June 27, 2008
HAAAAAH
Starts off kind of slow, but it is worth it for the 5 seconds at :38.
I lol'd.
June 24, 2008
R.I.P.
June 23, 2008
Japan = Science Fiction
This Japanese Mall looks like it is straight out of a SciFi movie. Not one of those dystopian ones, mind you, but one of the grand clean beautiful futures. Faaaaantastic. Sometimes it's worth it to spend the extra few bucks to make something beautiful. American malls seem to be lacking some of that flair.
Via TreeHugger
June 20, 2008
Gold.
June 19, 2008
Best Emoticon Ever.
I have to assume that I am not the first to invent it, but I certainly did come up with it myself::-j
Another good one, not sure if it was Joe or I that invented this one:
:-C
That is all.
Making the days smooth.
If anybody is looking for a way to make their work-days go a little bit better, here's a bit of advice:Get up early.
Get up early but don't go to work. Go to work as late as possible. The reason that you are getting up early is so that you can do fun things in the morning. For me, this amounts to playing Burnout or GTA4 for a couple of hours before I get on the bus. Example: This morning I woke up at 7am, showered, dressed, ate some breakfast, and then played Burnout Revenge for 2 hours before getting in the car. I had a great time. It felt like a Saturday. I was actually happy to go to work at that point, because I was awake and in a great mood from relaxing for awhile. When I take the bus, I try to get up at 6am, get ready, and then play for an hour before leaving for the bus at 7:30.
Instead of consigning my entire morning to the commute, this allows me to wake up slowly, and break up the time between getting ready and getting on the road. It also allows me to get in some precious video game time.
I highly recommend it.
June 13, 2008
In Anticipation of Starcraft 2
Looking back at one of the best professional matches I have ever seen.
Savior vs Nal_Ra
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Go check out the Starcraft 2 videos up on Blizzard's site.
June 12, 2008
GTA - Playing by the rules.
Grand Theft Auto 4 has taken up a large part of my time since I received it on my birthday. Joe and Vicki chose well. As most people are well aware, it is a hilarious, immersing game made all that much better by the sheer expanse and length that it touts.
In our household, if one of us wants to inform the others that we are going to go play GTA 4 for a while, we simply say "I'm going to go kill hookers." This usually makes me chuckle, partially because it is quite funny to hear Vicki say, but also because I have never actually sought out to kill hookers in the game.
This brings me to my main point. The game is a hoot to watch, as long as the person that you are watching is willing to just mess around and smash into everything. The stunts that you can pull off, and the things that the AI decides to do are things to behold. This type of play is enjoyable for a little while (about a week, for me), but it really doesn't get you anywhere. When actually going through the missions, we usually fall into a sort of compromised insanity, still willing to kill anyone who is in our way, but restrained significantly so as to remain hidden from the police.
The police let almost everything go without much more than a toot of their siren (which I believe is just a side effect of their attempt at honking their horn), so this means the player can still drive like a maniac.
I have found recently, that when playing alone, my game experience is significantly bettered if I add in my own set of rules on top of the loose ones built into the system. I still drive like a jackass, but I don't do anything obviously illegal, like driving on the sidewalk. It makes the game somewhat more boring to watch, but significantly more fun to play, in my opinion.
By adding in my own set of arbitrary rules, I am incrementing the game a little bit closer to real life. For example, I received a text message asking me to go find a car parked behind the old Burger Shot near the Huntington Street subway station. I decided to take the less direct way of finding the car, and hopped on the subway. It took awhile, but I found the right station and found the car behind the out-of-business Burger Shot. When I got there, a foot policeman was walking by. Normally, I could easily hijack the car and run the cop down, getting rid of my two stars shortly thereafter, but I decided to play along. Niko pretended to check his text messages while standing in front of the old store. The cop walked by slowly, telling Mr. Bellic that he should move along, and that he enjoys beating civilians. So that is exactly what I did. I put my phone away, and walked off around the corner. The cop passed, and I smashed the window of the car, got in, and pulled out into the street real nice and easy.
Yes, it sounds interminably boring, but I assure you, it was a ton of fun to actually role play in the RPG. The game has an extremely deep ecosystem, and smashing through it with a truck is only one way to see it. Obeying traffic laws can yield an entirely different experience, interesting and fun in its challenge. I recommend it heartily.
June 10, 2008
I dig this guy.
June 9, 2008
Hooray for $4 Gas!
As someone who owns and uses a car, I am feeling the "pinch" of gas prices. However, for me, it will be a happy day when prices start topping 4 bucks a gallon.Aside from the normal talking points about abrupt climate change and foreign oil reliance (which are still very applicable), I am more interested in the increased efficiency that high gas prices bring with them, because for me an efficient and heavily connected post-industrial society is vastly more important than simple conservation. It sounds like an odd stance for a staunch environmentalist, but it is one of the first steps toward a true global society and the prospects of the human race moving out into the solar system.
We have been derailed from that solar path. For me, the problems that we are facing now have always been a direct consequence of our failure to look far enough into the future and see the importance of mass transit and commuter/freight rail. In the 50s and 60s, gas was painfully cheap, and we made the decision to throw efficiency and systems thinking to the wind in favor of a more road-based mindset. Cars and trucks were affordable, and the rail lines languished. Rail has long been the most efficient means of transport that we have ever invented, but we ignored it because of the distributed nature of the automobile.
So now we are reaping what we have sown.
However, we are nothing if not adaptable.
Already, the suburbs are littered with people trying to sell off their trucks and SUVs. Freight rail transport is booming like it was the 20s (though that is bringing along its own issues). Americans are not stupid, we have simply not had any good reason to conserve. Sadly, this correction is turning out to be a painful one, as our cities have few options in the way of mass transit. Sure almost every city has buses, but buses are woefully inadequate once demand reaches a certain point, as they have to use the same clogged roads that cars do.
Minneapolis now has a new light rail line, and it is getting vastly more use than was expected. Plans are underway to expand it out into St Paul, which is exciting, but the timetable is somewhat disappointing. Not until 2014 will we be able to start riding it. Hopefully things will start speeding up as gas prices go higher and higher, but one can never be sure.
So while many people watch the rising gas prices go up with horror, I watch with tempered enthusiasm. Though I fully realize that the increase in price can be extremely damaging to certain people, I also see that the vitality of our cities could benefit greatly from the increased pressure of high-cost oil.
That is, however, provided that we are able to read the signs and know when to invest in the infrastructure that will mitigate the problem, as opposed to trying to offset fuel costs.
June 6, 2008
Impressive Speech at the UN
And powerful. Going viral presently.June 4, 2008
Why I am an Obamanian.
My Obama sign is up in the front yard.
Really, Obama's delegate nomination is a small victory, since he and Clinton are essentially on the same raft for the issues. There are, however three major things that make me happy that he is the nominee:
- He'd make a Great Figurehead: The president is a figurehead for the country, more than anything else. As far as policy goes it is Congress that sets the agenda, the president is just there to allow things through. What the president needs to be good at, however, is mobilizing and energizing. Without a leader who is an excellent public figure it is very hard to get public support for important initiatives. Hillary is good enough, as good as McCain, at least, but Barack is in a league of his own. Every time I read through or watch one of his speeches, I am struck by the unabashed elegance and intelligence that they display. In the time of Larry-the-cable-guy, a well-thought-out and intelligent piece of writing is hard to come by.
- No Political Dynasties: The whole idea of having a set of "Bushes" or "Kennedys" or "Clintons" trading back and forth in government is intensely distasteful to me. It speaks to an inherent laziness of the public, and lays bare the popularity contest nature of modern elections. Having a president be the first gentleman is really quite absurd when you think about it. It encroaches on Aristocracy, and we all know how well that works.
- Network Neutrality Support: The one major issue (for me) that Hillary and Barack differ on is net neutrality. Barack takes a very clear pro-neutral standpoint, which is what the net needs, while Hillary has said that internet companies might have the right to charge whatever they want for data throughput. This is not a life or death issue, but it could vastly change the net as we know it, and as someone who has made his livlihood on the free and open Internet, I side heavily with Barack on this issue.