Source of Thoughts

So I'm thinking about spore creature creation contests. Current thought is:

CreatureLibs. I'll post a madlib style request for adjectives, numbers, etc... Anybody that wishes to participate has about three days to reply with their answers. At the closing, I'll post the actual madlib, and everyone has about a week to make a creature matching their description.

At the end, everyone posts their critter, and there is a public poll (Everyone can vote, even if they didn't participate, can't vote for yourself).

I'd need at least 5 people to make it worthwhile, but I'd be willing to put up a 25$ Barnes and Noble card (My credit card reward) for the winner.

Any takers?

Link Mania

Patents
Video Game Design Theory
Dodgeball!

Need to get back more often...

Ok, so Spore has a release date (early September) and a release date for the Creature Editor (early June)

I was thinking about classifying the creatures, and how the system would need to be different for an open ended system like this compared to the natural evolution that earth has seen.

( Lot's of blathering on about it )

( Working for ME on capitol hill )

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time
handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now
restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses

--Juvenal

It took me two days (prolly 3-4 hours at work) to get through all of this, but it was well worth it.

It's politics, of the sort I like:

"But the monster drug problem we have created is compounded by moves to tax citizens so government can hand out free needles to drug addicts who are breaking the law, in hopes there will be less spread of hepatitis and AIDs in order to reduce government health-care costs. This proposal shows how bankrupt we are at coming to grips with this problem."

"In our early history, it was understood that a free society embraced both personal civil liberties and economic liberties. During the 20th Century, this unified concept of freedom has been undermined. Today we have one group talking about economic freedom while interfering with our personal liberty and the other group condemning economic liberty, while preaching the need to protect personal civil liberties. Both groups reject liberty 50% of the time. That leaves very few who defend liberty all the time. Sadly, there are too few in this country who today understand and defend liberty in both areas."

"And there are others with equally good intentions that insist on writing even more laws and regulations punishing non-violent behavior in order to teach good manners and instill character. But they fail to see that tolerating non-violent behavior-even when stupid and dangerous to one's own self-is the same as our freedom to express unpopular political and offensive ideas and to promote and practice religion in any way one chooses. Resorting to writing more laws with the intent of instilling "character" and good "manners" in the people is anathema to liberty. The love of liberty can come only from within and is dependent on a stable family and a society that seeks the brotherhood of man through voluntary and charitable means."

"And there are others who believe that government force is legitimate in promoting what they call fair economic redistribution. The proponents of this course have failed to read history and instead adhere to economic myths. They ignore the evidence that this effort to help their fellow man will inevitably fail. Instead, it will do the opposite and lead to the impoverishment of many more. But more importantly, if left unchecked this approach will destroy liberty by undermining the concept of private property ownership and free markets, the bedrock of economic prosperity."

"None of these alternatives will work. Character and good manners are not a government problem. They reflect individual attitudes that can only be changed by individuals themselves."

This leads me to the ultimate fan-boy question. You've got an interest in a relatively underrepresented sub-genre of movies/fiction. Right now there's not a lot of money going into making quality, or ANY examples of this sub-genre. Something comes along that is obviously a bad example of something you want them to do well. Do you

A: Support the effort wholeheartedly. If they see they are making money at it, they will make more, and the field will be more competitive, increasing quality with time

B: Ignore, lambast, or criticize it. First off, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. We don't want the castoffs, we don't want to be treated as a second rate market who will lap up any POS they toss our way, and are thus underdeserving of higher standards of quality used on more discerning crowds

I got this... I had to see just how bad it was, and it was pretty bad, the animation quality was third rate, and the dialogue was... if not actually dumbed down, certainly wasn't tweaked to the relatively high caliber of acting talent they had. Other than that, it's pretty much the same story I remembered from 20 (!) years ago.

It gets a little preachy, something I DON'T remember, but hey, what are you going to do.

This is out...

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I had a discussion last night with someone who did not think that the explicit purpose of the second amendment was to enable the people (either as the states or as individuals) to maintain the means to rise up against a future tyrannical federal government.

I had always thought that it was generally accepted that this was the case. (and not that we had the right to defend ourselves from lions, tigers, bears, Russians, drug-crazed home invaders)

I'm curious about the consensus out there. What do you think?

I pose this question separate from several issues, namely:

Whether it refers to state (official, organized) militias or to each person individually
Whether modern weapons technology has made the concept of an armed populace to dangerous to be worthwhile (I’m not going to call a person who’d give up a little freedom to get a little safety irrational…)

Simply put: Do you believe the express purpose of the 2nd amendment was to enable the populace to resist tyranny from a Federal army?

For these women, a unique, and most unexpected dilemma, presents itself: Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?

Quick poll: Is voting FOR someone because of their race, sex, or creed any less biased, bigoted, and above all moronic than voting AGAINST then? Isn't that a double standard?

(AKA, hold out for Condi and get the best of both worlds...)

Seriously though, I want opinions...

Lack of this is what caused the fudge shop to fail

It's officially been a while. Not sure how much of it is literally too busy, and how much of it is a newfound sense of 'privacy'.

Anyway, when last we left our faithful adventurer, he was boasting of his shiny new car and raise. We'll start there. The car is still a car. Way less exciting now that A: I'm paying for it, and B: It's too cold to put the top down. I'm hoping it warms up soon, because I'd like to do more driving with it down, and now that we're past the solstice, I'm more and more capable of cycling in to work every day. Boss man says I can even get a locker here to store my soap and stuff. (It's a refinery, so there's lockers and showers and whatnot for the operators.) I'd like to make biking in my default commute. In theory, it goes through some bad parts of town. In reality, it's pretty much a tour of the bad parts of town. Doesn't bug me too much though, since they aren't THAT bad. Crime is pretty bad in Houston, but for the most part, it's imported New Orleans crime.

Work is going well. We got sold again, so there's an integration project that has effectively cancelled the previous integration project. I think that Lyondell was trying to beef up it's size compared to Basell, which was the reason for the rush. Now that the merger has happened, it's less of a priority. (And all the people that thought it was seem to all be gone now.)

So there's that.

I have a girlfriend now. I'll save the singing of the praises, it's just the kind of a major life development I feel like I should be mentioning here. We've been dating for just under 2 months now. She has pneumonia atm, which it looks like I gave her. She still likes me, which I consider to be a good sign.

I went to the doctor for the first time in 13 years. I got antibiotics. They got me over the worst of it. (Mine never developed into full on pneumonia, but it did knock me down for 2 weeks.)

I want my life back, something fierce. While I appreciate the chance to feed my CoDIV addiction (just cycled through into the second prestige level), I miss having the energy to do things... you know... things...

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What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Existentialism Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life. “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” “It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” --Jean-Paul Sartre “It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.” --Blaise Pascal More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... Existentialism 80% Strong Egoism 65% Hedonism 60% Justice (Fairness) 60% Divine Command 45% Kantianism 40% Nihilism 25% Utilitarianism 25% Apathy 15%

It's been a while...

Can't stay long, so here's the skinny... Two weeks ago the truck broke down irrevokably, so I bought an Eos (it's a VW, look it up).

5 minutes ago, my boss gave me a 12% raise. (unasked)

Go me... ;)

Yes, but it was an interview, and it was my job, so it doesn't really count.

Guess where I'm going tonight?

And yes, work is very very VERY VERY slow today

Finding out the difference between sings and stings really took a lot of the joy out of puberty for me

It's been a while.

I just bought a 50 inch HD TV that comes with it's own xbox 360, copy of Halo 3, etc etc etc...

Net price 1,300...

Expensive, but worth it.

Weeeeeee

For the record, this isn't me