[kiyote23]
 dorky.radiofreepirate.org

life on the dork farm

Friday, August 31, 2007 :::
 

While I'm waiting for my copy of Metriod Prime 3 to wind it's way through Amazon and the postal service, I've been playing Halo.  I know I'm late on the band-wagon here, and every gamer on the planet already knows this, but Halo is a pretty good game.  In fact, until I get my mitts on Metroid, I might be will to go so far to say that it's the best FPS I've played, at least in a long, long time.  I've mostly been playing FPS games for online multiplayer, but right now I'm really enjoying Halo's single player experience.

There's a lot to recommend about it.  It's got the nicest save feature I've seen-- at any point, hit start, hit save and quit, and you're set.  The game also autosaves frequently, so you don't have to worry about constantly saving your progress.  Any time you die, you start at the last check-point, so quickly and fluidly that it really doesn't seem to think about it.

I guess that's what I'm really enjoying about Halo's single player game, the fluidity.  I don't think I've ever made it this far through a FPS before.  I'm still stuck on one boss in Metroid Prime, the giant plant with the mirrors.  Everytime I play, it takes me 10 minutes to get to his room, and about 3 minutes for him to kill me.  I keep trying over and over until I get bored, and play something else.  That hasn't happened to me yet in Halo.  There have been a couple of points where I've gotten killed repeatedly, but I've been able to make it through them after a couple of tries.  The result is more of a feeling of moving forward as opposed to getting stuck.

Level design has something to do with this as well.  Levels in Halo are relatively linear, without feeling like you're on rails.  Objectives are straightforward and simple.  No complicated puzzles to figure out, just baddies to shoot around every corner, get to end of the level, and then work your way back out.  Level breaks make sense, and the interludes keep the story moving without getting too complicated.

Combined with the sweet save feature, Halo is perfect for grab and go gaming, which I think is unique for a FPS, at least in my experience.  You can boot up the game and be in your save game in about 30 seconds, play for a couple of minutes, then save and quit.  It'll waiting for you the next time you want a quick shoot-em-up fix.  Last night, I was playing while watching the Cubs game.  I'd watch the game a while, and then when the commercials came on, I'd turn on the VCR that the XBox is hooked into, jump into my save game, get to checkpoint, save and quit, turn off the VCR and watch some more of the game.  Of course, eventually the Cubbies made it interesting enough to stay with the ballgame, but you get my drift.

Anyway, Halo should keep my attention until MP3 gets here.  Then Samus and Master Chief will have to duke it out.


::: Bad Cyborg posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/31/2007 08:54:00 AM
::: Comments:
Halo 3 comes out in less than a month. Some of us may never leave our houses again.
# posted by Blogger Churlita : 9/02/2007 11:34 AM
 
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Thursday, August 30, 2007 :::
 

The Exploding Kinetoscope: Echo Chamber - Antonioni Moving, Reflecting, Passing
If we say Antonioni died on July 30, 2007, or was born September 29, 1912, it is to trace a narrative with selectivity. It speaks to a compulsion to give shape to a matterless tour through one plane of sight, sound, experience. But the sands of a red desert are at once unintegrated granules, restless and shifting, and members of a vast, open, sun-blasted expanse; the unified field image of a photograph at once the objective frieze of a moment in time and space, and a death-mask reproduction, built of microscopic chemical blobs, depthless, unmoving. The harder we insist on giving them shape, imbuing them with meaning, the greater the margin of slippage, until, indeed, in the fluoroscopic light off the eclipsed sun, it may be said that Antonioni was never here at all.


::: The Exploding Kinetoscope: Echo Chamber - Antonioni Moving, Reflecting, Passing posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/30/2007 08:29:00 AM
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Wednesday, August 29, 2007 :::
 


Photo_#106.jpg
Originally uploaded by Kiyote23.
For those of you not in the know in the printing industry, this is NOT what a 4 up postcard for mailing should look like.


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/29/2007 12:09:00 PM
::: Comments:
Hey, I work with the guy who's name is on the flyers. This town is soooo small.
# posted by Blogger Churlita : 8/31/2007 8:12 AM
 
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From this morning's Daily Iowan:



The moon sets over downtown Iowa City during a total lunar eclipse throughout the early morning hours of August 28, 2007. As the moon travels through our planet's shadow, the Earth blocks all direct sunlight from reaching the moon; however, some indirect light still reflects off the surface. The Earth's atmosphere filters and refracts this indirect light, resulting in spectacular red hues seen in this time lapse photo illustration. Robin Svec/The Daily Iowan


Sometimes the DI does something wonderful. . .


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/29/2007 08:42:00 AM
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Monday, August 27, 2007 :::
 

Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one - USATODAY.com: "Around 50,000 years ago, something happened to our ancestors in Africa. Anatomically modern humans, who had existed for at least 150,000 years prior, suddenly began behaving differently. Until then, their conduct scarcely differed from that of their hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. Both buried their dead; both used stone tools; and as social apes, both had some form of communication, which some think was gestural.

But then, 'almost overnight, everything changes very rapidly,' says Merritt Ruhlen, a lecturer in the Anthropological Sciences Department at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Humans began making much better stone tools. They started burying their dead with accouterments that suggested religion. And perhaps most telling, Homo sapiens, the 'wise' apes, began creating art."



::: Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one - USATODAY.com posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/27/2007 10:20:00 PM
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I've been using Evan William's software for years.  I started using Blogger back when it was still called Pyra, and even corresponded with him a couple of times back in those old days.  And I had heard of Twitter, but hadn't really checked it out, thinking it was mostly for people who text message with their cell phones.  Much to many of my friends' and relatives' consternation, I don't, so it didn't really seem to be something I'd be interested in.

But then I read about Twitter in Wired, and learned that it was Ev's new baby, and thought that I would give it a try.  I got on the site, got some friends connected, and then started sending in the updates.  I even got some clients for the Macs, though I mostly use GTalk at work.  I would update my morning, and maybe something through the afternoon.  It is a neat tool, and I do see some value in it.

Following people is where it gets weird for me.  Following people I know, as well as you can know peeps through the 'net, that makes sense to me.  It's an extension of the RSS feed, a micro-blog.  Following people I don't know-- well, that's where it starts to break down.

I didn't actually find the people I didn't know.  They found me.  And since they started following me, I started following them.  And that's when Twitter started losing some value for me.  I'd check my gmail at work and find 15 tweets sitting in the gtalk, but none of them were about people I was really interested in.  Eventually I stopped following these random people that I didn't really know.  Right now, the only people I'm following are those to whose blogs I subscribe.

And while the signal to noise ratio has increased, I've found that my personal tweeting has decreased.  Maybe it's because I'm not getting constantly bombarded-- I don't feel the urge to chime in on what random thing I happen to be doing at the moment.

I would love to see more people I know using Twitter.  I do think it's a neat way to just pop a random thought out into the aether.  I think there's definitely something worthwhile to popping randomness out to others.  But I think, for me personally, I need some sort of connection to the people I'm sending random vibes towards.  Sending random vibes to friends, I get.  Sending random vibes to random people, I start to lose the signal, and feel like I'm just contributing to the chorus of chaos that is the wonderful world of Internet.


::: Trying to Get Twitter posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/27/2007 09:57:00 PM
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If Iraq Falls - WSJ.com:
The Bush presidency will soon be on the way out, but America is not. This truth has recently begun to sink in among the major Democratic contenders. Listen to Hillary Clinton, who would leave "residual forces" to fight terrorism. Or to Barack Obama, who would stay in Iraq with an as-yet-unspecified force. Even the most leftish of them all, John Edwards, would keep troops around to stop genocide in Iraq or to prevent violence from spilling over into the neighborhood. And no wonder, for it might be one of them who will have to deal with the bitter aftermath if the U.S. slinks out of Iraq.


::: If Iraq Falls - WSJ.com posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/27/2007 08:18:00 AM
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Sunday, August 26, 2007 :::
 

We bought the Farm.

We've been lovingly calling the house we've been renting for the past five years since we moved back to town the Dork Farm, first because we were all dorks, and then because we started a garden.  On Friday, we bought it.  We own it.  It's ours.

It's really neat because it's been our home for so long already.  I haven't had a place that felt so much like home, and had been for so long.  And now its ours.

We signed for it on Friday, before we left town for Minnesota.  I was talking to my brother on the phone, and mentioned we were about to leave town and he said, "Don't you feel like your leaving your child behind?"

"Not until you said that," I replied.


::: We did it. posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/26/2007 07:11:00 PM
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Churlish Figure: It's My Life, Don't You Forget:


The last conversation occurred at my friend T.'s place, when I called Stinky at home.

Me: Hey, I'm just calling to see if we have reception here. Everybody else here has Qwest and they can't get any reception in T's apartment. So, can you hear me okay?

Stinky: Loud and clear.

Me: Then it must just be the carrier for some reason. Verizon seems to work just fine.

Stinky: Yup.

Me: (Belching into the phone because I think it's important to expose my daughters to their proud White trash heritage) How about that? Can you hear me now?

Stinky: Yes, mother. Now I wish we had Qwest. It would be great not to have reception right now.

Me: You're grounded.

Stinky: What? I can't hear you. You're breaking up. (hangs up)


::: Churlish Figure: It's My Life, Don't You Forget posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/26/2007 07:02:00 PM
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Saturday, August 25, 2007 :::
 


Photo_#105.jpg
Originally uploaded by Kiyote23.
Went to a wedding in Minnesota this weekend. Had a good time.


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/25/2007 12:55:00 PM
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Thursday, August 23, 2007 :::
 

Sen. Warner: Iraq pullout should start in weeks - CNN.com

Warner opposed Bush's January decision to send nearly 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. But he has so far also opposed Democratic efforts to force Bush to start bringing U.S. troops home.

The "surge" campaign was aimed at buying time for Iraq's government to reach a political solution to the sectarian and insurgent warfare that has racked the country since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The U.S. intelligence community's latest report on Iraq, released Thursday, found "measurable but uneven improvements" in security in recent months. However, it concluded that Iraq's political leaders "remain unable to govern effectively."

But Johndroe said the report also found that U.S. troops have "really helped to improve the security situation on the ground."

"If they were to leave anytime soon, those security gains could be lost," he said.

Democrats have tried to wind down the war since taking over Congress in January, but Senate Republicans have used filibuster tactics to stymie those efforts.

After Thursday's report, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on Republican senators to join Democrats to force Bush to change course -- and a senior Democratic leadership aide urged Warner to add his vote to those efforts.

"Will he [Warner] vote with us on anything? That is still the open and most important question," the aide said. "A recommendation to the president is different than voting for binding legislative language compelling the president to act."


::: Sen. Warner: Iraq pullout should start in weeks - CNN.com posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/23/2007 07:59:00 PM
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Powerhouse GOP firm working to undermine Iraqi PM - CNN.com: "When asked whether the White House will ask the prominent Republican lobbying firm to stop lashing out at al-Maliki, the senior administration official said 'I don't rule it out' because of the president's stated support for the prime minister. Pressed on why allies of the White House would be contradicting the president publicly, the senior administration official said of the lobbyists, 'They're making a lot of money.' "


::: Powerhouse GOP firm working to undermine Iraqi PM - CNN.com posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/23/2007 07:53:00 PM
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Virtual Computing

I recently got a job where I sit for most of the day at a Windows-based workstation. Now, this isn't my computer, it's the company's computer, and it's not even my computer to use exclusively. I have to share it with my co-worker, and it's not really for screwing around on, it's the workhorse that runs three copiers.

Because I now spend most of my time online on a remote computer, I'm finding that I'm using online applications more and more. With my recent discovery of GTDinbox, Gmail has become not only my inbox, but my to do list. I'm using Google Calendar to keep track of appointments and stuff, and Google Reader to follow RSS feeds. Google Docs has become indespensible, as I'm working on a large writing project, and it's autosave feature is wonderful for constant starting and stopping, burst writing if you will, that I squeeze in between jobs.

So, basically, everything I used to do on my Mac I can now do anywhere and everywhere. Today I got a cheap flash drive and put a copy of Firefox portable on it, and now I can leave my footprints on it. I don't have to worry about signing out of applications. It's like I've got my own key to the internet.

Having been on the 'net for as long as I have, I can't help but reflect back to the start of the browser war, when Netscape rolled out this revolutionary concept: make the browser the desktop. It may not seem like much of a leap now, but back then, it was a paradigm shift. It spurred Microsoft, which had been half-assedly looking at the Internet before, to suddenly integrate its browser into its operating system, prompting a anti-trust lawsuit as well as ruining an entire operating system by leaving it open to hacks and exploits. Windows wasn't built as a networkable operating system, and having used a room-mate's computer which had Win 98 on it, I was stunned at how vulnerable it was.

But Microsoft's short-comings aren't really the point. The point is that the future that the folks at Netscape envisioned came to be, but not the way that they saw it. At the start of the browser war, the fight was over which browser was going to be the portal through which you accessed this virtual computer. Software companies are great at creating programs, but they don't do well at creating content. AOL and Yahoo tried to supply the content, but the nature of the 'net makes it hard to be the sole provider of that content.

Google, on the other hand, has been replicating the functions of a desktop. The mail is nice, and the Reader makes sense. Google Docs is sheer genius.

This is what I do with a computer: I read email; I search for information; I read stories and publications; I organize my life; I store data; I write; I play Civ. Thanks to Google, my desktop is mostly used to store data (music and photos) and play Civ. Everything else, I can do from anywhere and everywhere.



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/23/2007 07:45:00 PM
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I gots a new home, in more ways than one.

Tomorrow, we sign the mortgage for the house, ending a four month process of buying the house we've been renting for the past five years. It's been exhilirating, thrilling, frightening, nauseating. I'm ready to not do this again for about thirty years.

Today, fellow pirate Orangebeard generously opened up radiofreepirate.org to host dorky. I'd been keeping dorky at Avalon Networks mostly out of loyalty and because I wanted to support my local ISP. But they've been bought out by a bigger, non-local company, and I need to find ways to tighten my belt. I think it's pretty neat that I end up with a custom domain out of the deal, after all of these years of thinking, well, that would be cool.

I've also been playing with implementing GTD into gMail, mostly using a Firefox extension called GTDInBox. My reasoning behind this is that I now spend most of my time on the office computer, so I've pretty much stopped using my Mac's Mail and iCal, and really use Google's web-based interface. Using GTD with gMail allows me to organize and stay portable. The nice thing about GTDInBox is that even though it is a Firefox extension, it does most of the work through gMail's labels, so that when I'm on IE at work, I can still use the system, even without the extension.

So far, it's working well for me, probably better than any other GTD implementation I've tried. But I'm still in the first couple of days, so we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, exciting changes all around!


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/23/2007 08:50:00 AM
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Thursday, August 16, 2007 :::
 

So, apparently my old web host decided that my account was inactive, and they've locked me out, which was why I was unable to post this morning. I'd been meaning to move for a while anyway, I just hadn't gotten around to it, so this was a good kick in the pants.

Moving to blogspot was easy-- I literally picked the domain name and clicked the button, and boom, there we were. Unfortunately, my style sheet is over on the other server, so I had to cobble together a quick, embedded style sheet.

Now it's just a matter of letting people know I've moved...


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/16/2007 02:19:00 PM

 

I've posted spam haiku before, but this one is different, because this is the entire message:

One flash of eye, or blow one clarion-blast;
Set on that tomb in the eternal night;A rabbit carcass in its stiffened fur


No barristers trying to give me imaginary money, no Nigerian banks wanting to reward me for being a good Christian, no attachments of files that won't run on my machine anyway. Just that.

Weird.


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/16/2007 08:01:00 AM

Friday, August 03, 2007 :::
 

This past weekend I saw The Thermals and The Dials at Subterranean. It was okay but the crowd was very strange: a fair bit of Standard Hipster Types #1 through #17, sure, but also a lot of thick-necked guys with the air-punching and singing along. I had somehow blanked on the fact that it was an all-ages show (although being out and about before sunset should have been a clue), so I was briefly puzzled by the big magic-markered X's on some kids' hands. Are that many people showing edge these days? I wondered, and wandered upstairs for another beer and to lean against the wall some more. Then one of the X kids approached me and said, "You have a wristband, if I give you the money could you buy me a drink?" Aha, all-ages show, mystery solved! I gave him a Mom Look but said sure, but when I came back with his vodka tonic he seemed to think he should hang around, bring his friends over, and chat me up, and I just was not in the mood for making new friends so I said, "Are you guys virgins?" They looked collectively offended and said no, so I said, "That's too bad, I'm kind of on a scavenger hunt." I really don't know where that came from but they ended up going away, so THE END.


::: smartypants on a scavenger hunt posted by kiyote23
::: at 8/03/2007 08:12:00 AM