Musings From Achronos

Bloop

2010-07-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

Got a TiVo Premiere over the weekend. I would like to tell you about my experience with it but so far my cable company has been unable to provide a working CableCard. I went through this with the Series 3 TiVo that I also have. On Monday, when they tried to authorize the card, it didn't work. So on Tuesday, I called them, and they verified the numbers, and tried it again. This time they screwed up the authorization on my other two already working cards. So today, they managed to fix what they broke, and I'm back to just the new card working. Tomorrow, a cable guy is coming between 9 and 12 to to give me a new one. Every single time I have to deal with this garbage with them. I shouldn't know their customer service number off the top of my head, but I do. I remember 3 numbers without my phone's contact list - my wife's cell, my parent's home phone number, and my cable company customer service line.

That's just fucking ridiculous. You better get it right tomorrow, Broadstripe. Or, someone could buy my house so I could move to a new one that doesn't suck so bad.

Mind the dust

2010-07-11T05:14:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I suppose I shouldn't just leave this place to rot. I suggest those interested follow my Twitter for more likely updates.

Although, I may work up a post about Blizzard's recent Real ID dabbling, and why I think (and, well, I guess them too, now) it is the wrong approach. Have to think about how to talk about that without leading people to believe I'm discussing Bungie policy, of course, so maybe not. And then there is an interesting post someone made on bungie.net yesterday about how he was confused why people got to talk about evolution, but not religion. He contended evolution was a kind of religion, and my opinion of public schooling dropped a bit after a bunch of people proceeded to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding as to what the scientific method is and why it, by definition, can't be in the same category as the concept of faith. (For the record, truth can be found in both reason and faith, those blinded by either are doomed to never grasp true understanding).

For now, it is late. Or early. Whatever. Perhaps we'll talk about that stuff later. Your homework is to learn about St. Thomas Aquinas, my patron saint. A little bit of a tight ass about certain aspects of morality (11th or 12th century Dominican Order priest probably means I can give him a pass on that), but the man was very good at describing how reason and faith are both sources of truth.

Merry Christmas, and good riddance to 2009

2009-12-24T00:34:00.003-08:00

Merry Christmas all. I hope that this has been a good year for you. Unfortunately, 2009 has not really been a good year for a lot of people. Professionally, its been pretty good for me. Halo 3: ODST did really well, the Bungie Store is finally back, Reach is well underway, etc. Other events, however, have made this a generally a shitty year. First, my wife gets laid off from Expedia in some mass layoffs they did. This causes us to have to drop down to one car, which was at times irritating. Then we went through a series of Jarrah getting "almost hired" for various jobs, only to find out the company went with an internal person so they didn't have to add new headcount. Then one of our Great Danes becomes very ill, and after a harrowing night in the vet hospital, a few days of recovery, and a huge vet bill, he's okay. Of course, now he has a $150/month injection to keep him from getting sick again.

Things just sucked more after that - my paternal Grandfather died - and while he had been sick for a while, I wasn't able to get back east to the funeral, which really sucked. And then in October, my maternal Grandmother died - at least I was able to go to that funeral.

Finally in November things began looking up. Jarrah got hired at a great company, I got a new car. Jarrah just stabled her new horse that she got as a gift. After a nice end of year vacation, we'll hit 2010 ready for a good year. This will, with a bit of luck, include a new house for me and my family.

Hopefully everyone has a better year than 2009.

Support a Good Cause

2009-11-17T17:46:00.002-08:00

My wife regularly volunteers with the Phoenix Rising Horse Sanctuary in my area. They're doing a big fundraiser dinner / charity auction this year, so if you're looking for a good cause, please contribute.

Of particular note is a few donated items to the auction that are Halo related, including a couple of ODST and Reach posters that have been signed by the team, and a few copies of ODST and some other games I had lying around.

So, check out the web site, and we thank you for anything you can give.

On a lighter note...

2009-09-18T18:41:00.007-07:00

Prepare to drop, ODST is coming. I won't be at the EMP for the launch event, though. Have to be at the office watching things peak - if anything is going to go wrong, it would happen on launch day. Have to be prepared, and all that.

Hope you all have fun. Just as a warning to all of you - take mass transit to get there. There is a Pearl Jam concert that night at Key Arena - parking and traffic will suck in the vicinity of Seattle Center. Do yourself a favor and take a bus or a taxi or a monorail (lol) or light rail to get there.

Healthcare

2009-09-18T18:05:00.003-07:00

Hmm, been a while since I talked about anything really substantial. Oh, yeah, by the way, my dog is fine now, back to normal weight and activity - thanks for all the kind words.

So, anyway, healthcare. I was reading this opinion piece that was basically a warning about how the way healthcare is being approached is all wrong, and found myself nodding to it. Now, as I'm sure that some of you have noticed reading this, my views tend to lean a little liberal, but I'm generally part of that moderate group that politicians try and get. I've voted Democratic, I've voted Republican. Please bear that in mind before trying to dismiss my views as partisan bullshit, because they're not.

Here we go - all the healthcare proposals are currently just political theater that are poor attempts to solve symptoms, rather than really fix anything. They live in a world where they can't push the status quo too much or there won't be any support. As such, if any of them pass, very little would change for the vast majority of us. And while I'm all for helping out those who can't pay for insurance, there are real problems with the rest of the system for those of us who have insurance. Those problems, if not fixed, promise to be even worse if we also have to help pay for those who don't have insurance (which we do now anyway).

The problem, to me, can be easily defined as one of competition. Make insurance companies compete like a regular company does - regulate them at a national level, rather than by state. Remove their antitrust protection. Have some consumer agency rate each available plan offering (kind of like your credit rating), so consumers can easily compare them in terms of coverage and pricing. We also should probably provide a listing of the minimum standard of coverage, and require everybody to have that at least. Give benefits to employers who go above the minimum.

Maybe divide up the people who can't afford it into 4 or 5 regions, and have the companies compete every few years to be the one serving insurance to that region's government-provided healthcare. Anybody else can buy into the "region" plan that the government negotiated for them, even if it is just for secondary insurance to cover what their primary doesn't, or if they prefer it over their employer's plan.

Sure, light on details, I know. But here's the point. This kind of system isn't socialist at all. It has our established insurance providers compete for customers in an open market. That kind of approach would take time to change things. But the key is push the status quo out. Once that happens, the businesses evolve or die in the new marketplace, and eventually, the new ways to make money become the status quo. Sure, that way may have its own problems, but if we can set it up properly in the beginning, maybe we can make it so those problems are ones where we spend more on heathcare than anybody else, while getting less for our dollar. This happened when we deregulated airlines, and the phone system, and broke up standard oil. Sure, not all of the changes from that were good - but change breeds innovation, and with the proper hand, it might be the ticket here.

I'm always a fan of using the negatives of something to do your work. Using the massive population of forum posters on bungie.net to do the work of finding spam (while also causing it)? Check. Using capitalism and competition to fix a status quo that stakeholders don't want to change? Yes please.

Asher Update

2009-06-16T14:53:00.004-07:00

Asher is finally starting to be his old self again. He may have lost a lot of weight (he's 115 lbs now, he should be 150 lbs) - but he's been eating a bunch, and we're feeding him 4-6 meals a day of high-fat content stuff to get him back up.

The vets diagnosed him with Addison's Disease - an adrenal gland disorder that causes the gland to not produce a very important chemical that can have all sorts of bad side affects - renal failure being a particularly bad one. They couldn't figure it out until they fixed his kidneys, luckily, there appears to be no permanent damage and he pulled around after three days in the ICU.

Now, he has to get a special injection once every 25 days (more or less) that compensates for his gland disorder. $150 a bottle, less than 2 doses per bottle. I figure it is better than putting him down, especially because he's so young.

It is good to have my favorite dog back. Now, he just has to eat to get his weight back up.

Asher is very ill

2009-06-04T12:33:00.003-07:00

The last 24 hours or so have sucked. One of my Great Danes, Asher (the younger male), has been showing signs of illness, and he's lately turned for the worse. He became very lethargic, stopped eating, and was dehydrated. A visit to our vet resulted in a trip to the local emergency vet care clinic and ICU, because blood tests showed his kidneys were having difficulty and he was severely dehydrated, and also had lost about 10 pounds in the last 3 weeks.

The ICU people have him on IVs, but he didn't really respond overnight like they initially thought if it was the neurological disorder my vet originally thought it could be. That left three options - infection, toxin, or cancer. Toxin was unlikely given that the other dogs are fine and are in the same area as him. So, they just did an ultrasound to check out his abodmen. Luckily, no signs of cancer, and the kidneys appear outwardly healthly.

That means it is probably an infection. Unfortunately, finding out which one is not easy. They already have him on hardcore antibiotics, but kidneys take time to recover, and the most likely infection takes about 10 days for confirmation (my vet already sent out the test because that was her alternate diagnosis in the event that it wasn't a neurological disorder that it initially appeared to be). In the meantime, the ICU is trying to get his kidneys propped up. He's eating and drinking again, so that's good. But it will be 24 to 36 hours before we know if the antibiotics and IV fluids help his kidneys. If we can get past that, they can give him targeted treatments once they know exactly what infection it is, but it won't matter unless his kidneys start working again.

So, I'm better than I was an hour ago, when cancer was a real possibility. Now, though, we're just waiting. We'll probably be visiting him later today. This seems a lot for a dog, but this dog we've raised since just a puppy, and he's only 2 and a half years old. He's such a good dog too, gentle, kind. I'm just kind of numb right now.

In addition to all that, paying for this care is expensive. So far, we've not reached the point where we have to say "that's all we can do, he's a dog, and we can't spend all our limited resources on him". But I dread having to make that decision... I mean, it would have oddly been easy if they had found he had cancer. Asher would have had little hope for meaningful recovery, and it would have been a mercy to stop there. But now, we don't even know what kind of infection it is - and I'm not willing to to say "stop" when treating him for 36 hours could easily fix him as good as new, despite the significant expense.

This, of course, is just adding to the stress my wife has over not having a job right now. She's holding together remarkably well, though. I'm trying as best I can to be a source of strength for her. Sometimes, I worry I'll give in to the worry, but I don't have that luxury when she needs me.

Please keep us and Asher in your prayers. He's such a good dog, no, the best dog, he deserves a long and happy life.

Survivalists think my wife is a hippie

2009-05-02T19:10:00.003-07:00

Apparently, so random survivalists think my wife is a hippie. I'd explain, but my wife does it so much better.

Oh, and for the record, we were just fine when that happened. But really, if you knew her... you'd understand why that thread is so hilarious. For example - she really wants a gun (or a pink taser), but I won't let her get one. The irony here is pretty high.

Innovation without Imitation is a waste of time

2009-04-22T14:57:00.004-07:00

If you've ever used the term "innovation", you really should watch this. It is Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs talking about what's he's learned.

The best line in there is the title of the entry. Think about it for a bit. The best innovations are things that leverage imitiation to its fullest - learning from the past efforts, their mistakes as well as trimumphs. His example is good - iPhones may be cool, but they don't work without the knowledge of touch screens, programming, circuit boards, materials, mass production, etc.

More close to home - a lot of people who hate on Halo like to say it "has been done before". Sure, it has a few neat ideas, the Internet goes, but mostly just cribs from PC shooters. Congratulations, you just describe almost every game ever made, or everything ever made that's any good. Innovation, with imitation from those who came before. That's not a bad thing... if anything, that's just good sense. Never let common sense stand in the way of a good troll, though. That ruins the fun.

Thanks to my wife for pointing this video out to me.

My Wife Produces!

2009-04-17T16:06:00.004-07:00

Times are tough. You know they're tough when you're doing everything right, and you lose your job anyway because your company fucks up or decides to think short term shareholder gain. No, not me - I'm talking about my beautiful wife. Jarrah got laid off in February from Expedia in their big raid against their in-house talent. Slash and burn. Lots of good people lost their jobs there.

So now, she's been looking for a job. She's got a great resume (she's a producer/project manager), lots of good experience on big time projects, etc... but the problem is that people are in hiring freezes everywhere. That is crazy frustrating to me, and I'm not even the one looking for a job, so I can only imagine what she feels like.

But let me tell you, she handles it like a champ. She's sending resumes out, getting callbacks, taking classes toward new certifications in stuff that sound difficult based on their acronyms... it really is just a matter of time. To all the companies out there in the Seattle area looking for producers, you're missing out without her. Act fast before this offer ends!

One day I hope to be fabulously wealthy so she doesn't have to work at all. So, before my "lottery retirement plan" (hehehe) kicks in, be sure to snap her up! A producer like her is not a common thing, so don't let her amazing abilities go to waste!

World of Warcraft is Broken?

2009-04-16T18:38:00.003-07:00

In an effort to keep making regular posts to make this place somewhat interesting, and because I have nowhere else to discuss this, we're going to talk about World of Warcraft. I know, I know. Too bad.

Up until recently, I had been a long time subscriber, running around with my single character. I don't play alts, I played one character, doing the solo content, some dungeons, and even a raid or two more recently. I didn't try and min/max my character, I didn't pick the best spec, I picked my spec for fun and flavor: I've been a demonology warlock in WoW since before the first class revision, so I've seen the lowest of the low and the best of that class. And it was fun, even when I hit max level and didn't really raid, because of the social component, and because there were enough "extra" things to do that it made a great default game when I had nothing else to do.

I say "until recently" because a month ago, I cancelled my subscription. I'll probably resubscribe when the next expansion comes out, but I couldn't really play the game anymore. It wasn't because I was out of things to do... patch 3.1 was about come, and despite not really raiding, I could always do some dailies and professions and whatever.

The problem I hit was I couldn't ignore how broken the end game was for WoW now. You see, Blizzard's idea of the endgame is "raid, and when you're finished, farm, grind, and roll an alt while you wait for us to add more content." Think about that for a minute. You invest all this time into building a character, after you manage to go through the tremendous effort to go through whatever the current "final raid" is, you either just keep running the same area over and over again, grind some repeatable quests, or start a new character. You're expected to run in place or start everything over.

That's bullshit. Why do I have to wait for Blizzard to make content? There is no possible way they can keep creating content at a pace that will satisfy their users. They know, and I know it. So why do they keep pretending like that problem doesn't exist (yeah, I know, millions of subscribers, but this is a philosophical discussion)?

This is where they need to invest in some user generated content. And I'm not talking world-building, necessarily - you don't need something like City of Heroes' mission architect. Look at EVE Online - they created a sandbox, and the players basically call the shots. Other games are adding the concept of exploration, where players travel to areas that are somewhat "randomly" generated, and can do things there, then come back with something to show for it. See Star Trek Online's exploration model and how they're trying to make sure the game always has something over the horizon for you.

The point here that Warcraft is the biggest, most well funded MMO. Why are they still going with a "add content onto the end" model? I mean, having that stuff is all well and good, but they need something that's a little more self-sustaining. With their player size, I don't understand why they're not doing more to allow players to affect the world.

A tall order, I know. But they really need to break this "boom bust" cycle WoW seems to have with the lull between patches of content. This is especially true if they're making the content more accessible. If it is easier to get to all the content, that means more players are going to run out of stuff to do sooner.

Final Fantasy XII (no, not XIII)

2009-04-15T20:12:00.005-07:00

So, a few videos of the demo for Final Fantasy XIII popped up on YouTube. Still not really enough info for me to comment on it, although it did bring back horrible memories of playing FFXII.

You see, I'm a fan of jRPGs in general. I recently finished up the main quest of Star Ocean 4 and, despite the horrible crash bug and atrocious voice acting/dialogue, enjoyed it quite a lot. This was mainly due to the incredibly fun battle system. Basically, you control one character (you can switch instantly), others are AI controlled. The game has combos, blindsiding, position matters, etc. It also has all these little "battle trophies" for doing things like reaching thresholds in damage, consecutive hits, and more. Great fun, even on non-bosses. And since the enemies are visible all the time, you can choose your battles (although in practice you'll want to engage every one).

Now, I've played every Final Fantasy except the MMO. I've liked all of them, except XII. This bothered me, because not only was everybody telling me how awesome this game is (check its metacritic score), but it had obviously high production values, decent localization, and was very generally well polished all around. Plus it was Final Fantasy, right?

At first, I thought my dislike was for the plot and characters. I didn't really feel invested in what the characters were fighting for, and didn't care for the characters themselves. This probably was because Vaan (the young thief you primarily see the world through) was just a lame character. He's a side character masquerading as a main character. But hey, maybe that's just me, it happens. Besides, a lot jRPGs have dumb plots or really irritating characters.

Of course, that's the point. If it were just the characters and plot, I'd normally just play through. Final Fantasy VIII had a terrible plot and the main character was a whiny emo asshole. Seriously, Squall was kind of a dick. But the battle system was engaging enough, and the rest of characters didn't suck as bad as Squall, and the game held up much better... except the entire ending.

I must therefore place my blame for not liking FFXII on the battle system. Here is a game that recognized that non-boss ("trash") mobs can be boring to fight. Instead of fixing it so that these mobs are fun to fight, they created a system to automate these fights. Now, there is nothing wrong with making a way to better control AI controlled party members. Star Ocean 4 could have benefitted from that. But Star Ocean 4's combat is fun. Their effort obviously was put into the combat system. FFXII had this complex Gambit system that could be interesting, then they locked most of it away into slow paced skill grid and completely forgot that their battles are still boring! In order to have any fun at all, you have to powerlevel and open up your skills so you can access the more advanced skills/gambits. This made the game feel just glacial in its pace - like a bad MMO without other players.

With FFXIII on the way, it appears that they're not keeping any of that system. Apparently they've decided to use the old Active Time Battle system, but make the time gauge in that the limiting resource of gameplay, rather than magic points or skill points, etc. I hope there are other things beyond that. But even if there isn't, it already looks more interesting than the combat FFXII presented me.

Hopefully the plot is a little more fantastical and less political intrigue.

We Didn't Start the Flame War - CollegeHumor Video

2009-04-14T19:37:00.001-07:00

This particular video on collegehumor.com should be sent to anyone new to Internet as an introduction.

Also, I think I'll start sending this to people who ask me what dealing with the Bungie.net forums is like sometimes.

Michael Phelps vs Kellogg

2009-02-10T10:10:00.001-08:00

Hit the title link for a good dose of perspective about Michael Phelps and his extra-curricular activities, courtesy of Saturday Night Live.

What the hell is wrong with you, California?

2008-11-11T10:53:00.003-08:00

Anybody care to explain to me why two people getting marriage is such a big deal? Hit the think for someone far more well spoken than me ask the question better.

Let's review:

If you don't approve of gay marriage, don't have one.
If you don't approve of sex before marriage, don't do it.
If you don't approve of abortion, don't get one.
If you don't approve of violence or sex in entertainment, don't buy it.

I can go on like that for a while.

On this topic - I think the fundamental problem here is that the word "marriage" has come to mean both the legal contract in the the eyes of the government and the sacrament of marriage in the traditional religious sense. So, here's an easy solution - the government of the USA shouldn't recognize marriages of anybody. Rather, all marriages should be called "civil unions" in the eyes of the law. The participants can still of course marry according to their own traditions and beliefs, but as the government should make no law respecting one religion over the other, it can't really tell people what marriage is. So, "marriage licenses", the legal contract between two individuals to become essentially a joint entity in the eyes of the law, are now "civil union license." Now, everybody is equal in the eyes of the law - straight, gay, whatever. Marriage returns to being a purely religious institution and nobody can have stupid initiatives or propositions to remove the right of private citizens to do what they want.

Hah, could you imagine if I was actually a politician and said this? Shit would quite literally hit the fan.

It always amazes me that Republicans, the party that supposedly believes in small government, little regulation, etc., is in bed with the religious right, who want to use the government to enforce their beliefs on everyone else. The religious right should go read their bibles again - they're kind of missing the point of Christ, I think.

Hard Drives and Consoles

2008-09-19T11:27:00.003-07:00

So, Kotaku has a little story about why the Xbox 360 has no default hard drive and the PS3 does. They've got a few spin filled quotes with a bunch of fanboy comments, I thought I'd translate, if only to have an excuse to update.

The Xbox 360 doesn't have a default hard drive because hard drives don't get cheaper over time for the most part, they just get bigger. Normally, that's desirable for hard drives, but not if your making a console to minimize cost. Microsoft looked at the Xbox, realized that maybe four or five games actually used the hard drive in an interesting way (Halo and Halo 2 among them) for something other than a giant memory card, and figured that if they make the hard drive optional that eventually they'll probably be able to get the console down to $150 or less. Realize they were looking at the PS2 at the time.

The PS3, on the other hand, was looking from the point of view of having a Blu-ray drive. This drive, although having huge capacity, is sloooooooooooooooow. They had to have built in storage to let developers compensate for that, or risk having their system be plagued by ultra slow loading times that even their best devs wouldn't be able to circumvent. In some respect, this will hurt them, because they won't ever be able to drop their price to PS2 levels... hard drives won't go down that low. Of course, the blu-ray drive probably won't drop very fast either, so the point is moot - they can't reduce the price anyway, so why not throw a hard drive in?

Anyway, the point? Kotaku should realize that almost no devs used the hard drive in the Xbox. That's a big reason why MS saw it as an expendable, unnecessary luxury that was killing their bottom line. I'm hoping that for the consoles after the PS3/Xbox360, that they both have optional hard drives, but have some kind of large built in storage that is only for caching. Then the optional hard drive can store all the DLC, but everyone can still have their caching.

The trick, as always, is finding something both fast and cheap enough. But whatever the case, it should be enough so that loading screens mid-game are a thing of the past.

Twitter and Social Networking

2008-08-29T17:14:00.001-07:00

Lately, I've been pondering about why I seem to avoid social networking type systems. I only have a facebook account so my wife can link to me, I'm on LinkedIn but don't really "use it", cannot stand MySpace, have difficulty keeping a simple blog on a weekly or even monthly post schedule, and, for the life of me, cannot understand the appeal of Twitter. Hell, I don't even have more than 40 Xbox Live friends, despite the fact that my message box is always full.

I think my dislike of those kinds of things is twofold, both work related. First, much of my professional life is consumed by bungie.net, itself a very social place. Investing time elsewhere is somewhat of a distraction. Its kind of like playing an alt in World of Warcraft - sure, I could roll another character, but that's time I could be playing on my main (a demonology warlock, if you care).

Second, and this goes for twitter and blogging, especially, is that I may think of things to say that are interesting, I just don't think they are interesting for a wide audience. But after a conversation today that involved the difference between "signal," "noise," and "spam" (more on that another time), I realized that I'm probably self censoring too much. If people want to read what I say, it is "signal" to them. Otherwise it is just noise. The important thing is to let others decide.

On that note, I decided to play with Twitter - check the box out on the left column. Thanks to my iPhone and my improved data/text plan, maybe I'll find that fun.

Even if none of you care.

Supreme Court on the rights of suspected terrorists

2008-06-13T18:34:00.002-07:00

So, McCain has weighed in on the Supreme Court call parts of his bill (the one that set up the military tribunals for the suspects in Gitmo) and he's rather pissed.

But, I think this quote is very telling:

McCain spoke to reporters after the town hall, accompanied by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who helped him write the military commissions law.

"What happened yesterday was unprecedented," Graham said. "Americans are going to be shocked to find that that mastermind of 9-11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now has the same legal standing as an American citizen."

Emphasis mine. Now, I think SCOTUS has done two things with this ruling. The first is obvious, and it is listed in bold. Habeus corpus is a bedrock principle of our legal system. The rule is that you don't get to be held without charges, and a court gets to determine whether your imprisonment is lawful. I'll just say it is easy to follow the rules when you're not at war. The true test is when the shit hits the fan - are you still going to follow the law? This isn't just some bureacratic procedure here.

But, I think, though, the real concern is what happens when someone can challenge their imprisonment. What happens, and this is the second thing SCOTUS has done here, is that they have forced the government to put up or shut up, and they have to do it in the open. None of this bullshit "you're a terrorist but we won't tell you why we think that". This isn't about them being innocent or guilty, this is just the right to be openly told why the hell you're in jail.

Think about it. If I could go to a web site and look up each Gitmo detainee, and find out why they are there and the charges against them, then I'd feel a lot better about the existence of Gitmo in the first place. If they're enemy combatants, so be it, but right now, the government could literally be hiding people they don't want to deal with there and we'd never know. They could probably pretend to have bin Laden there and we wouldn't know.

Do I believe it is doing that? No. But the fact that the conditions enable it is just stupid. If I get arrested and declared an enemy combatant, shouldn't I be able to challenge that ruling in the court? Maybe I'll lose, but at least the prosecution would have to explain themselves.

I'm disappointed in McCain here. It isn't the military tribunals that are the problem - it is the fact that they don't allow people to even contest whether the tribunal is appropriate for their situation.

On Indiana Jones

2008-05-24T00:52:00.003-07:00

George Lucas and crew need someone to say "Woah, guys, that's a little much. Back it down a notch. Sure, nuclear explosions look cool, but we're really trying to hard here."

They also need an editor. You're supposed to cut out the "extended scenes" and save them for the DVD, not release the version with the joke that lasts 30 seconds longer than it should.

Finally: this is a series that includes a lot of fantastic elements that stretch believablity (see the 1500 year old crusader in the previous Indy film). That's cool. But they worked because the movie never tried to explain every last thing. So, why are they trying to explain things so much now? Are they that concerned that people will not be able to make the jump from suggestion to imagination?

One of the reasons why people hold Halo's story in rather high regard is because it doesn't always try to explain everything (this is especially true in the first game and in the terminals of the third game). Rather, it draws you in, suggesting something fantastic and grand, and then leaves it to your imagination with where to take it.

The most powerful stories are the ones which don't try to answer everything. Rather, the best stories create a universe for which you can step into and let your imagination take you for a ride. Sequels of beloved stories are often difficult for this reason - not because the sequel's expansion of the universe is bad, but because it must toss aside some of what you have constructed with the "official version".

To all storytellers, and a note to self: resist the urge to explain everything. Or you end up with the latest Indiana Jones movie - getting the formula right, but missing that special spark of wonder.

Take a moment

2008-04-16T14:21:00.003-07:00

Do me a favor and take a moment out of your day to remember the victims of last year's massacre at Virginia Tech.

It still hits me hard as I read about the memorials going on today, and I have long since graduated from my studies there.

Outside gets a 7/10

2008-04-02T09:59:00.002-07:00

This was passed around today: a review of the real life as if it were a MMO like World of Warcraft. It was written as a forum post in a discussion about an article in The Escapist about people's negative perception of games and where it might come from.

Both are interesting reads.

Personally, I'd rate it a 6/10. Everything takes too long Outside.

It is snowing...

2008-03-29T21:25:00.003-07:00

This is just a late breaking update. It is the 29th of March. And it is snowing. Hard. There are several inches on the ground where I live (a little east of Redmond).

I thought the season of entertainment watching people attempt to drive up an icy hill next to my house was over. I was incorrect. This should be fun to watch.

Pavement 1, Little Dog 0

2008-03-28T00:54:00.003-07:00

Maybe it is because I have two Great Danes and this hilarious clip features one, but really, that's not why this clip is hilarious. You just have to watch it. I can almost see the Dane's surprise at what happens in its face, and then its "dude, what the fuck" look to the other dog.

Anyway, hit the link, you'll laugh. I certainly did.

If you get married in Seattle...

2008-03-02T00:27:00.003-08:00

Just a quick note - if you're planning on getting married near Seattle, I recommend checking out the Seattle Aquarium to host your event. They were top notch, and people at my event constantly raved about the event. The food was great, the staff, especially Rose (the coordinator for the Seattle Aquarium) managed everything professionally. And, you can't really beat having an entire aquarium open for your guests to wander around before the real reception starts.

Regular life starts again on Tuesday, but for now, I've got presents to open. Thanks to those who sent gifts or well wishes, by the way. My wife and I appreciate it.

Politics

2008-02-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

The current political climate is exciting. Being a moderate independent, I find it great that McCain will be the Republican candiate. This is not because I support him or his party, but because of all of the contenders, he's at least someone I can respect. He's not beholden to fundamentalist Christians, for example (the Republican party sucks because of those fools). Ironically, that might cost him dearly, depending on his VP pick. So, even if he wins, I won't feel like we're just getting a new monkey to sit in the hotseat, and pretend things like gay marriage are things we have time to worry about right now.

Anyway, the real reason for this post: check out the linked article. One of the big arguments on the Democratic side is the discussion that Obama is big on "words" and Clinton is big on "action." They go round and round, it is kind of amusing. A point not brought up (because you have to insult the electorate) is that big grand "words" without specifics work better with the masses - they make better sound bytes, they are easily consumable, they work with the voters who don't really engage much.

Moving on, the article points out, quite rightly, that the only real, unbiased place you can find to show just what their real positions are is to compare their Senate records. Not their voting records - but their history of what bills they author and who co-sponsors them. You can draw some VERY interesting facts about both of these effective Senators, and I think it becomes apparent why Obama is really pulling ahead with those educated voters as well as with the masses who are just hooked on his grand oratory skills.

Why there is no "guy stuff" in the wedding registry

2008-02-07T18:11:00.001-08:00

I've gotten some comments about the lack of "guy stuff" in my wedding registry from a few people.

The reason there are no electronics or other guy stuff on there is because not only is this about stuff *WE* want but also because I always buy the shit I want myself, making it incredibly annoying for other people to buy christmas and birthday gifts (or so I've been told by my family in the past).

Really, I'd be impressed if you could come up with "guy stuff" I want that I haven't already bought for myself. Go ahead, try it.

GDC Update and pandering for handouts

2008-01-30T23:22:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have noticed that I was going to give a GDC talk on Bungie's community efforts for the Halo series. Unfortunately, I had to cancel the talk. One of the reasons for doing so is that GDC is way to close to my wedding on the 29th of February.

Naturally, I'm quite disappointed at this, because I had been really looking forward to giving the talk. You can cheer me up by hitting up my wedding gift registries at Target and Crate and Barrel and buying me a gift.

Sure, it is pandering at its worst, but hey, a few people have asked, and at least one of them weren't just morbidly curious. And at least you can see what kinds of thing we had fun scanning in those two stores when price doesn't matter. Someone already bought me a giant beer stein.

Good for EA!

2008-01-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

I don't often have good things to say about EA, but the letter that their communications office sent to Fox News about a recent segement they ran about Mass Effect was refreshing. EA asks the news channel to correct their report regarding the many inaccuracies it had about Mass Effect's sex scenes.

They could have ignored it, they could have sent a lawyer after them, but instead, they stood up for their studio and called Fox on their crappy reporting.

It is about time EA showed some good corporate citizenship with regard to this kind of ignorant "journalism" (if you can even call it that). Now, just leave Bioware to do its thing without interference and you'll be in my good graces again.

A fun little game

2008-01-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Hit the link to check out a little game my fiance pointed out to me. The object is to bounce the ball to the exit using the various little physics toys. You can even make your own levels.

A fun little diversion, if you're waiting for something to compile, for example.

Dammit, I am not your friend

2008-01-06T02:08:00.001-08:00

Today I was lucky enough to have a few free hours to play Halo 3, something I haven't been able to do in a while. I had a pretty fun time. Now, I'm used to getting lots of friend requests and messages - the flaming head in game can raise a few questions. I usually just delete the friend requests, and move on.

But today, two guys would not stop sending me friend requests. I don't like to block people unless necessary (although I regularly use the "mute asshole" button). These guys sent me like 15 friend requests. What made this unique is that they sent them one at a time, after I declined their previous request.

I finally just had to block them, because it didn't look like they would quit doing it. But seriously - who does that? Just because you know my gamertag or see me in game doesn't make me your friend. If I decline your request, that's my way of saying, "no, thanks, I don't know you, so you don't go on my list." I could even understand a followup message - some people just want to add me to ask me a question. But sending me requests each time I say "no"?

Are kids just not used to hearing the word no anymore? Bah, whatever, I know. "Just block them, and can I has recon instead?" Still, you'd think they'd want to spend time enjoying the game instead of trying to follow me around like a lost puppy.

Welcome to 2008

2008-01-05T02:35:00.001-08:00

Well, it is 2008. I'm getting married at the end of February, Halo 3 is doing well, I still enjoy my job after doing it for 8 years, hopefully that trend continue.

I have one resolution for the New Year: I'm going to try and come here more often and post. It is really quite stupid that I constantly think of neat things to chat about, but then never actually post them.

With that in mind, I'm going to try a little experiment. One of the things I do every week is update the Halo 3 Bungie Favorites on bungie.net. Now, I don't actually pick the Bungie Favorites, I'm just the guy with the admin privs to actually make the changes. However, because I often make forum threads for items posted that don't already have threads, a lot of people assume that I'm the one picking them. As a result, I get a lot of files sent to both my gamertag and on bungie.net asking to post their stuff. I never look at them.

However, I figure that since people are sending me this stuff anyway, I might as well try an experiment. I'm going to start collecting all these things people send me at achronos@gmail.com, as it is fun to abuse the absurd space gmail gives you. I'm going to mostly ask for screenshots, because I can quickly look at them. If I get some good stuff, I'll put it up somewhere, either here on a blog dedicated for that. If things work out, I'll check it every few days and post some new shots and link back to your service record on bungie.net. So, send me those images!

Oh, by the way, please note that the URL for this blog is now www.achronos.net. The old "tomachronos" blogger one will still work, but as I said, I'm trying to sack up and be a little more chatty outside of my usual bungie.net trolling.

DRM is bad, m'kay?

2007-04-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hit the link for a nice article in the Economist to remind people why DRM is dumb.

The short version: DRM doesn't work. Treating every customer as a criminal pisses us off, and is really stupid when the real pirates make short work of every DRM scheme ever created. A better plan is to do some digital watermarking so that you can trace the origin of said content so if your content shows up on YouTube or something like that, you can tell where it came from and know easily that it isn't authorized. This then allows people to buy your content safe in knowledge that if they want to use it on any of their devices, they can.

I have no problem paying for content. But I'm not paying for content that I can't watch where I want just because it is digital and not tied to a disc.

Just... why?

2007-04-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Please take a moment out of your day today to pause and say a prayer for those affected by the shooting at Virginia Tech. I went to school there, and had friends in the AJ dorm, as well as had several classes in the Norris building.

It is easy for me to imagine myself in the midst of that, and it is unnerving. And I'm in Seattle and several years removed from school - I can't imagine what it is like for people there right now.

So, please... just a moment of your time for a prayer, or simply a minute of silent reflection. Then, when you're done, resolve to not go quietly into the night as shit falls apart around us. Stand up and don't just demand answers - demand solutions. Don't let this fade from memory after the next big news story hits.

The PS3 Song, or why the Internet is awesome

2007-03-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Just watch this, and tell me the Internet isn't great.

That video is great. Too funny. :)

My Great Dane

2007-03-03T01:55:00.000-08:00

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but a while ago I got a second dog. He's a great dane puppy Jarrah and I named Asher. He is currently about 5 months old, and he's already bigger than our other dog, a seven year old shar-pei/pointer mix.

Hit the links for some video of him doing some tricks, as well as his recent encounters with snow.

Asher waving Hello/Good-bye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcY8R4xDKDU

Asher playing dead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhNYEvDC8J8

Asher & Nick in the snow (Shot in early January, note how much he’s grown in two months compared to the first two, as they were made recently)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtnPL9abQRw

One Year

2007-02-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

One year. That's how long until I will be married.

It is amazing how fast time goes.

On an unrelated note, I am done with winter. Well, technically, snow doesn't bother me, but the inability of people in the Seattle area to drive with any skill is infuriating. I mean, if you want to drive slower, fine... just don't do it in the passing lane for the love of all that is holy!

Okay, back to work.

Few things make me angry

2006-09-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Few things make me angry. I made a decision a long time ago that most things aren't worth getting all bent out of shape. My life has been much less stressful ever since. However, today, someone did something that made me very angry. This unnamed person - so unnamed because I don't know who it was, not because I wouldn't reveal their name here - likely hit a cat in our new neighborhood with a car. Now, it isn't our cat, and I don't really even like cats. But this person for some reason decided that this cat (without a collar) was ours, and left the dying cat on my front porch.

What the hell, right? What kind of idiot would do that? What if that was a family cat, and I had a small child, who woke up to get ready for school or watch his morning cartoons and found our barely alive cat on the front porch? Really... what the hell was this person thinking?

But that wasn't even the part that made me seriously angry. The part that made me really angry was having my fiance discover this cat, still breathing, and having to take it to the nearby vet, and then being told that the cat had died. This made her cry, and rightfully so. I mean, nobody, not even a cat, should have to die being dumped on a stranger's doorstep. The vet didn't even have time to put the cat to sleep humanely, it likely suffered on our doorstep all night, just because some asshole wouldn't take responsibility for their actions. Furthermore, this same asshole made my future wife cry. This person better hope I never find out who they are. There is a reason why I decided that it wasn't worth getting angry over things that don't matter.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Nobody makes Jarrah sad. NOBODY. I am a problem solver. When I encounter something like this, I want to fix it. As I don't know who left the cat on our doorstep, and the cat has already passed, so I can't fix it in any way. This makes me even angrier. So... if you happen to be reading this, and you killed a cat in my neighboorhood, go volunteer at the humane society or PAWS for a month to at least make partial amends for making Jarrah sad. The alternative is you come to my front door, and Jarrah kicks you in the junk (assuming you're a guy), and I kick you in the stomach. Because that's how this feels.

Sure, it wouldn't really help anything, but I'd probably feel better afterward. Uncaring bastard.

Busy, but Happy Times

2006-08-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm pretty much moved into my new house now. It is a bit bigger than necessary, but I plan on staying there for a long time, so I'll probably grow into. Especially considering that last Wednesday, I got engaged to my longtime girlfriend, Jarrah. We've even set a date, February 29th, 2008. Yes, Leap Day. An odd date to get married, but then again, we're not "normal." And, hey, I'll at least remember the aniversary. And considering my usual memory for such important dates, I need all the help I can get.

AJAX and Bungie.net

2006-07-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

I recently (well, a few months ago) came upon a problem. I was tasked with improving the bungie.net content system to make things easier on the content editors. The first obvious task was to change the way the top stories were handled back to being in the database like every other kind of news. But in doing so, we had to figure out a way to still allow the editors a high degree of control over the appearence of their content without having to resort to editing HTML code. At the same time, this content system had also handle generic pieces of content on the Halo 3 product information page and allow for the addition of new content and layout without developer intervention. And it all had to be done before E3 (at this point it was 2 months into the future).

So - the problem was that I had to create a way for the editors to create pages without developer intervention, have a high degree of control, and layout had to be able to change too. After some research, I decided that going for AJAX implementions of such systems was the proper step forward. Doing so would allow me to use the Halo 3 product information page as a prototype to see how far I could take it without substantially changing the look and feel of bungie.net.

The problem, though (and the point of this post) - was AJAX itself. I didn't want to write the Javascript directly - dealing with as many browser variations as we do, I didn't have time to do that kind of thing. Besides, I'm more of a C# guy anyway. I looked at Atlas, but Atlas is in Community Preview. I have a production website - that wasn't going to cut it (remember, this is early March).

Thankfully, I found a controls vendor that seemed to have everything I needed with favorable licensing terms: the Telerik r.a.d.Controls. These controls were great and well supported. One of the best things about them is that they hide a lot of the complexity, but do it in a way so that the complex behaviors are still available if you want to program at a lower level. They also recently made everything Atlas-compatible, so I can still use that technology if I so desire. I recommend you check it out if you do this sort of thing.

Moving sucks, but the end results are worth it

2006-06-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, I live in downtown Bellevue, WA. Now, the great thing about Bellevue is that I am 10 minutes to anywhere I need to go - Bungie in Kirkland, the Hurricane or Buckley's in Seattle, the Cinerama, etc. I can also make quick trips to Redmond if I need to, or have quick access to my friends that live north in Bothell and Mill Creek.

But... there is a huge disadvantage to living where I do - I live in a 755 square foot condominium, with my girlfriend and my dog.

Yeah, you might be able to guess that things are cramped. And with my home's equity at an all time high, and with interest rates seemingly constantly rising, it is time to bail. This means, though, packing up all the previously mentioned crap and moving. To where, I don't know. But it will be real house this time, and have a yard. I am sick of living in a condo where I can't even play games at a normal volume because my downstairs neighbors go to bed at 10pm for some strange reason.

So, starting today I'll be getting my agent to start the selling process and the house hunting. Should be interesting. While I loathe the actual process of moving (packing, selling, transporting, etc.) - the end result will be glorious. I am really looking forward to putting together a real movie/game/computer room, not having to wear headphones anymore when playing games, and being able to buy and install all kinds of neat, geeky toys to "improve" my house.

A question of topic

2006-06-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

So, it has been a while since my last post. I could explain myself, and say I was busy, but that would be a lie. What is actually the problem is that I don't really know what you guys would like to chat about.

I'll try and start posting some more stuff, mostly on games industry stuff, maybe a few technical things, since I am a web developer after all. But, feel free to post questions about things in the comments (don't email me, I don't read my gmail account). I'll talk about the stuff that catches my fancy. I'm much more responsive to people who ask questions that start conversations, rather than being forced to come up with topics myself.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-23T13:50:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post for today - I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. I'm going to be visiting friends/relatives, and then enjoying my new XBox 360. Should be a fun weekened... especially since I'm on vacation through Monday.

Followup: Intelligent Design

2005-11-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

Hit the link to read how even the Vatican says Intelligent Design is crap, and evolution is perfectly compatible with the story of Genesis.

Nice to know they realize faith vs. science is a non-starter in this day and age. Now, if we could only get bishops from stopping to announce their refusals to grant communion to certain politcians publically. That is between the politician and the priest, and is not something anybody should care about except a bishop wanting to pretend he's more important than he should be in a secular government.

Intelligent Design vs Evolution

2005-10-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

[hit the link to read the article that got me thinking about this]

People who believe in intelligent design need to understand something - it isn't science. Science requires the use of the scientific method. You cannot test intelligent design. You cannot propose an experiment to verify it. You cannot collect data. What is intelligent design, if not a theory? It is an opinion. It is your "opinion" that evolution doesn't fully explain what you observe.

Guess what? That's okay... but your opinion has no bearing on teaching biology. Biology students need to learn biology science. They need to learn about the theories, laws, experiments, etc. so that when they get older and issues in biology come up (think stem cells, bioengineering), the students will be able to have an intelligent debate.

I never understand why these stupid debates happen. For reference, I'm Catholic. I believe God created everything. But I also believe in evolution, and the big bang. My religion tells me the answer to the "why are we here" question. But it doesn't tell my how it happened. Think about it - God is all powerful and all knowing... don't you think he could have created the universe in The Big Bang, and then started evolution as the process to create the vessel for the human soul.

It takes a lot of arrogance to say to biologists that their best theory of how life evolved is wrong, and offer nothing but an opinion as a replacement. Get it through your head - science and religion don't mix things up as they don't talk about the same things. Science == how things happened, when they happened, and what happened. Religion is all about WHY things happened. As a biology class isn't asking "why are we here", that means intelligent design is a pointless waste of time outside of Sunday School.

Buy this T-Shirt right now

2005-09-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Go to the url linked above, and buy that T-Shirt. You'll add to the already $120,000 raised in about a week for hurricane victims.

To all those that have already donated, you rock. I'm sometimes a bit jaded, but seeing people pull together to help restores my faith in humanity. Thanks.

Pat Robertson

2005-08-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of new posts, I'll try to get better.

So, uh, Pat Robertson, in the span of two days, declared that the United States should assasinate the president of Venezuela, then less than 24 hours later, denied that he said it (he was misinterpreted, he said), then not more than a few hours later was on TV apologizing for it. Apparently he is "frustrated."

Okay, so I'm not a big fan of the Christian Coalition (which Mr. Robertson founded, I believe). But I try to see your side of it. I have to ask, though - why is Pat Robertson still allowed to speak on your behalf? He's forgotten lots of Christian principles... I'm thinking specifically of "Thou shall not kill" and how Christ taught to love one's neighbor.

Advocating immoral things is pretty much as bad as picking up the gun and doing it yourself. We arrest terrorists all the time who preach that the infidels must die. How is what Pat said any different?

Pat Robertson stopped being a Christian a long time ago. Now, he's just another radical politician who couldn't get elected President. The Christian Coalition should get itself a new public figure, and stuff Robertson in the back room.

I want to be inspired by America again

2005-07-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

I was watching TV the other night, something about the tsunami victims, and a grand vision came to mind rather suddenly. Imagine, that in December, when it happened, that the President of the United States made a special address to Congress, and announced that we were going to war against the disaster... to save everyone there. We would send not just money, but people in the form of the United States military to help them pick up the pieces. Imagine that for a moment. Instead of sending money and forgetting about it, we'd spend money ourselves, hiring contractors and paying the military, bypassing the corruption, and truely help. Nobody would be bitch at Haliburton and Bechtel for sucking up funds in Iraq, since they'd be building new infrastructure to help disaster victims instead of rebuilding stuff that we bombed in a war. Even the corporate barons would love it, because they could get some footholds in the rebuilt disaster areas for new businesses in an emerging market.

I know such a thing is impossible when we have two wars going on (Afganistan and Iraq) simply from a financial and manpower perspective, but regardless of what you think about going to Iraq, it would be nice to see that kind of thing happen - to see the government step up and do something only they could do.

I don't know why I thought of that, maybe I'm just tired of hearing people bicker about Iraq, seeing the pictures of the tsunami again. Maybe is that for once, I would like the rest of the world to point at the United States and not be doing so because they're pissed at some foreign policy of ours. To some, that's probably not important, but maybe it is the first step at truely solving the intertwined problems of terrorism and poverty - fight the sources of such things, not symptoms. Finding actual targets in those two conflicts (terrorism/poverty) is so hard.

Of course, maybe it is just that I want to feel inspired by my country's government again, something that I haven't been for a long time. It did come close when Bush announced his new space travel extended plan, but that's so long term, and it was filled with empty promises and little funding. It is easy to promise things when he's not going to be the man in charge after a few years. Oh well, at least he's trying. Sometimes I think Bush's advisors control him a bit too much. I don't know if that's good or bad.

So it turns out I can be lazy

2005-07-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

So, I sort of changed my mind. For now, I'm just going to leave this journal here and keep posting to it it as I think of things. Meanwhile, if you guys want to send me interesting stuff, I've set up a gmail account at achronos@gmail.com that is only used for this blog. Please understand that I reserve the right to publish any comments you send there to here... including making fun of you. :)

So, it has been a while

2005-06-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

So, I've been busy. I haven't forgotten about this place. However, I'm not too happy with the system they use here, so I'm considering moving my blog elsewhere. So far, I have two options - roll my own software (not too hard for me), or use livejournal (I have in the past). Or I could just stay here and suck it up. Any comments? Other suggestions?

Fire is cool

2005-03-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

Hit the title link to see a fun toy that someone should get me. :)

Religious Rebublicans need a reality check

2005-03-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

Expanding on the the theme from yesterday, hit the title link to see a handy and amusing list of some odd stuff coming out of the mouths of those current in power of the Republican party.

And, for the record, I'm a moderate independent, with no party ties. I've voted for Republicans, Democrats, and even a Libertarian. But, lately, the Republicans seem content to let people like Pat Robertson dictate their policy. The Christian Coalition wouldn't know real faith if it hit them in the face. Their intolerant, backward thinking ways mixing with regular fiscal conservative thinking (Global warming is junk science, but creationism should be taught as a legitimate alternative to the "untested" theory of evolution? Horseshit) is holding our development as a civilization back!

Every REAL conservative (moderate by today's definition) should know that a liberal idea always wins over time. Look at civil rights or woman's suffrage. Sure, conservatives didn't like those, but then gradually, it normal to have woman's suffrage or civil rights for all. It is okay to want to go slow to new ideas, or be fiscally conservative, but it is easy to get stuck down in the intolerant space of being conservative.

Now, if we could only get some good presidential candidates and some instant runoff voting, then we might have a real debate in this country. A good start would be the Democrats actually standing up to the Republicans with alternate ideas instead of just telling everyone that the Republicans and their ideas suck.

Where's a theology professor when you need one?

2005-03-21T15:29:00.000-08:00

The linked article is talking about the current issues in the Florida right to die case. One passage in particular bears notice:

"During the hearing, David Gibbs, an attorney for the parents, said that forcing Schiavo to die by starvation and dehydration would be "a mortal sin" under her Roman Catholic beliefs."

That kind of stuck out. I'm a Roman Catholic, and I know lots about Catholic theology. The reason this stuck out was because it is false.

I can only assume Mr. Gibbs is talking about how suicide is a mortal sin - and if you have a mortal sin on your soul when you die, you go to hell. Now, there are two components to a mortal sin. The first is that it has to be a serious matter - and suicide satisifies that.

Of course, Mr. Gibbs doesn't mention the other part. He doesn't mention that for anything to be a sin, there has to be choice involved. A human being's soul (according to Roman Catholic dogma) is made up of two parts - the intellect and the free will. They cannot function without each other. The woman in question is in a permanent vegetative state. She cannot express any will - she has none - she is already gone. She therefore can't "choose" anything - so she can't commit suicide, or any other sin.

Come on people, you learn this stuff in Sunday School.

Oh, and we'll leave out why Congress and the President need to fucking stay the hell away from this issue. Luckily, federal judges seem to be operating at a bit smarter level. Hopefully that will continue. I know I'd personally hate to have Congress trying to dictate my cases to me as I'm hearing them if I were a judge.

Of course, if I were a judge, this would be over a long time ago.

On the last post...

2005-03-18T15:05:00.000-08:00

Just as a followup - I don't agree with everything those people said at the "GDC Rant". I just thought it was interesting. When I said "they talk about issues that need to be solved" I simply mean that they need closure - whether or not it warrants drastic action is up for debate.

That said, I wouldn't want to do anything else, aside from possibly being a federal judge. I think that would be very interesting given the right cases. But, aside from that, I wouldn't want to do anything else professionally, even given some of the problems the industry has. Every industry has problems. Not all industries are a showcase for some of the best creative talent in the world.

GDC Panels Are Cool

2005-03-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

Anybody at all interested in the gaming industry should read this. It is a very frank panel from GDC that discusses a lot of the issues facing the industry that really need to get solved for us to get anywhere in the future. The comment about the gaming industry being close minded to developments in software engineering outside gaming is particularly good.

Nature's Fury

2005-02-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know I haven't posted anything in a while. But, let's face it... nobody really cares.

However, here's a gift. Hit the title link for a show of nature being creative. Pretty amazing, huh? More amazing than it being 50 degrees without a cloud in the sky for a week in Seattle in February? You be the judge.

New Computer - And the Verdict is In

2005-01-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

I purchased a new machine from www.gamepc.com, and the verdict is in, now that I have it.

My computer computer is shiny! And... that's all I got. I haven't turned it on yet. Still making myself a slipstreamed WinXP Sp2 cd with some extra drivers, and also backing up older stuff.

So, for now, the verdict is that my new computer, affectionally christened "glitch", is shiny. Maybe I'll post some random benchmarks here later.

Washington State's Fiscal Policy is Whacked

2005-01-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

Hit the title link for a story about the Initiative system and the sales tax system in this state is idiotic.

First, the sales tax system. It is terribly unfair, as it taxes the middle/lower classes more than the upper classes of income. Second, it is very defeatable in such a global marketplace where you buy things that don't have sales tax attached to them from out of state.

Then you have the Initiative system. For those who don't know, this basically where citizens can write their own legislation, get it on the ballot, and get it made into law, subject to various restrictions and rules. The problem, of course, is that the vast majority of people are either idiots or don't care. They vote against education bonds because they raise their property tax a bit, but then wonder why public schools suck so much. They reject car tab taxes/fees and then wonder why their commute sucks so much.

Fucking DUH! Plus, because the population is centered around Seattle, it means they can dictate policy that SUCKS for the rest of the state.

We have legislators because we don't have the time to deal with legislation. It is a complicated process. If you want specific legislation passed, get your represenative/senator to sponsor it, and then get it passed through the houses so the entire impact is understood.

This business about "not trusting the hacks in Olympia" is bullshit. A few bad eggs, but most politicians are good people. Or at least they'll listen to the voters, because otherwise they lose their jobs.

And people say the East Coast is fucked up. At least I don't have to worry about some tool like Tim Eyman trying to make my commute worse because he and his cronies don't want to pay for their car tabs. Morons.

So I'm getting a new computer

2005-01-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

Well, actually, I ordered it on December 10th from www.gamepc.com. I like their work and their staff, although the prices aren't always the best, they're usually close. And they don't say they have a part until they really do, like certain other places. But, anyway, I got a Athlon 64 FX-55, and a Nvidia 4 SLI board with two Geforce 6800 GTs.

That was on December 10th.

Fast forward to today, and I still don't have it because there aren't any PCI Express GTs. But, apparently, 6800 Ultras are available, and would I like two of those instead.

Yes, they cost more. A lot more. More than I should ever pay for a graphics card. And I'm getting two of them. No current game needs that kind of power. So, of course...

...I say "Sure, go ahead, I'll pay an extra $500 for my already expensive machine that I could have had two months ago had I built it myself like I usually do."

I am such a technology whore. I have no shame. But I'll be able to play Half-Life 2 at its best visual settings.

Who am I kidding? I'm so far backed up in games I won't play Half Life 2 until midsummer, and in the mean time, my beast of a computer's primary gaming application will be my girlfriend playing the Sims 2 as I play on my Xbox. Oh well... at least the drawing distance and particle effects will be better in World of Warcraft.

If this is you, seek help now

2005-01-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

I can understand being a fanboy. Seriously, I'm on the community team for Halo 2, we have quite a few diehards fans that are usually our community's core strength. But, come on, when it is SNOWING in Seattle, and below 30 degrees, that means God is telling you to wait a few more weeks. Especially for a movie that may not necessarily be any good.

I find the trick with these recent Star Wars movies is to sit back, don't analyze it, enjoy your popcorn, and watch the show. Don't pay much attention to the dialogue delivery, focus on the choreography, the settings, the world that comes alive. They're much better that way. Maybe then you can understand getting in line 22 weeks early for a movie. Maybe.

Xbox Live Friends and You (and Me)

2004-12-31T23:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, so, I haven't been playing Halo 2 very much lately. World of Warcraft kind of sucked me in, and then KOTOR 2. And that's just since Christmas. But I checked my friends list today, and apparently I have around 75 people who want to be my Friend on Xbox Live.

Guys, no offense, but if I don't know you, you're not my friend. If we meet in a game, fine, that's a good way. But sending me a blank friends request or a request saying "You don't know me, but you work at Bungie and I want to kick your ass" is not a good way to introduce yourself.

See you around, and Happy New Year... in 14 minutes, Pacific time.

So I finally did it

2004-12-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

So, I finally joined the rest of the world and started my own blog. I guess it is kind of silly that I didn't have a place for just posting whatever the hell I feel like talking about onto the Internet when I've been using it for so long. Especially considering that my job entails me spending a lot of time with a community web site to begin with. That's probably the reason it took me so long - I didn't want to deal with another web site when not at work.

Yet, here I am. In this space, I'm going to talk about whatever pops into my head, and basically talk to no one in particular. Feel free to comment, positively or negatively, or simply email me at achronos@gmail.com. And, before it starts, I should let you know that I'm not going to be answering any questions about my employer or projects there, and anything I say will not be their opinion. This is for stuff not dealing with work, because I can't really talk about work without it being taken out of context and made into an "official" statement.

I think that sucks, myself. Such is the nature of the Internet, though. Ah, the nature of the Internet... we'll eventually have a conversation about how the anonymous nature of the Internet makes most behave like a racist, homophobic, idiotic schmuck, particularly in forums. Or, rather, you'll hear me complain about it. A lot.

Serves you right for reading this... hehehe. Me, I'm going back to enjoying my vacation. Hope you had a good holiday. Everybody be safe on New Year's.