Being Busy

Yes, that means I'm busy. Busy, busy, busy. But have no fear, all will return to normal next week.
Why am I busy, you (don't) ask? Why, this being the internet, it has to do with cats. Actually just one, and its boy. More on that later.

Until then I leave you with these deep thoughts: after watching Avatar whenever I find my cat in one of its hiding places I say 'I see you' and get the distinct impression that it replies 'I haz not see you, leaves mes alonez'

Oh, cultural/moral/viewpoint relativity, why are you so delicious?

You know what I mean. Or maybe you don't, because maybe you are one of those fascists who have no respect for the opinions of others, how dare you claim that there is only one absolute reality, even Einstein said that all is relative * squeak* but that's not what he meant *unsqueak*.

Why won't you just let people believe (as in know that what they believe is real) what they want? Why you go hatin' on healing crystals, mind powers, and the Lord Jeezus who was a level 12 Atlantean from the planet Epsilon Crazyeye 9?

What has Humongousfoot ever done to you? You and your blind science telling us that reality is a boring place and that we're not all connected in a six corner timecube that is quantumlingly hyper-rotating in the 11th dimension.

I was never really good at crazy, I could never go full crazy, but I have been called crazy and narrow-minded for believing we can come to know the universe and hence reality by observation and experimentation and not by personal revelation handed down by some fantasy creature or another, so maybe there's still hope for me.

But that's not really what bothers me about relativity, not the crazy woo-woo quantum people. It's normal people in their everyday interactions who use this relativity that really get on my nerve.

"You and your stupid ideas, look, it's all relative and because of this my view disproves yours and is a lot better, because that's how relativity works, right? Right?"

Don't worry, have some internets

Homo Ludens on the Quest for Glory

January is a slow month and as such we have to find something to keep us busy. If you're like me and have nothing better to do here are my suggestions.

Out of boredom I wanted something to play and since I had a lot of time on my hands I ended up reminiscing about one of my first PC games and I ended up searching for Quest for Glory I (the VGA version).

I still feel guilty for robbing that poor old lady's house. Oh, yes, I made a thief character and put in some points in magic so I could play with some variety. Right, I'm the blonde magic thief.

This game naturally reminded me of another one in which you are anything but the good guy. I can still taste the blood of the countless innocents who have fallen under my blade, muahahahahaha, sort of.

Say what you want about vampires but they are cool (except when they sparkle) and I can't wait for Daybreakers.

After so much blood I had to play a good guy again and who better to fit the role than "Hark, thou art the moste righteous goodeth two shoeth in the land!", yes, that guy from King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, who is righteously dispatching some snowmen here.

How I loved those goofy polygons.

And yes, I know most of us old timers started with Wolfenstein 3D, and this is why I'm providing you with this hilarious YouTube video, enjoy.

So if you remember any other gaming gems from your youth (I mean, my youth was like a few weeks ago, I'm not that old) feel free to share.

Just another day

All I got from the previous post on reddit was, basically, "LOL, utopia". Well, the question didn't get too far, and it hit the obvious obstacles.

Without bothering to go into the details I'll just go ahead and say that all current systems are utopias, just not very good ones. They all started from the desire to improve a previous system. We no longer live in the stone age, or in a feudal system, imperial Rome, or whatever. So it's not that utopias are impossible, it's just that the vast majority of the constituents of a system think that the system they live in is some sort of god-given, always-been-here reality, and not something men and women fought and died for in the past, that is to say nothing short of a full blown utopia.

I also went ahead and propositioned the telepathy/empathy thought experiment and most of the reactions were quite predictable in the realm of "OMFG, people will know my deepest darkest secrets, I should lie and make up all sorts of counter arguments rather than admitting that everyone will know the real me, hell, even I don't know the real me". Suffice to say that hypocrisy is here to stay and it won't go away, not even in an imagined world.

Anyway, since it's that time of the year (no, not that one, the other one) I should cast some hopes into the future.

Oh, and I also postulate that the question coming from the guy sitting in the chair is valid for no matter what time period.

Just an idea

I repent, we should stick to whatever the blind forces that govern the world have in store for us.

Eye candy! Yay!

I've just realized that I haven't had a desktop computer in over five years now. Yup, I'm a laptop person, and right now I have four of them. Two died of old age , another by drowning, the last one is still holding up quite nicely, and I can't gather up the strength to bury the others, I keep them around, like half rotting zombies, or something.

Everyone loves gadgets, they call out to the kid within, here's a little toy you can play with as a grownup and not get laughed at. It's great, everybody wins, or do we?

I'll let you in on what has been my gadgety wet dream for the last few months, so I'll give a sort of review/preview based on my nigh fanatic following of the forums and every bit of news I could get about the product.

Lately, and by lately I mean since March 2009, I've had my eye on a little netbook, developed by a new company called AlwaysInnovating, and the moment I saw it I knew it was everything I wanted in a netbook. Small, 9" screen, instant tablet switcheroo, 10 hour battery life, Linux, and the best thing, judging after some nasty personal experiences, it wouldn't turn into a radiator, venting heat like a some sort of a crazed boiler, thanks to its ARM architecture. Perfect I thought.

See what I mean? Oh, and the screen is detachable, lovely, isn't it?

Well... it sort of isn't, so far. I did the reasonable thing and ordered, or pre-ordered, and then waited, and then waited some more. On the forums it is sacrilege to question the delivery schedule of AI, but overall the ones who did get the product are mostly happy with the product, even though some say that the quality control is horrible and one in three has some defects. Oh, and if you tilt the screen a little more than 90 degrees the netbook falls flat on its back, and now the're shipping little pieces of plastic to glue them to the product to counter balance problems. That didn't stop me from still loving and wanting it.

What did stop me was that the 'massive early December shipment' was a massive disappointment in that it hasn't happened yet, and since I had to order through some friend who would then have to send it over to me, I definitely wouldn't get it by Christmas. And in January, I'm not sure where I am going to be, so I had to cancel.

I'll just have to wait till things settle and maybe TouchBook v.2 shows up.

I'm so sad I could cry. I could but I won't because I mend easily, and lo and behold another temptress is on the horizon.

And here we go again...

Reboot

I'm not out to make a statistic but the last few years have seen quite a large number of reboots (don't you just love the term?). Not that there's anything wrong with reboots in general but it's just that as with any new fad it tends to border on the ridiculous. Such as a month or two ago they were thinking about rebooting Galactica, which was only rebooted in 2004.

I guess that what really bothers me is the "dark and gritty" part, I just cringe whenever I hear the words. Maybe there's something there though, I mean, imagine you're a guy dressed in a BATsuit, driving a BATmobile, throwing BATrangs at BATcriminals (okay, so that last one I made up), you'd find it hard not hearing BATlaughter(TM) if you couldn't maintain an allure of rough and gritty darkness.

Last week I've read on io9 that someone is planning to turn the Forbidden Planet into a TV show, and if memory serves they did have such a thing until it was rebooted by J.J. Abrams' fun (very true) but brain dead creation, it was called Star Trek. The Forbidden Planet is a masterpiece and having re-watched it recently I can say that even after more than 50 year (yes, that's half a century) the movie is still better than most S.F. today. But who knows, maybe they'll do a good job at *quote* rebooting *unquote* it.

What I'm trying to say is that crave for something original, and I've grown tired of hearing about reboots. But I guess that there's truly nothing new under the sun, and we're all just walking tropes, so I'll leave you with www.tvtropes.org which is one of those Internet black holes that will swallow up all your free time.