered how to actually change weather patterns.
The bad news? We can only change the weather to "bad", and we don't have any control over it.
As of today, Sunday September 29th, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City will be out in exactly one month. I haven't been filled with this kind of anticipation since Thief 2. (Which reminds me... when the hell are Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 coming out???)
Oh dear
Okay, I'm going to allow myself 1 (one) politically-oriented post per week. Starting Sunday.
This satirical essay by Ted Rall is deliberately inflamatory and provocative, but I think there's a point to it. If we don't go out of our way to look at ourselves from an international perspective, we risk losing touch with the rest of the world.
It just occurred to me...
I don't think there's anything more sexy than a beautiful woman wearing overalls. And, confirming the hypothesis that anything you can think of has a web page devoted to it, here it is: "OVERALLS: A Theory"
Typography by democracy
This is pretty cool. It starts out politically "easy", as everyone can more or less agree on general shapes. But what's going to happen when the basic forms emerge and the community starts having to make decisions about the details? Will we end up with a disorganized mess of styles? Will the participants be capable of deciding whether they want a serif or sanserif font?
Kingdom Hearts
The companies responsible for what's most banal in popular gaming and what's most banal in popular animation have teamed up to create their master stroke.
I'm sure it will sell well.
Sorry, more politics...
A U.S. attack on Iraq would set a dangerous global precedent, over at the Post.
sigh
This isn't a political blog, and I really don't want to take it in that direction, but it's getting harder and harder.
At the Sunday Herald: "Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President"
(Update)
Here's Google's cached version of the report the Herald refers to.
Oil
I've long heard people say that our goals in Iraq are really about oil, but I'd never read a comprehensive explanation of that hypothesis until now.
Sweet! UT2003 for Linux!
I mean crap! It crashes right away!
erik@xxxxxx/xxxx/xxxx/ut2003_demo-->ut2003_demo
Assertion failed: InPos<=Size [File:../../Core/Inc/FFileManagerLinux.h] [Line: 69]
History:
Exiting due to error
Oh well.
Nigerian Email Scam
This fellow decided to actually reply to that Nigerian email scam that many of us have found in our inboxes. What follows is an entertaining exhange that, at this point, is still in progress. If you read it, give it some time -- it starts out amusing and slowly gets very, very funny.
Talent
The Talent Myth, by Malcolm Gladwell. I've not made any judgements about his conclusion, but it's a thought-provoking read.
"Trusted Computing"
Intel's next chipset will include "anti-piracy measures" and unique per-chip identifiers. These will "prevent PCs that run LaGrande and Microsoft Corp.'s software-based Palladium security technology from copying CDs, forwarding certain documents, or running unlicensed software."
You think you bought that book, CD, DVD, or software? No, silly. You licensed it.
Music reviews
I don't "get" music reviews. And that's not a value judgement per se -- I mean that, for whatever reason, my brain wiring doesn't process music reviews very well. It always just seems like a collection of interesting adjectives. So that track is "haunting" or "abrasive" or "lush" or "ethereal". These words could be used to describe music that I like as well as music I don't like. I have a similar reaction to restaurant reviews... aside from telling me how the service was, it's just a mandatory chunk of flowery writing. Not that the writers aren't good, but it just seems like a nearly impossible problem.
I guess I don't expect the same sorts of things from music and that music reviewers do. It's probably not coincidental that I'm excessively picky about both music and food, while I'm less picky about things I do read reviews of (films and games).
...I should really know better...
(Scene: Press conference)
PR Person: Okay. Now, I'll take any questions you may have.
(Hands fly up.)
Press Person 1: Yes, ah... is this some sort of joke?
PR Person: No, it isn't. Is there another question?
(Hands fly up.)
Press Person 2: Thank you. No, seriously... is this a joke?
PR Person: No, this is not a joke. Are there any other questions?
(Hands fly up.)
PR Person: (Aggravated) ...questions not regarding whether this is a joke?
(Hands drop.)
But seriously.
There's a female-POV critique plus somewhat more reasonable version over at frytopia.
Linux at CNN.com
Is Linux poised to topple Microsoft?
No new information, but it's a good introduction and update.
Iraq and the United States of America
William Raspberry's fascinating take on the situation, over at the Washington Post. I really hope he's right.
*shudder*
Can anything mess up your day quite like having a dream about an ex-girlfriend?
No. No, I don't think so.
Bizarre CNN headline
What is this:
U.N.: Al Qaeda still has 'considerable ... resources'
Now... the actual quote the headline is based on, from a U.N. report, is "[Al-Qaeda still has] considerable financial and other economic resources."
That's fine. And I understand the theory behind news organizations shortening headlines for the purposes of brevity and space, but doesn't this seem to go straight for the drama? Doesn't it sound like the evil mastermind trying to find a euphemism for some explicitly evil term? "I can assure you, Mr. Bond, that I still have considerable... resources... at my disposal." And you totally know the guy is talking about killer robots or plague bombs or something.
I guess the headline did its job, though. I... how shall I say... clicked on the story.
San Francisco
Although I've lived 10 minutes from San Francisco for over 4 years now, I never spent much time in the city until recently when I started working there. Something's struck me: San Francisco is the first city I've seen that has more homeless than Washington, D.C. It's amazing. And... this is probably partially a result of me getting older, but SF also the first city where there've been folks my age or younger asking for money. I'm finding that my reaction is completely different.
An older guy asking for money? I think, "Sorry, man, I can't help you."
A guy my age asking for money? I think, "Get a job like the rest of us, slacker."
Egad! That doesn't make me a Republican, does it? :)
"Why are Businesses Willing to Spend More for Software?"
I wouldn't normally link to an entire Slashdot thread, but this one stands out. I've long wondered why businesses exhibited this behavior. I've seen it myself -- given nearly identical capabilities and feature sets, businesses will invariably choose an expensive tool over a less expensive (or free) tool.
Sarah Mclachlan
It is my humble opinion that Sarah Mclachlan hasn't made a great album since Solace. I don't know about the conditions under which that record was made, but it still stands out among the others. I've tried to get into each of her albums since Solace, but they're missing something. It's a shame.
Public Fiction
Sweet...
A few days ago I linked to a news story, Survive This. Well, it turns out the story was fiction.
Then there are those arguing that the second story is also fiction. Curious...
Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology
A fascinating analysis of the motives behind 9-11-2001, arguing that we've been thinking about it all wrong...
Ambushed on Donahue
Henry Jenkins on trying to have a civilized debate on MSNBC's new Donahue. Here's the episode transcript.
AOL/Time Warner buys AT&T's cable division
Holy crap. Remember, when satire and reality collide, the resulting explosion is 4 million times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The DEA Museum
Some day in the future, this is going to seem like an awfully bad idea. I mean, to anyone who currently thinks it's a good idea...
Deep Space Homer
I'm a big Simpsons fan. Huge. Barring the last few seasons, I'm sure I've seen every episode multiple times, and I've made up my mind: The best Simpsons episode is "1F13 - Deep Space Homer", from season 5. The jokes are so densely packed, the pop references so rich, it still makes me laugh out loud.
Absolutely superb.
Aimless
The unbelievably overdue Glengarry Glen Ross DVD may finally be arriving in November (2002). (Although the last time there was an announcement, it was that the DVD would be released in March (2002), so I don't believe it yet.)
I'm replaying one of my favorite games for the Apple 2 -- Prisoner 2.
Clowns aren't funny, they're scary... unless they're trying too hard to be scary, and then they're just funny. So there's this: ScaryOrNot.com. And if you're feeling creative, make your own scary clown at Scott's Mind.
I get spam. My main email address has stayed the same for over 4 years now, but it's been harvested to hell. I'd say I get 50 emails a day, and 90% of it is spam. But you know what enquickens my pulse? It's that most contemporary email goes out of its way to lie to you and tell you that you asked for spam. Here's today's best example, from "Ion Entertainment":
When you submitted information to Ion Entertainment, including your email address, you gave permission to have promotional offers delivered to you from third parties. If you take no action, you will begin receiving promotional offers from Best Mails Offers. If you do not wish to receive email from Best Mails Offers, please click on the following link to unsubscribe from our opt-in email marketing program.
Now... I don't need to tell you, I never submitted any information to "Ion Entertainment", nor did I give anyone permission to spam me. But that doesn't matter. Then, of course, it's well-known that the unsubscribe action simply verifies that you're reading your spam and guarantees that you'll get more. I think spammers are the single group who should be subject to vigilante justice and mob retaliation.
HijackGL
This is pretty cool. It enables alternative rendering by using a local opengl32.dll to intercept graphics calls. (By the same folks who did NPRQuake.)
Florida's new head of the Department of Children and Families
When new DCF Secretary Jerry Regier endorses "biblical spanking", do you suppose he's referring to the popular "spare the rod..." quotation, or does he mean spanking of biblical proportions? Well, apparently, even if such spanking leads to bruises and welts, it's still not child abuse.
Regier's entire essay, The Christian World View of the Family, is here. Fascinating.
Misc
Happy Independence Day, India!
My new commute follows exactly the same patterns as my old commute: Monday starts out pretty good, and then traffic gets worse as the week progresses, all the way through Thursday, which is always terrible. Then Friday morning commute is suddenly great -- even better than Monday morning. Finally, Friday evening is the worst of all. I'd love to understand why traffic consistently behaves like this.
GTA3 has now beat Deus Ex for the second-place spot on my "games I've played the longest" list. #1 is still Street Fighter 2, which I played every day for a year in the arcade and then for another 6 months on the SNES.
I'm back to reading The Palestine-Israeli Conflict. It's really superb. Half is written by an Israeli, and the other half by a Palestinian. Then, at the end, there's a "debate" section in which each has a chance to respond to what the other has written. I haven't found a more balanced presentation of the conflict.
DSL part one hundred billion
Got the new DSL gateway, hooked it up, it's all good. Linux reinstalled, it's all good.
Getting into Maya at work; I like it a lot, although I really miss the robust booleans that my old level editor had. (You rock, Ron!)
Best error dialog ever
I have my theories about how this happened, but I'd rather just let it be. I mean, do they try to find a rational explanation for the image of Mary on the tortilla?
Alcatel Owns Ex-Employee's Ideas
Scary stuff. All the more reason to explicitly define your previous inventions and rights to off-time IP at the same time you accept a new job.
There's also this: Anomalies Unlimited.
DSL Part 7, and instruments
Okay. Finally called DIRECTV DSL tech support. They have two "rounds" of tech support, apparently -- the first round is a guy going over the regular stuff (is it plugged in, is it near any halogen lights, etc) and if he can't solve the problem, you move on to "advanced tech support". The second guy was great. After a bunch of tests and what-not, we concluded that, yes, I fucking broke it. Luckily they're great sports about it, and are sending me a new gateway. AND they're paying for shipping on the old ("broken") gateway. Pretty classy.
Musical instruments that I'm going to learn before I die: Cello and pipe organ. The good news is that I don't have to be that good with them; I just want to be good enough that it's fun to sit down and play. The bad news is that, to properly play both of them, I'm going to have to break down and learn to read (and play) music (at the same time). Oh well. There's time.
DSL Part 6
It's really a shame there had to be a "Part 6" to this.
I think I broke it. The USB-based routable port was convenient, but was Windows-only, and I want to re-install Linux. So I spend about 3 hours installing and uninstalling the Ethernet card drivers, thinking there's a problem there. Then, finally, I realize that it's not the card, it's the fucking gateway -- because it was first initialized to use the USB routable port, it's stuck with that setting until some magical procedure is performed on it.
Well, I give up for a little bit. The I figure, to hell with it, I'll install Linux anyway and see if it can see the gateway/network. About 2 more hours of uniquely Linux-flavored pain follow, and I go back to Windows to see if I can fuck with the gateway's settings and reset it myself.
Oh dear. You can imagine that I shouldn't have tried that.
So... now it's broken. Not physically, but the possibly in the firmware. I can't even use it under Windows, not even with USB. Fucking great. So now I'm going to have to use the goddamn phone and call these motherfuckers at tech support. (Needless to say, I sent an email to tech support, and haven't gotten a response.)
I hate the goddamn phone. For us computer guys, calling tech support is tantamount to asking for directions while driving. It's pathetic, it's often useless, and it shouldn't be fucking necessary.
I mean, how hard would it fucking be for them to put instructions on their... (deep breath)... fucking fuck.
Dial-up's not so bad, though. I'm a plant that dreamt it was a man.
DSL Part 5
Okay, it's not perfect. I'm having a silly problem now -- as an end user, I'm not able to manually change my gateway's routable port. So basically, because I first chose a USB connection to my gateway, I can't now change to Ethernet.
So now I have to call tech support so they can "walk me through" the process. Terribly lame. Lame lame lame. I got DIRECTV DSL in the first place because it didn't seem to have any of this protect me from myself crap.
Malfeasance?
Has anyone else noticed the media's fondness for the word malfeasance ever since GWB mispronounced it during that impromptu press conference? It gives me a little chuckle.
DSL Part 4
I can't believe it. I have DSL. Me, he of the crappy phone line in the backwater burg. And it's fast. 1251 down/79 up, according to tests. That's 152kb/second download. Hell yeah.
Allow me to take this opportunity to plug my now-beloved DSL provider, DIRECTV DSL.
FBI wastes opportunity to run fake Al-Qaida site
Unbelievable. They could have gathered information and IP addresses; they could have set up a fake message-board and actually gotten a snapshot of current activity; they could have arranged fake plans as stings; they could have established and legitimized plants...
DSL Part 3
Well, I made rare use of the telephonium and called Directv DSL customer service to see if they had better information than "null". Well, they did; I should get the equipment tomorrow or the next day.
Note, however, that I'm not yet guaranteed massive bandwidth; I may be so unbelievably far from the closest CO that I can only get IDSL (144 kbps). Still, it's better than a modem.
DSL Part 2
 | So I log in to DIRECTV today, and I see that I'm suddenly on step 6: The DIRECTV DSL™ gateway has been shipped to my shipping address! Holy crap! But wait... what... what's this... "Ship Date: null"; "Airbill Number: null"... wha? That can't be good. |
The Daily Show DVD... not?
Am I crazy? Has Comedy Central not produced any DVDs of the Daily Show?!? Surely there are at least DVDs of the Peabody-award winning election episodes, right? Right?
If you feel as strongly as I do about this, and I think you do, feel free to email them as I have.
2002 MN
This is so cool. You can use Celestia, an excellent space simulator, to "replay" asteroid 2002 MN's near-miss of Earth last month. Set it up to start on June 10, center on "2002 MN", rotate the view so you can see the label "Earth", and hit "L" until you're at 10,000x faster [than real-time]. Wild.
UBL and Saudi Arabia
I'd been thinking about something: Reports about Usama Bin Laden always mention that he was really pissed about the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia. I never understood what that had to do with anything -- it's not like the U.S. is occupying the country -- so I looked around and found this:
Did the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia cause the September 11 attacks? at a site called, of all things, TerrorismAnswers.com. I recommend reading the entire thing, but here's a partial answer to my question:
Bin Laden asserts that the U.S. has been "occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of its territories, Arabia, plundering its riches, overwhelming its rulers, humiliating its people, threatening its neighbors, and using its bases in the [Arabian] peninsula as a spearhead to fight against the neighboring Islamic peoples."
Just listen...
"'Can this be physically done?' is the question that launches my actions in the studio. If I invent a good enough problem, this problem, together with the laws of nature it will bring me up against, plus a deadline, will save me from the poverty of my intent."
Elizabeth King
Post from Kuro5hin
"thelizman", who I'll assume is Andrew Krause, posted the following to Kuro5hin today. While I don't agree with his basic point about corporate deregulation, I found the fighter-design bit to be terribly insightful when applied to the general creative process.
Here's the post, which is copyright 2002 Andrew Krause/thelizman:
Stability is Overrated
by thelizman on Wed Jul 24th, 2002 at 04:42:00 PM EST
(thelizman.hotmail@com)
When fighter designers wanted to make the big leap to the next generation of nimble fighters in the late 60's, they abandoned stability concepts like mounting the main win along the center of gravity. Instead, they deliberately designed planes (like the F-16, the F-18, and later the F-22) to be unstable, and then used flight computers to maintain stability in flight?
Why the hell would anyone do this?
By introducing inherent instability into a design, and aircraft can then take advantage of exponential rates of pitch, yaw, and roll. These planes by design did not naturally orient themselves into a low drag profile in a given airstream, so if a maneuver called for a fast pitch, the aircraft inherently responded by pitching quickly. These unstable characteristics were later augmented by unconventional control surfaces (canards, divergent rudders, forward swept wings, etc) and thrust vectoring. The result is that modern fighters such as the SU-33 or the F-22 can assume very high angles of attack (AOA) that would stall conventional fighters. Both aircraft can actually reverse their heading in mid flight without changing their flight path - essentially doing a 180 and flying backwards (albeit in subsonic speeds). They are far more maneuverable than even some of the most artfully designed aerobatic planes used by barnstormers.
Why the hell am I talking about this?
Humans fear change - they don't like what they don't immediately understand or feel they can't control. We're comfortable thinking that the economy is a ship that can be piloted, but at best monitary policy only influences economy. You can't guarantee stability, and given the lessons of things like Game Theory and Chaos, I don't believe we should even try. The mechanism of free market captalism is self regulating if left alone, and there is strong supporting evidence (almost to the point of being blatently obvious) that our attempts to manipulate economy through economic policy are the root cause of instability.
In short, governments do through sheer stupidity what aeronautical engineers did through sheer genius. They use legislation, tarrifs, and trade controls to create an economy that is inherently unstable by limiting competition and discouraging niche exploitation. Then, they use nationalized banking systems, taxes, and business legislation to suppress or excite the economy.
Much like fighterplanes, this means there is the occasional "pilot induced oscillation"1 (instability). The difference is, governments don't actually control the economy any more than fuel sloshing around in a tank controls an aircraft.
Basically, unless we intend to create a high performance economy (which is not the stated goal - that being a "stable" economy), we should adopt a laissez-faire attitude, and completely get out of the business of trying to regulate what is largely unregulatable.
--
1. During the latter test phases, a YF-22 prototype was damaged heavily when the flight control system misinterpreted pilot input through the control stick, causing the plane to buck wildly. This is similar to inexperienced drivers who can't handle manual transmissions, except it involves a highly skilled pilot in a 20 billion dollar aircraft comprised of millions of parts made by the lowest bidder. Remarkably, the pilot rode the plane to a belly landing - I would've ejected and took my chances with a broken limb.
PS3
Please forgive me for Frinking out, but this article on Sony's plans for the PS3 is utterly ridiculous. That's all.
DSL
 | Until now my remote Unabomber-style shack has been broadband-incapable. Well, DirectTV DSL now thinks that they'll be able to hook me up. They accepted my application, at least -- that's farther than I've ever gotten before. |
Moussaoui
Transcript of Zacarias Moussaoui's attempt to plead guilty in court yesterday, over at The Smoking Gun.
Commercial archive
If you like ads like I like ads, you'll like ads.com. Too bad they only allow streamed downloads :(
GDZine
Issue #4 of the Game Developer Zine is up. Among other things, it includes a funny little academic analysis of zombies in art and games.
WTC Tribute in Light
The WTC Tribute in Light, which was up during the month of March, was one of the most effective pieces of public art I've ever seen. Public art is a terribly difficult problem -- create something that:
1. Doesn't offend anyone
2. Fits well in the context of the space
3. Resists harsh weather
4. Won't fall apart if someone climbs on it
5. Pleases the people funding the project
The WTC Tribute managed all that with poetry, elegance, and dignity. It's a shame that it wasn't a permanent installation.
Oh dear lord
Operation TIPS: US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies
Editorial at the Washington Post
Official site (I'm not going to link to it.):
http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
Blah
Reign of Fire was a pleasant surprise. It wasn't good good, but I was expecting much worse. There was an interesting subtext dealing with gender roles. (No, I'm not kidding.)
Plus the dragons were pretty cool.
Robin Williams' HBO special was astoundingly fucking funny.
Finally starting to play Warcraft 3.
...
This here? This is the sound of waiting...
...so wrong...
I just watched a semi-documentary on the making of Jaws. And... they ended it with a short bit on the film's string of terrible, terrible sequels. Then there's this quote, and I'm kicking myself for not noting who said it, but here it is:
"Universal had an obligation to its shareholders to make the Jaws sequels."
...blank stare...
I've been there, I suppose. I've been forced (along with teammates) to ship games before they're finished in order to meet analysts' expectations.
Some day we're going to solve this problem. This problem of subsidizing creative endeavors. Who am I kidding? We're never going to solve this problem. Let me re-state: Some day I'm going to find a solution to the local problem of supporting my own creative endeavors -- supporting myself and my teammates while we make worthwhile games.
Game design
The Laws of Online World Design. A great read, and applicable to single-player games as well.
Likewise, a Salon article on online gaming and the necessity of "non-hardcore" gamers. And then there's the obligatory discussion over at Fark.
What's a proprietary ILM animation app look like?
This, from VFXPro. A screenshot of Cari, one of ILM's custom animation tools.
Speaking of tools... I've been messing with the toolset that ships with Neverwinter Nights. It's really quite good. It's not slick, but it's very usable. They went with a perfect screen layout for the main layout tool -- tree-view on the right with everything you can put in a level; tree-view on the left with everything you have in the level; and between them, the level itself. It acknowledges that a bookkeeping is a big part of good level design.
I also really like the scripting system so far. All of the game's important variables are exposed... they make it look so easy ;)
The House of Commons
It always trips me out to watch the Prime Minister's questions in the British House of Commons on C-Span. It really looks bizarre to an American. Our Congress is very low-key, very procedural, and isn't really about communication between Senators (Senate) or Representitives (House). You'll occasionally see a debate, but it's not a real debate -- it's just a demonstration of allegances and positions.
The House of Commons seems to feature actual debate and discussion. Maybe it's just as illusory, I don't know.
I'll say this, though -- I haven't seen a U.S. president who can think on his feet like Tony Blair. I don't know what his politics are, but he exhibits a wit that I find refreshing, particularly when contrasted with our current leadership...
Here to free you from the reptilian oppressors
Public fiction or sincere lunacy? Does it matter? David Icke has been given his own forum, to air Saturday nights on the Sci-Fi channel.
See also:
* The David Icke Newsroom
* A map of underground reptilian bases
* The Canadian holocaust
The Future™
Interesting set of theories about the next 30 years:
* An introduction to the singularity.
* General singularity links.
Late night blah
A fantastic article on corporate excesses by Will Hutton, and subsequent forum discussion, over at the Guardian.
Speaking of supporting small developers...
Introversion, developers of the wonderful Uplink.
And indie game resources at MadMonkey.
The karmic hammer doesn't miss
... and it's coming for these guys. In case you didn't already see it on /. or Salon, it's a great story on some very unscrupulous businessmen.
Old skool
The best old-school scrolling shooter available on the PC: The poorly-named (but otherwise superb) Star Monkey by Small Rockets. It's a steal at $15. Support small developers!
How fast is your Internet connection?
I'll bet it's faster than mine. Find out here. My average, out of 10 tests, was 1.6 k/second. That's with a 56k modem. Lordy.
Secret Passages
The first time I saw an ad for the History Channel's Secret Passages, I was elated. It was perfect.
However, after having seen maybe 6 episodes... it just doesn't live up to the potential. There's something too sterile... or prosaic about the presentation. I guess because it's a History Channel product, the stress is on historical context, the people involved, etc... and that has the effect of sucking all the fun out of the subject matter. It's not that the show is bad -- it's just that I want something very different, I think. I want to see a show that mystifies the architecture and stories behind it, rather than demystifying them. I want the clues, not the conclusions.
Game tools postmortem
Shawn Hargreaves has written a wonderful article on building custom art tools for Moto GP.
...one nation, indivisible...
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a 1954 act of Congress inserting the phrase "under God" after the words "one nation" in the pledge.
If you feel like watching the public cough "debate" go down, Fark is as good a place as any -- it generally has a good balance between liberal wackos and conservative wackos.
Misc blah
Great internet radio: Radio Paradise.
Been playing Neverwinter Nights. I like it a lot. However, there are some significant balancing problems -- whoever gets the last hit on an enemy gets all of the xp, making spell-casters almost unplayable?!? Am I just confused about this?
Picked up Strung Out On OK Computer, a string-quartet cover of Radiohead's OK Computer. It's... okay. I'm a sucker for strings in rock and roll, but the songs really suffer from the absence of 1)Vocals and 2)Drums. I know, I know, that's the point, but I was surprised how much I missed those specific elements.
I think I hate Linkin Park. I mean, really, hate. Now... I haven't heard any full albums, only singles, so I really shouldn't make such a sweeping judgement. But here I go doing it anyway. Somehow they manage the most *aggressive whining* I've ever heard. It's whining, but it's totally in my face! Furthermore, I just don't care for the way they're mixing rock and rap. Of course, I might just be way outside of their target market -- Google, after all, has indexed them under "Kids and Teens/Entertainment/Bands and Artists" ;)
Shifters review
GameZone.com. So-so. Pretty fair-handed, although it doesn't sound like he got very far into the game.
Daily Blah
China thrown off balance as boys outnumber girls. That's not good.
Then there's the Villain Supply Outlet.
Neverwinter Nights!
I'm actually only about an hour into the game, but I'm quite enjoying it. I hope it sells well.
More misc
Worth1000.com: Photoshop contests, like on Fark, but an entire site of 'em.
This is why "Photoshop" is now a verb and an adjective as well as a noun.
Eurodemoriffic
farb-rausch released the "final" build of their 64k demo fr-019.poemtoahorse. Great stuff.
Also:
There's something big down there...
OPM review of Shifters
Official Playstation 2 Magazine apparently concluded that the single greatest hurdle in submitting timely game reviews was the process of actually playing the games. Thus, it seems that they chose to forego that step when reviewing Shifters, and gave it 1/5. The reviewer, Gary Steinman, felt comfortable making lots of jokes about 3DO, but didn't find it necessary to provide many details justifying the low score.
It's a real shame. I'm sure that if he'd given the game a chance, he would have liked it.
What the fuck are the suits thinking?
Terry Gilliam and Neil Gaiman can't get the final $15 mil to make Good Omens?!?
And Bad Company somehow manages to get made?!? It's just wrong.
Blah
I was working on a short entry about GTA3, but it sort of grew into an essay, and I'm not done yet. So... in the next few days.
Saw Undercover Brother today. It was a lot of fun.
Ashley Judd's Fame Audit
Owen pointed me toward Ashley Judd's Fame Audit. The analysis is perfect, and wouldn't benefit from any further editorial on my part.
More Shifters user reviews
videogamereview.com - Pretty good. Fair warning: Non-native English speaker :)
(Videogamereview.com will accumulate user reviews; I'm not going to post here every time a new one appears.)
It's not a disaster, it's a market opportunity
Bush climate plan says adapt to inevitable; Cutting gas emissions not recommended
Taun We
I'm not a Star Wars geek, I'm really not. My cube at work isn't lined with toys, and I didn't stand in line for tickets.
However.
It would seem that I was unable to control myself when it came to the Taun We action figure. I'm curiously enamored with this peculiar character.
Alex Cox on piracy
It was on /., but it's worth repeating: Alex Cox (Repo Man) talks about piracy and inequity in the film business.
90-90
I'd say this is also true for game development as a whole.
Watched the leaked shakycam footage of Doom 3. Wow. I really, really want to make a horror game with that engine. *sigh*
Star Saga
Star Saga: Inside the Making of the Star Saga Saga
Although Modern Humorist is less consistent than the Onion, when it's on, it's dead-on.
Boy did that suck...
Buffy season finale. Never mind that the entire season has sucked (except for the musical), but damn... so many bad decisions... such poor characterization... so many ill-timed cuts. Evil Willow had all the potential in the world, and they write her like a dime-store villain.
The abuse of power is such a timeless, worthwhile theme... but no, no, let's not do that, let's make magic a metaphor for drug abuse...
Only good line?
"You cut your hair."
Historical perspective
"The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone." - Jack Valenti, MPAA
Rumblings
5.2 earthquake around 10:00 PM last night. It was pretty subtle where I am, just south of SF. I thought the new neighbors above me were moving furniture until I saw the ceiling fan shaking. One of my cats was completely freaked out; the other didn't even notice.
The first Shifters review is out, in PSE2 magazine. 85%, which is a little low for them. The review is by the same guy who gave Warriors a 94% last year, and I think he felt a little burned when the game got a lukewarm reception from other publications. Some of his concerns are valid, IMHO (camera wackiness, some control lag) while others aren't (he's confused about some of the character-building issues, yet it's all clearly discussed in the manual).
Overall, not an unfair review. I have to wonder, though, how reviews would be if the game didn't have the "3DO" logo on it. It's a damn shame.
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