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Avengers and Mass Effect 3 [May. 6th, 2012|10:50 pm]
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Today was for pretty much nothing at all. Did a bit of paperwork, cleaned some, and spent the rest of the day with various entertainments.

First, I saw the Avengers movie. It was awesome! Everything in it was just about perfect. They did a great job with all the characters, and their interaction. I was afraid it would be all about Iron Man, or that a couple of the characters would be the obvious stars and all the rest basically cameos. Nope, it was a true ensemble. Everyone got some time to shine, and interact with all the rest at various points. Even Col. Fury, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow, who didn't get movies of their own.

Those characters who fought against each other had plausible reasons for doing so - other than mistaken identity or mind control.

Anyway, I don't want to spoil it, so just go see it, if you're into that kind of thing.

I was never a big Avengers fan in comic book form, nor of any of the characters therein, so I can't tell you how close to canon they kept it. But I did like Thor and Dr. Banner much better in this movie than I did in their own.

The humour was perfectly placed, too. I honestly can't think of anything I'd do to improve the movie. I look forward to the sequel.

Then, later, I finally finished Mass Effect 3.

This was an great series. A rich, detailed, galaxy to play in. Deep characterization. A vast plotline that varies with your choices. I can understand why some are complaining about the ending, but...

( Spoilers for Mass Effect 3 )
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Space! [Apr. 24th, 2012|10:42 pm]
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OK, this is very awesome: http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/04/24/asteroid_mining_a_company_plans_to_mine_asteroids_for_gold_silver_and_water.html

And this isn't done by mere idle dreamers. Every one of the people involved (James Cameron, Larry Page, etc.) are people who have a history of accomplishment.

There are, of course, the nay-sayers:
The article points out that:

...the plans rely on new technologies not yet invented and appear prohibitively expensive.


Kennedy said the exact same thing about the original moon launch in his Rice Stadium speech. Only, he said it as a reason to go. History has proven him right: http://spinoff.nasa.gov/apollo.htm

Also,

The AP notes that a NASA mission to return just 2 ounces of asteroid material will cost $1 billion.


Which is frankly a stupid way to put it. It's true, it can cost a billion dollars to get two ounces of material. That number doesn't scale, though. It would also cost about a billion dollars to get two pounds or twenty pounds of the same material. When you get into larger numbers, it will cost more. 20 tons of uranium might cost a billion and a half to get back to earth.

To say nothing of all the advances that would come just from the attempt, even if they fail the first few times to find anything worth bringing back at all.

Did I mention how many new technologies came about because of Apollo alone?

This is, really, the kind of mission that our government should be funding.

I'm rather glad that private industry is doing it without them, though. (Not entirely without, obviously, as NASA did the research and laid much of the foundation for the technologies that these guys'll be using.)

And, as for mining asteroids, I think I've mentioned before how I feel about that:
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Geico [Apr. 21st, 2012|10:21 pm]
I have had car insurance through Geico pretty much continuously for about ten years or so now.

I've never had cause to complain.

Turns out, that's only because I've never had cause to contact them, other than to renew when a credit card expires and such things.

Then I was in an accident.

It was a minor fender-bender. Geico was fast, friendly, courteous, all that, when I reported the accident. They gave me, and the other driver no hassle and promptly paid out the damages, which came to a grand total of about $150.

Then, they promptly raised my rates by over $100/month. Yeah, that's reasonable. Sure.

If I had known they were going to do that, I would not have reported the accident.
Or, come to think of it, done business with them in the first place.
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Outside my window. [Mar. 9th, 2012|03:30 pm]
More pleasant than the jerk screaming at people on his cell phone. (Yes, he's been at it a few nights now. Apparently, he was talking to the woman in question a few nights ago. Literally less than five minutes after yelling at her (I couldn't actually hear most of it, but the word "slut" was mentioned), he was then rather petulantly demanding that she "at least give me a chance.) At this point, I'm thinking seriously deranged rather than just stupid. But I'm not ruling out stupid.

At any rate, right now there are a bunch of kids playing soccer in the parking lot. One of them, I'm assuming somebody's little brother, is about four or five. His role is apparently, every time someone makes a goal, is to yell out "Goooooooooaaaaaaaallllllllll!!!!!!!!!" Each time is longer and louder. Very cute. And pretty impressive lung capacity for someone that size, actually.
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Randomness. [Mar. 1st, 2012|09:00 pm]
Scripts are written, deploys are done. Curry has been cooked, and eaten.

Oh, yeah, two things I learned today:
1. Chu likes seafood curry. Enough that she even braved the Dreaded Feet to get to some on the floor. She polished off the fish, the shrimp, and the onion bits.

2. During a recent party at my neighbors apartment, the woman he wanted to date and his roommate slept together while he was passed out drunk. I know he wanted everyone to know this or he wouldn't have been shouting about it into his cell phone in the parking lot right outside my window.

Grrr. Anyway, now for laundry and programming.
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Pants, bumper cars, and crazy people. [Feb. 20th, 2012|08:08 pm]
I decided I need new pants.
Having failed earlier to find anything I liked at Ross, today I looked up the nearest JC Penny.

After I found it, my friend called me and invited me to start practicing qigong with him. I've been meaning to exercise more (I'm starting Aikido again next month). I've been doing some on my own, but a class is always better. This one is at 6:45. Perfect time. Plus, with a friend in it, I'll be more likely to go regularly.

So, sounds good. Now I need to find sweatpants too. Since I was already planning on shopping, this is fine.

Until I get there and start looking at their selection. Clothes makers make strange assumptions about us fat people. I have a size 40 waist. Everywhere I looked, pants in sizes 30-38 come in a variety of colors, including black and dark grey, which is mostly what I was looking for.

Starting at size 40, you apparently have a choice of ugly green with diagonal stripes and hideously ugly checkered patterns of various colors. Hey, just because I'm fat doesn't mean I have no taste whatsoever.

Another thing I don't have is short stubby legs. I wear length 32 in pants. At JC Penny, you can find length 32 in every size from 30 to 38. At 40, they had lengths 22 to 29. Seriously, they had like three pairs of 42/22 pants (two stripes, one checkers), but nothing over 29? Do most people's legs get shorter when their waists grow? Or do they think that fat people just don't want pants that go all the way down to their shins?

After a lot of searching, I finally did actually find a grand total of two pairs of pants in 40/32 that were neither striped nor checkered. One was black, one was beige. I bought them both. So, if you are planning on buying size 40/32 pants for yourself, don't go to the JC Penny in Washington square because they are now out of them.

I also found two pairs of sweat pants. It's unfair actually to say I found them. When checking out, the clerk asked me if I'd found everything. I told him sure, unless he knew if there were any all-cotton sweat pants hidden somewhere. Turns out, there are. He found two passable ones to replace the polyester pair I'd previously picked up in desperation.

JC Penny doesn't sort their clothes by size, or color, or material. I'm not sure what the sorting criteria is exactly, but one pair of solid dark blue all cotton XL sweatpants was between a pair of Small, red striped nylon pants and a pair of Medium polyester blend ones in light blue. The other, exactly like it, was on another rack altogether surrounded by a bunch of Adidas brand blue sweat pants with red stripes. The funny thing there is I'd actually tried on a pair of those earlier, but whatever the hell the material was, it didn't breathe at all. I had them on for about three seconds before I could feel my legs start to overheat.

And I'm not just saying that because I work for a certain other manufacturer of athletic wear.
I was gonna buy them, just because I thought it would be funny, but it turns out they really do suck.

Oh, yes, then after all that, finally leaving getting what I needed, finally getting out of the store, I return to my car. I've got 45 minutes to get to qigong, which, according to google, is 18 minutes away. There is a large van parked beside me, completely blocking my view. I start inching out backwards, so as to give any oncoming car time to stop to let me out.

There is an oncoming car, it turns out.

Despite my strategy, it declines to stop.

I hear a loud crunching sound, and feel myself jolted violently forward. Well, crap.

Turns out I was hit by a Hyundai. For the record, my current car is Crown Victoria. Guess who one? Yep. I've got a new scratch on my bumper. The dent in her bumper reaches her hood.

Of course, it turns out I was hit by a crazy woman. She immediately leaps out of her car, screaming at me that I'm trying to kill her. I backed into her without even looking. I must have done it on purpose. It starts getting bizarre as I'm trying to exchange insurance information. When I go back to my car as she's mid-screaming to get the insurance card she accuses me of trying to run away. This is a hit and run! I'll sue you for everything you have!

Then she refuses to give me her insurance information. "I'm not going to let you know where I live! Who knows what you'll do!"

During all this, I'm actually super calm and quiet, not because I'm actually calm but because I'm just too flabbergasted to respond. Which is kinda the same thing as keeping my cool, I guess.

She insisted on a police report, so she called them. ("I'm not going to let you call them! God only knows what you'll say!")

The police got there about half an hour later. I was sitting in my car during this time, while she stalked back and forth behind me in the rain. I got out of my car when the police officer showed up, but she told me I could sit back down out of the rain while she took the other woman's statement first, as she was most eager to give it. "He just backed out! Out of nowhere! And hit my car! I think he did it on purpose!" (At which the cop gave a look at the van that was still beside me.)

So, after she talked to her for a bit, she pointed to the car for the other driver to sit in and wait, and she came and took my statement. I told her I was inching slowly out, because I couldn't see past the van. Twice during this, the woman who hit me got out to come scream some more, and twice the officer told her to wait back in her car. The third time, she actually said, "you can either wait in your car until I'm done here, or I can cuff you and you can wait in mine." She went back, then. About a minute later, she started her car, backed up, then peeled out around us and took off.

That was about the end of it, though the cop asked me if I was planning to file a claim based on the scratch to my bumper. It was obvious from her tone that she was really hoping I would not, and I didn't. I mean, really, what damage could I claim? I told her I did want a record of it, though, in case crazy lady filed a hit and run report later or something. She agreed that crazy lady might be that crazy and gave me a case#.

And now I have yet another crazy person rear-ends my car story. I would have said the difference in this one was that it could conceivably be construed as my fault, except that the other driver must have been going about 20mph at the time of impact to cause as big a dent as she did, which is much, much too fast to be driving at night, in the rain, in a parking lot.
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Catching up. [Feb. 19th, 2012|09:11 pm]
Hell of a weekend.

I am sore, tired, sad, and filthy.

Friday morning, I learned that Sinatra, our beloved Pomeranian, had to be put to sleep that morning. He had suffered cardiac arrest and a stroke, and there was nothing that could be done. It was very sad. So I went down to Eugene to offer what help I could. Which wasn't much, other than just being there.

Chantel, the next day, had to be at an archaeological dig on the coast near Bandon. Not really what she wanted to do that day, but it was already too late to bow out. So, I went with her there.

I helped a bit, which is why I'm so sore now. And filthy. If I had known I was going to be doing archaeology that weekend, I'd've been a little better prepared. Next time, I'm bringing jeans. I tore a small hole in the pair of pants I'd worn down to Eugene, so I wore a different pair to Bandon. Those, of course, immediately ripped a large hole the first time I tried to get out of my tent. So I ended up wearing the sweats I'd brought to sleep in all weekend. Thin cotton is not the best material to work in wind, rain, and mud in. But I survived.

I do wish I'd remembered to pack some toiletries. Couldn't brush my teeth Friday night or all day Saturday, and they felt all icky. Being surrounded by archaeologists and anthropologists has its advantages, and I had several recommendations on what to do instead. I tried using the ash from the firepit Sunday morning, and it actually worked pretty well. Not minty at all, but nice and clean feeling after I'd rinsed. I know you all needed to know that.

Still sore, though. Archaeology is hard work. It's not really as easy as Harrison Ford makes it look. (Although there are occasionally poisonous snakes, large boulders, and precarious walkways over pits :)

OK, shower, then bed. Facebook will have pictures tomorrow.
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My cat is a Sith agent [Feb. 10th, 2012|08:36 am]
A couple of days ago, I was playing the Star Wars MMO.

I had met a couple of other players in the game, and we teamed up, forming a party to take on one of the "Heroic" quests in the game. (Those are the quests which take more than one player to complete.)

We infiltrated the Sith base, taking out the guards at the front, and those inside, rather handily, and made our way upstairs where the computer bank we were planning on blowing up was.

Upstairs, there was a powerful Sith warrior, Darth somebody-or-other. We checked our buffs, waited out any remaining cooldowns, and prepared to attack.

We sprang into action, our fighters charging to the front to attack him and I, as the healer, holding toward the back, preparing to heal anyone who got hurt, and take pot-shots at Darth whatsisname in the mean time.

At that point, the cat, Chu, jumped onto the desk, and strode across the keyboard. Before I could move her back to the floor, she had hit the autorun button. I set her down, then turned back to the fight, just in time to see my character charge right past the Darth, and over the balcony he was standing on, to plummet to his death below.

Without the healer they were counting on, the other two players were quickly dispatched as well.

Victory: Sith. Aided by cat, who is laying here looking all innocent as I write this.
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(no subject) [Feb. 7th, 2012|01:04 pm]
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The Sheeple Awaken!

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Ideology [Feb. 6th, 2012|04:06 pm]
The trouble with the ideologue is not his ideology but the fact that he is indeed an ideologue. It doesn't matter what his ideology is; once having chosen it, it becomes inviolable.

But then he sees opposition to his ideology from others. Being in possession of the "correct" ideology, the fault must therefore lie within the opposition. Knowing his ideology to be correct, he must then search for the "true" reason such opposition exists.

There are a few paths such search for the "truth" goes. Generally, the ideologue convinces himself that he alone is in position of all the facts. Thus, he reasons, if he can share the facts with others they must inevitably come around to his point of view. This only leads to frustration as his carefully selected set of factoids does not bring about the reaction "Oh, wow, you must be right" as often as it does, "Yes, but what about...", which he interprets as a perverse rejection of his facts. It will not occur to him that with the addition of these other facts, a different conclusion might be reached.

Seeking deeper, then, he must wonder why someone would reject the facts as explained to them and cling to a belief that, in his mind, has been proven incorrect. Inevitably the conclusion he reaches is that either the other person must somehow personally benefit from his false belief, or that they wish the ideologue and those like him harm.

In either case, it is then easy to convince himself that the opposition actually believes him, but pretends not to in order to lead others astray.

Inevitably, this leads to him cataloging people into only three categories. Firstly, the “good guys”, who know the truth and try to spread it. Secondly, the “bad guys”, who know the truth and attempt to suppress it, and thirdly the ignorant middle who await only enlightenment from the ideologue and his colleagues to either come to his side or perversely join the other.

The idea of another group, people whose awareness and knowledge of the subject is equal to or greater than his own but, through considered reason, have come to a different conclusion, does not, and indeed cannot, occur to him. If brought up, he will ignore or quickly dismiss all data and any arguments presented by that group as an attempt to muddle the question or justify their own rejection of the clear and simple answer.
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