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March 29, 2007
Where's my red cape?
Cory Doctorow image courtesy of Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
Cory Doctorow - not only are you my hero, you are the INTERNETS hero!!
Posted by dottie at 2:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2007
Smoke and be happy!
It's official. An extensive research project has found no link between smoking grass and cancer.
In fact they found the very opposite - there was a slight positive effect.
So, smoke it if you got it, if you don't got it, then you hit rock bottom
Comments
Phats
Hi
I stumbled across your blog while looking thru google for an image of Phats, is that your nickname too?
Posted by dottie at 1:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 15, 2007
Terror-free oil company in the states
An organisation called the Terror Free Oil initiative have started up a petrol station in Omaha that sells petrol made only from oil obtained from countires that don't support terrorism.
Apparently the oil comes from Canada and the U.S.
Hang on? Doesn't the U.S. support terrorism? Suharto, El Salvador, the creation and extensive support of the Mujehedin? Just to name a few that come off the top of my head?
hmmm...
Posted by dottie at 3:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 9, 2007
Breakthrough research on HIV
HIV is such a formidabl foe due to the fact that it constantly mutates in addition to being covered in layers of sugary molecules that make it near impossible for anti-bodies to bind with and destroy it.
LInk to New Scientist article »
Scientists have long known that at least one protein in the HIV virus must remain stable to allow it to bind with human cells and do its thing.
They have sucessfully gathered enough information about the structure of the protein to facilitate what should be fruitful research toward producing a vaccine for HIV.
Good work lads! Another feather in the cap of godless heathens everywhere!
Posted by dottie at 6:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2007
Oh my goodness!
A christian edition of Ubuntu.
I kid you not
check out the virtual Rosary
Linux CE (not churhc of England, but Christian Edition) - stuffed full of strictness to make sure that all those good little Christian children won't learn about the important skills needed in modern life - analytical thinking, sense of humour and an open mind.
Why don't they just use OSX? That is supported by a preachy, evangelising cult with a dodgy figurehead
:)
Think different or dont think at all!
Posted by dottie at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 4, 2007
What happens when the U.S. Empire collapses?
It will happen eventually and now, moe than any other time in its history, the U.S. is ripe for collapse. Internal strife, huge social problems, lack of guidance and 'honour' from Government, terrible foreign policy resulting in bad foreign relations (even from allies, especially at the grass roots level), rising terrorist threats (real or imagined), increase in possibility of some kind of civil war - most likely based on social strife.
This is an interesting little presentation comparing how the USSR managed in its collapse and how the U.S. is totally unprepared for the same thing.
The U.S. has many troops abroad - imagine trying to repatriate them all? Imagine economic collapse and the subsequent refugees. Imagine what would happen at the Canadian and Mexican borders?
Imagine if the military, either acting on U.S. government orders or autonomously, decided to annex border areas of Mexico or Canada? Who would stop them? How would you stop them? Imagine how desperate they would be.
There would be massive famine across the U.S., millions would die of starvation - mostly in the cities where many people live in crippling debt anyway and have no access to independent transport or anywhere to go if they did have it.
I think there may be a novel in there somewhere...
Comments
Paul
Imagine if the military, either acting on U.S. government orders or autonomously, decided to annex border areas of Mexico or Canada? Who would stop them? How would you stop them?
As long as they check their guns at the border, they are welcome to come into Canada. If not, they will get will get their asses kicked. Maybe not immediately...but in short order.
Canada is not a quagmire the US would like to get involved with. We're nice...but crazy too.
dottie
he he.
I'm just going on the U.S. usual reaction to shortages - seize the resources.
If those resources happen to be across the border in still functioning Canada (resources like running water, functioning distribution systems and candy machines) then I don't think the U.S. would balk (at leats not for long) at full-scale invasion!
I'd hate to see it happen - mostly because you guys would kick U.S. butt, but be nice about it.
The courtesy would be the deciding factor - the U.S. troops wouldnt know what to make of it!
Richard Querin
While I'm not an avid TV watcher by any means, I'm always up for an apocalyptic show or novel (Stephen King's The Stand comes to mind). The current show "Jericho" is one I am actually following. If you haven't seen it, it seems to be delving into these issues at the moment. It's no documentary by any means, but it is fun (or rather 'entertaining') to see other people's take on the collapse of the US.
As a Canadian, I can say that any real collapse in the US will take Canada along with a bunch of other nations right along with it. Not something I am keen to ever see. But if that's what it takes to get "Entertainment Tonight" off the air for good then so be it. :)
Posted by dottie at 1:15 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 3, 2007
Gaming Industry v.s. gameplay
The games industry is in a weird space right now.
At first glance it would seem to be healthy, profitable, on top of its 'game'.
There is a problem though. The point has been made before that modern games, while they look great, can be frustrating, pointless or even boring to play.
On reason for this is that so much resources go into making sure the game looks great. Game companies even go as far as releasing pre-rendered movies claiming that they are the actual in-game experience.
Lies!
The funny thing is that rendering engines have come a long way. For example there is a rendering engine that is offered to independent developers and studios (ie. thos with no major distribution contracts) for $200. The C4 game engine looks pretty good.
There may be a lot wrong with it for the fussy fan boys of full-screen anit-aliasing or 12 pass poly-shading or whatever.
All that shit doesn't matter. If the gameplay is poor then all the rest is just turd polishing.
The point is that there are game engines out there that are cheap and do all the necessary basics.
Why aren't there more games with great gameplay?
Years ago there was a game called Deus Ex. This game responded to the way you played by changing the way people interacted with you. In other words your actions had consequence.
When I downloaded the demo and played as I would normally play in a first person shooter my colleagues in the game (your colleagues are all A.I.) treated me like a pariah. It was great!
OK, the graphics left a lot ot be desired and the actual way you interacted with the world was quite clunky, but the gameplay shone through despite that.
Most game companies now spend all those years of development work in writing a new game engine. You've got to ask yourslef that after a certain level are they game companies or game engine development companies?
The distinction is huge.
Back in the day, you would send a game company your money, money order, cheque in the post and they would post you back anything from a box full of cut-up bits of cardboard and bits of plastic to a spiral bound book explaining how to play their particular brand of soldiers.
They were real game companies. Most of their time was spent worrying about how the game would work and then they polished the game pieces for distribution.
Nowadays, that is all turned on its head. All the bits are polised first and then they sit around wondering how to create a compelling game.
bleh.
People still play chess, draughts, snakes and ladders, dice games, card games and will continue to do so for many hundreds of more years because the game is stripped down to its bare essentials.
I'd love to spend some time writing a game using the C4 game engine and I might even download the demo to see what it can do.
Meanwhile for your delectation some alternate game developers:
My favourite - Experimental Gameplay Project
IGDA - Independent Game Developers Association
Posted by dottie at 1:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack