Queue position 559, calculating remaining time...
*Update, finally got in, and after a bit of searching found the portal to Silvermoon City from the Undercity...they gave me a welcome
*Update 2, mass exodus of Alliance to Horde for Blood Elves, might as well now call this game Elfcraft. At least on my server. 80% of them are Paladins too.
Zero.
One of the most absolute of all numbers.
It was not the first number created by humans (it took Persian mathematicians).
It is the most powerful of all numbers.
It is neither positive, or negative.
Zero divided by any number equals zero. (0/x)=0
Any number divided by zero does not exist. (X/0)=??? [does not compute]
Any number, including infinity, multiplied by zero, equals zero. (X*0)=0.
It adds nor subtracts anything to any number in which is put against. (X+0)=X, (Y-0)=Y
But, if you subtract a number from zero, or add for that matter, it changes. (0+X)=X, (0-Y)=-Y
It is nothing, but still something.
0C is the freezing point of water, while 0F is well below the freezing point.
At 0K all motion ceases. Absolute Zero is the terminus of existence.
0 is not arbitrary, yet an infinite number of zeros exist between it and any given number. Infinity is compressed between the zero of any number, except the single zero 0 that is the absolute.
I started seeing more and more of this popping up since Wednesday, the idea the Bush is advocating a war (or at least armed conflict with Iran).
here which links to here. (and here and here)
In the past I would have considered this merely posturing for Iran's sake to say we are serious about their nuclear ambitions, but now I am not so sure.
I use this to illustrate the increasing parallels with Orwell's 1984. Its becoming less a work of fiction and almost a work of history and history in the making.
We are not at war with Iraq. We are at war with Iran. We have always been at war with Iran.
"We've always been at war with Eastasia." - 1984
How soon till we start having 'Hate Week'?
How soon until they come for me? I'm a liberal, I've committed thoughtcrimes.
We already have groups taking advantage of the climate created by this Administration in America and abroad to advance their own agendas (in some cases they are even supported by Bush). We have those who used to be marginalized and written off as extremists now garnering more attention than they ever should and taking advantage of the intellectual and informational monopolies to spout forth hateful rhetoric (again see my previous post about hateful nut-jobs). I feel my place in this society eroding. Not just economically, but politically and intellectually.
The turn of events last November had given me some hope. But listening to the fence jumping, and the rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill this last week leaves me with less a feeling of actual change (and choice) but more an illusion of change/choice. The parrots and puppets are still there. Their apparent pandering is not action. Bush does not, as Commander-in-Chief have to listen to them. They don't have the stones to cut the budget. They won't impeach or make any kind of binding punishment. The House's attempt at enacting domestic social change (minimum wage increase, Medicare negotiations, ethics reform, stem cell research) are very good ideas, but this is more show. They will be hard to get through the Senate, and Bush has already said he will veto (stem cell research, Medicare negotiations).
One of the principle themes of the Matrix movies was the illusion of free will and choice. I enjoy it as fiction, I do not in my society.
What can be done? At this point I don't know. 2008 is close, but none of the people who have announced Presidential aspirations (either side) give me any hope, with the exception of Barack Obama, I would get behind him. Coleman is on the hot-seat. Pawlenty has done an about face on a lot of stances lately since November. This gives me a little hope that Minnesota will once again become solidly blue.
But, politicians are politicians. I seriously doubt this Congress will take Bush and his Administration up on investigation or charges of any kind anymore than the last one did (they make talk about it, but talk is not action). We'll see. I hope I am wrong.
Hail Eris!
One of the funniest, smartest, most subversive minds of the last century died yesterday.
Robert Anton Wilson
1932-01-18 to 2007-01-11
Robert Anton and Arlen Riley Wilson webpages
Robert Anton Wilson blog
Robert Anton Wilson's books
fnord
Harry Potter amd the Order of the Phoenix trailer. I a eagerly await this movie:
The expansion comes out next week but the patch to prepare for it is here.
Lots of good stuff and lots of good fixes. They still haven't fixed the Rogue stealth animation, but hey my talent points are refunded so I can re-do them without paying 25g.
Oh, and here is what I blew my other 100g on:
SURGE
escalate /"Esk
v.t. & i. (Cause to) increase or develop, esp. by successive stages.
Throwing more bodies at a problem we likely cannot fix is not acceptable.
We have ALREADY LOST the war in Iraq.
Civil war is inevitable.
The U.S. Military sucks at 'nation building'.
Bush is ignoring the advice of nearly every informed expert.
The Democrats are slitting their own wrists by refusing to cut off funding to the war or impeach Bush and Cheney. Congress: quit enabling quagmire ala Vietnam in Southwest Asia.
The U.S. troops and Iraqis are dying.
If this cannot be stopped by our government then our government is fundamentally broken by logisitics and by corruption.
You can't tell me the teen probably didn't have it coming.
I've been to Disneyland, I've seen what they do to those people in costume.
Wow. Just wow. Listen to some of these clips.
Sadly, I am not surprised.
This morning when I took the first sip of my morning coffee, I could swear I tasted the subtle meaty hints of bacon...mmm...bacon. This sensation continued through the first half-dozen sips, finally washing away. Could this be why I like this coffee from this specific place so much? Or is it a symptom of something I should be wary of, a sensory hallucination. Perhaps the pastry I was nibbling on with the coffee was cooked with lard (or bacon grease). But this sensation set me adrift down memory lane (something I've heard is that tastes, smells and sounds can invoke powerful memories) on a meat filled excursion through my past. My conclusion is that I've eaten a lot of meat, and the meat tastes good.
The Republicans need the Whaaaaambulance. Why? They're worried the Democrats will treat them like they treated the Democrats. They should be worried. Unfortunately what comes around goes around. They can't expect the last 12 years to go away. While I support the parties working together, it just won't work, and the plans the Democrats have for the next 100 hours are good and I would like to see action on them. I hope, but doubt, a lesson is learned. You won't always be in power and the pendulum can swing fast.
Thank you for working on the holiday and enabling us to make it home.
Minnesotans are in debt to your tireless efforts.
Hello 2007.
I haven't posted much, mostly because I have been working a lot and when I have sat down to post writer's block has been in the forefront.
Recap of 2006:
* thank the maker we no longer have Republicans controlling all branches of the Federal government
* I bought a bike
* I finished the basement (for the most part)
* I wasn't able to lose 30 pounds
* I enrolled back into school (haven't taken classes yet)
* fished, a lot, which makes me happy
Hopes for 2007:
* lose 30 pounds
* take classes
* no soda (rekindling something from 97-99 when I didn't drink any soft drinks, hello coffee and tea my old friends)
* see Europe
* fish more
* Bush gets impeached (come on Dems, at least investigate)
* never have to see Britney Spears' cooch again
http://dontoearth.blogspot.com/
Found this via boingboing a while ago. I find it a good read.
I'm not a huge computer gamer. I grew up playing games in the 1980's. For me, say 'computer games', and my first thought is things like Wasteland and Sopwith. My brother owned a NES console, but aside from that, I never did the console thing. The only cartridges I ever owned were for my TI-99/4A.
So how am I to look at the state of vidgames today? They certainly are pretty. The graphics rendering technology has come a long way since Mystery House. What GPUs can do today is nothing short of astonishing.
I'm uncertain that games are any better. For sheer playability, imagination, and fun, a lot of games just come off as rehashes of old ideas, or poorly written or executed eye-candy. Or, in the case of MMORPGs, huge time-sucks.
I could talk about technical advancements, but I thought instead I'd just make a couple of personal observations:
1) The adventure game is dead. Rest in peace. Dreamfall doesn't a genre reincarnate.
2) First person shooters are boring and played out, except...
3) Bioshock looks SO DAMN GOOD I could pee my pants. Can't wait till end of June. There is just something compelling ,at a brain-stem level, in my running around trying to survive in an Art Deco themed post WWII retro-futurist underwater dystopia. Being the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 is not a bad thing.
4) There certainly seems to be a lot of MMORPGs in development. I would generally consider MMOs to be a huge time and money waster, but then they go and announce development of projects in the 'Firefly' and 'Fallout' (which itself was the spirtual successor of Wasteland...not to mention Post WWIII retro-futurism) universes. There is also a Stargate (played out as that series is) one in development.
5) I'm not sure if the Wii remote is a stroke of genius or utter craziness. Probably both.
6) The Playstation 3 is an overpriced hunk of overheating metal and plastic. $600 for a console!? Plus $100 for an HDMI cable (not to mention a high def tele that isn't instantly obsolete by whatever HDMI iteration they are on this week). Low-numbers available. Difficult laser diodes. Hideous DRM on the 'did we really need this?' Blu-Ray. How about this. Instead of the $1000 it will cost you for the system, a cable, the needed adapters, and say four games, why not instead buy a PS2 and then, oh say, the 50 best games ever written for it. Thousands of hours of entertainment for the same money. Or better yet, save your money.
7) It sucks that I have neither a decent game nor peeps to play deathmatch with.
8) My enthusaism for Spore has been a bit diminished. It does look great, but I'm not sure how much fun it would be to actually play. Yes, I know I'm just parroting Tycho.
9) While I try not to be a neo-luddite, I must admit that most of my passion for video games is in retrogaming. Old Infocom text adventures and old Sierra games pull me in more than 95% of the stuff out there now. Classic games are sometimes really fun and playable (and replayable).
10) The game that gets the most play is GnuGo and various graphic frontends for Go.
11) Starforce Sucks
12) Getting games from the mid to late 90's to run on modern OS is hard. Even with emualtion, a lot of stuff I own only works on legacy hardware and software. I hope I won't have to keep a computer around for each version of DirectX.
13) PC gaming is dying. This does not bode well for one who is reticent to say the least in making a plunge into the console world. I know XBox Live is great, but I really want no part of it.
14) What I really want in new games:
* a kick-ass scifi with compelling settings, characters, and storylines
* a kick-ass survival horror with real-time lighting and shadow, sound and music, all crafted with the single purpose of frightening me into a myocardial infarc.
* a kick-ass completely novel and replayable game that can run on anything and doesn't need bleeding-edge graphics or a supercomputer to run. Think Tetris, Katamari Damacy, etc, but NEW
* humor
* Jules Verne, rayguns, Forbidden Planet, robots, flying cars
* 1920-1938 or so.
* for game companies to keep hiring Jeremy Soule to do their soundtracks
* Machiavellian political intrigue in games
* obviously not all in the same game
When I started playing WoW, there were two things I wanted to be since before release, a Rogue and an Undead. I didn't get WoW right away, because of various reasons. Now that I am playing, there are a lot of Rogues (and Warlocks). On PvP servers Rogues are 50+% of the classes (and not much lower on PvE). When I started I didn't know they were supposed to be the 'DPS Kings', I just like the class descriptions and Rogue is one of my favored classes in D&D (with Ranger). When I played Planetside, I played a stealthsuit. I just like stealthy characters. Playing a Rogue is easy once you understand the limitations and strengths and know how to manage energy.
Here are some excellent comparison videos:
Ep1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7410095177695043805&q=world+of+roguecraft
Ep2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1924309195372520571&q=world+of+roguecraft
Ep3: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4203756741355245537&q=world+of+roguecraft
Do I think they're overpowered? I can't say. I've only have 1 character and its a rogue. I've struggled, as would anyone new to a game. But are the overpowered? Only time will form my opinion.
(PS I hope the whiners do leave the Rogue class, it will help raise the maturity level of the class)
| Your Vocabulary Score: B+ |
 You have a zealous love for the English language, and many find your vocabulary edifying. Don't fret that you didn't get every word right, your vocabulary can be easily ameliorated! |
| Your Famous Last Words Will Be: |
 "So, you're a cannibal." |
| Your Pirate Name Is... |
 |
| Your Superhero Profile |
 Your Superhero Name is The Human Ghost Your Superpower is Dance Dance Revolution Your Weakness is Crystals Your Weapon is Your Energy Ring Your Mode of Transportation is Catapult |
| Your 2006 Summer Anthem Is |
 Crazy by Gnarls Barkley "I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind There was something so pleasant about that phase Even your emotions had an echo In so much space" |
| You Are 12% Capitalist, 88% Socialist |
 You see a lot of injustice in the world, and you'd like to see it fixed. As far as you're concerned, all the wrong people have the power. You're strongly in favor of the redistribution of wealth - and more protection for the average person. |
[rant]
Dear Congress who passed the 2007 Energy Bill which has a change to daylight savings time,
Fuck you.
Sincerely
The IT Support World
[/rant]
