Ryouga

10:39 pm: Taken from metroid23


"At work, ISTPs contribute their realistic and logical way of meeting situational requirements. They can see the easiest and most expedient route to completing a task, and they do not waste their effort on unnecessary things. They often act as trouble shooters, rising to meet the needs of the occasion. Since many ISTPs have a natural bent in technical areas, they may often function as 'walking encyclopedias' of technical information. "

"...rather unemotional, does not like attention, more interested in intellectual pursuits..."

wee. Never took the test before. :P

12:39 pm: How to conduct a pseudoscientific experiment and sensationalize "results".
There are a couple videos floating around on the rolltubes that implicate Planned Parenthood of being a racist organization. Links:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Eygv8qEkiFE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zwif0VMW3c4

First, let me say that I find these very humorous. I think the idea of someone calling up PP and saying "I'd like to kill black babies" is pretty hilarious.

Second, way to take all context from the words in the conversations. For example, when the guy said "There are too many black kids in the world..." and then the girl says "Haha, understandable" - this isn't email, where the words you say have no inflection or tone of voice; this is a phone conversation, and inflection means a lot. In this case, I can distinctly make out that she's very uncomfortable with where the conversation's gone. And we won't go into the first one they use, where she's a lot more forceful about it - "Yeah, whatever" with a very angry tone. The closest one could come is the girl that says she's "excited" - but she also didn't sound like she was even paying attention to the caller after he made the request, probably because she was distracted by trying to fill the request!

News flash: Planned Parenthood will take money from anyone no matter why they're giving it! SHOCKING! Will their next study be on how Microsoft takes money from terrorist organizations in exchange for software they are selling?

A check from the KKK cashes just the same as any other. PP depends on donations to exist. Of course they'll take your money. And I'm quite sure that they have this program in place (the ability to designate your donation to go to a certain ethnic group, and a specific thing, like abortions for black women) because there are quite a few people who are racist in other ways (like, say, black people that would only want their donations to be used for black people) and rather than refuse money, they have this program in place. Of course it doesn't matter in the grand scheme - if I give them $1000 that's usable for anything, and someone else gives $1000 that's usable only for black people, then my $1000 will simply NOT be used for black people and it evens out.

The other contention they make is that PP has about 80% of its clinics in the "projects", supposedly because they want to facilitate aborting more of those ethnicities as eugenics. Another, more simple explanation: They have more clinics there because there's more demand for subsidized family planning care. Why does a free clinic need to exist in quantity in areas that contain mostly people who don't qualify?


As for why the results are TOTALLY invalid: not once do they show someone being refused when trying to donate for white women having abortions. They only tested that they have the ability to accept donations specifically for black women; they never tested that they would then be refused if they attempted to donate for white women. The experiment isn't valid without a control.

I just read one of Feynman's books, and one thing that really stuck out for me was the prevalence of cargo cult science and just flat dishonesty in any scientific research. The videos never claim to be scientific, but they're still very dishonest.

And now I will crawl into the cave and hide for another month.

04:34 pm: Brawl code
3866-7757-4756.

Leave a comment with yours if you add me :)

11:15 pm: Most charmed life ever.
I had two brushes with the law today and both were positive (not as positive, of course, as not having to at all, but you take what you can get.)

First of all, I got pulled over on my way to ACME today, doing 74 (well that's what she SAID, I think she was being nice about it). She comes up to the window and says "74? Do you have a reason for going that fast?" "no ma'am" "hm. Well why were you?" "No real reason... the guys in front of me..." "were doing 70."(smile) (also this is ridiculous, because they were doing at LEAST 5 more than me) "I see ma'am" "Okay, well, license, registration..." *hands over* "hmm, are you in the military?" "I got out about 6 or 9 months ago ma'am" "I see. Ever had a ticket?" "no" (like I was thinking here) "Okay, well, I think I'll just let you off with a warning this time then. Your politeness got you out of a ticket today, have a nice day."

Absolutely amazing.

Then I'm at ACME and I have my laptop there because between games I'm being antisocial and working on code. I sit down at the racing games, where there are a bunch of Koreans, and play a few rounds with my bag next to me. I get up for a couple minutes and then notice my bag (and the Korean kids, but I didn't make the connection right away) is gone. Okay what the fuck, I just spent a month getting that DS back with all my saves on it, this is retarded. Let alone the laptop. So I go talk to security, they can only get the tapes of the arcade area with a police report. Fine, I call the cops and they send someone down in about 10 minutes. In the meantime security says they have my bag. I'm like "yay!" except, well, they have my bag.

I'm laughing with my friends about how my keyboard is configured for Dvorak and the labels aren't, so they're going to have a hell of a time USING the laptop.

So I talk to the officer, we get a police report filed, they can't look at the tapes until tomorrow anyway. He goes off and about 20 minutes later I get a call from the police department again. "Hey we want you to stay at ACME for a little longer and ask you a few more questions." Okay, fine. I barely get back in the door when my phone rings AGAIN. "Hey actually we have someone detained at the burger king about 3 blocks away, we need you to ID your stuff."

...Seriously? No one EVER gets their stuff back. And how is it just three blocks away?

I head over there and lo and behold there are the four Korean kids seated outside the BK with cuffs on. My laptop and DS are sitting on the squad car. I go over and bring up my address book on the laptop that has my name in it, and he takes one of the kids into his car. I'm filling out a statement while he's berating the kids: "You guys are seriously the dumbest people I've ever met. Wow. Oh no, don't start talking in that foreign language shit. If you do that I think you're planning an attack, and I will take you down. That's how we do it in the 'Wila. (NO SHIT, THE WILA.) Maybe that shit flies in Seattle, but down here in the 'Wila it stops." After I finish filling it out he says "Now get out of my city and don't come back today or you will find yourself in jail." Absolutely incredible.

I still have no idea how they got found. My best guess is that he went to BK after he took my report and was like WTF THERE IS A BLACK MACBOOK RIGHT THERE. Somehow I doubt those guys are going to be coming to ACME again anytime soon though.

07:30 pm: No More Heroes
Is amazing.

It's like if someone took Grand Theft Auto, surgically removed all the thug life shit, and in its place implanted "retro video game culture". Then gave it an awesome combat system and made the main character an otaku. With a lightsaber.

It drips style from every orifice and is as over the top as it can be. You hack people in half approximately once every three seconds, and they fountain more blood than the human body could possibly contain. As a counterpoint to this, the main character has a pet cat.

The ranking list that you're climbing shows up after every ranked fight... styled like a classic arcade game's high score board.

Yes the gameplay is a little repetitive but I'm willing to forgive that because cutting people in half down their spine and stepping through their still-spraying body halves to cut the next enemy down never gets old.

And the use of the Wii is pretty awesome too, from dealing deathblows and wrestling moves by waving the wiimote/nunchuck to the use of the wiimote's speaker to let you listen to a cell phone call...

oh god it's so good. This one game can justify my purchase of a Wii right here.

01:03 am: Amazing song.
This song is amazing. Their server is probably melting though.

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/01/the-hit-song-yo.html

11:22 pm: PLAY! review
So I went to see PLAY!. It was a pretty good show. By the arrangements:

Liberi Fatali - This is almost cheating. It was already orchestral. :p But it was very well done, I felt like I was listening to the original.

Super Mario Bros - This was pretty awesome. I especially liked that after doing all the standard Mario themes, SUPER MARIO WORLD TITLE THEME OUT OF NOWHERE!! The video was also pretty nice, although the guy playing was pretty bad - though it made for some interesting moments when he missed something and there was an almost-audible sigh in the room. This was definitely one of the better arrangements.

Shenmue - Now we started to see them cutting FMVs from the games that had them together, and with the musical background it was quite enjoyable.

BF1942 - Good choice of music - everyone that's ever played BF1942 has heard the title music, and they did a really good job with it. Not much video, but a little cutscene here and there.

Aeris' Theme - Here's where they ran into the problem any performance of this nature is going to run into. You're playing songs that pretty much everyone attending has heard tens if not hundreds of times and knows note for note. If you miss one note people will notice. If you miss a lot then people are going to be sad. They missed a lot of notes and to top matters off they didn't have any video here so there was nothing to distract from this fact. Plus this is also almost cheating because it's been done in symphonic form as well before.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Well, they got the video mostly right here. But that's all I can say for this arrangement - the Sonic songs are supposed to be upbeat and fast and they didn't get that. And the one or two that you can get away with playing at a slower tempo... well, Star Light is one of them, but not when you slur the notes so badly. And really, as far as the video went... can we just forget that Sonic 2007 and Shadow the Hedgehog existed?

Metal Gear Solid - Video was excellent, and the music was quite good. I can't say much beyond that, having not played that much of the games. But it was an enjoy.

Kingdom Hearts - VERY well done, but what's up with the lack of video? Even if it's just the opening movies (which they had no problem using elsewhere)... It was a fun game of "Name That Tune" for a few minutes at the opening.

Oblivion - Well done video, definitely let me lose myself in the music. The thing to be realized here is that these songs were meant to be experienced in a combination of mediums, both audio and visual, and removing half the experience leaves them feeling like something's missing.

Swing de Chocobo - Another game of Name That Tune, well done but again where's my video?

Chrono Trigger/Cross - If it weren't for the lack of video I'd say this was perfect. As it lacked video I'll say it came just shy of that.

World of Warcraft - Surprisingly good - no one really remembers WoW for the music, but I guess there is some in there. Also used video quite well.

Silent Hill 2 - Spent most of this one looking for the electric guitar. Turns out it was the synth. Nice video use also.

Halo - Another "what music?" one, but again, excellent video lets me lose myself in the music.

Legend of Zelda - Video could have been better - as it was it felt like they just played the first levels of the Zelda games and slapped something together. But they did do some pretty nice effects with the cutting between them. The music was very well done, no complaints here.

Guild Wars - Seriously, what is with the MMO music? This was actually excellent and definitely a case of the music meshing well with the video.

One Winged Angel - Cheating again and they still didn't stick the landing, missing one of the key notes in the crescendo. And... no video. Agh.


I had a lot of fun and all in all it was a great experience, but as I said, the problem is that we know these songs note for note and if they screw it up it's very jarring. That goes for video too.

I also was amused by the number of parents with small children that were clearly only there thinking that their kid would like it. It was very clearly aimed at people in their 20s - to really appreciate it you needed to have grown up on Mario and Zelda and also be old enough to have played games like Halo and BF1942.

12:33 am: Dvorak progress
30 words

Touch Typing online

So I can do 1/3 the speed. Of course my coding speed has suffered a bit too thanks to the rearranging of the symbols but I persevere! We'll see how I'm doing in a week... the last time I tried this, my slow typing speed and huuuuge error rate made me hate life way too much. But I seem to be doing okay this time...

02:14 am: Not bad...
98 words

Touch Typing

I tried a few times, this was the best time I got. I notice that a lot of it might be dependent on if you got a bunch of short words or long words.

Still, 98 is pretty decent, as I think 90 is about my average when I'm actually trying.

05:46 pm: Fucking brilliant.
I have an absolutely brilliant idea.

I, having been sick enough to stay home on Thursday and Friday, through the weekend, and being still sick on Monday, will decide to come in to work on Monday.

Then, I will have a stroke of genius! I'll call my entire team into my office to have a meeting. This is a totally excellent idea and cannot fail.

sigh. Well, maybe I'll end up taking Thursday or something off.

08:06 pm: Poker Konami
This is pretty much the best poker flip ever.

02:47 pm: Well, fuck you, T-Mobile
http://blog.unto.net/mobile/t-mobile-and-twitter/

Guess I'm looking to switch to AT&T. I give them a week to issue a retraction on that statement and then I'm gone. I won't continue paying money to a company that with one face says "We don't need net neutrality laws, it'll be fiiiiine" and then turns around and says "Oh by the way we're perfectly within our rights to block anything we want"

Well, I'm perfectly within my rights to never use T-Mobile anything ever again. Buh bye.

Text of the email sent by T-Mo:

Dear Mr. Mertz:

My name is Marianne Maestas and I am with the Executive Customer Relations department of T-Mobile. I am contacting you on behalf of Mr. Robert Dotson in regards to the email that you sent him yesterday evening.

In your email, you express concerns, as you are not able to use your service for Twitter. As you have been advised, Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and therefore you are not able to utilize service from this provide any longer. You indicate your feeling that this is a violation of the Net Neutrality.

T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate "... some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion." Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation.

Should you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Customer Care at 800-937-8997. Thank you,

Marianne Maestas,
Executive Customer Relations Specialist,
Office of the President,

04:58 am: ALEX, DON'T TOUCH MY LCD
I have no idea what the story is behind this label, but I think it's funnier that way.

02:04 am: Let's turn this into something of a meme.
You know, because what the hell, it's amusing. Find the best old photo you have that a lot of people on your friends list will easily recognize.

My pick:


And a bonus ironic and/or portentous pair of pics:

( cut for too many pics in one go )

See the whole set here.

12:12 pm: Best thing to do with SSB at a party with only one controller:
Start setting up 4 CPU battles in various configurations and have people pick characters they're going to root for.

This is way more fun than it has any right to be.

04:02 am: Mass Effect, and November the month of video game death
While some might argue that Assassin's Creed didn't live up to expectations (even I have to admit that it started to get a little old at the end) I don't think anyone in their right mind should be able to argue that Mass Effect didn't.

I plan on playing through it at least twice more - not just because of the hardcore/insane difficulty achievements, but also because the classes really are so different, and the conversations can be so much different too. I played through the game mostly as a Renegade, so my next character is probably going to go the opposite way. I love how the conversations go. They seriously make the game.

But the story, oh god, the story. I've never been much for "it is the end of the game, now we will make everything click" plot exposition, but there were a couple missions that I have a feeling that if I had completed them (fuck you, last four Keepers) it would have helped out. And I'm sure reading the Codex, which is a book and a half in its own right, could probably have provided some clues to tie it all together.

The ending is amazing - you make several choices that directly affect how it ends, and even through the ending you're determining how it goes. If my last save wasn't an hour back from the end, I'd reload it just to see the other ones - as it is I'll end up seeing it when I go through again on the other paths.

And the combat system is pretty damn amazing too. I'm going to say right now that I think Stasis is broken with the Bastion prestige class - Stasis is pretty good by itself (lock an enemy down for 10-25 seconds, but you can't hurt them either) but throw in the Bastion ability that makes enemies in stasis damageable and you have horribly broken boss encounters. :P Maybe all the classes are like that in their own way, though.

I don't like how they spring the Point of No Return on you, though. In most games you get some sort of warning about starting the ending, but they put the warning too late - by the time you're hitting the button to start the "end sequence", it's really already started.

I like that the order you complete quests matters, and that you can fail objectives if you're not careful. And failure just means a different outcome for the mission, and then life goes on.

sigh. Fuck November. I've burned through AC, ME and now I have Mario Galaxy to do. And then I have to get together a band of rock. Every year shit like this happens. This year at least I'm reasonably caught up with it, but at the price of being a hermit the last two weeks.

12:24 am: Today's internet is won by UC Berkeley's marching band:

09:46 pm: Picture meme.
I don't usually do these, but this one seemed amusing enough when kieferskunk did it, so I figured I'd try.

( Because this'll break everyone's tables... )

12:12 pm: Assassin's Creed review/response.
We can start here with "Goons will bitch about anything." There's a lot of complaining in the Assassin's Creed thread on Something Awful, and after playing AC for a while, I think most of the bitching is retarded. So I wrote a post that turned kind of long, and at this point it's more of a review than just a reply. Anyone thinking about picking this game up, do. That said, here's the post I made, slightly edited for context:
( Long ass review follows. )
Hype ruins everything.

09:07 pm: Leopard bugs, part 1
So I got Leopard the day it came out and installed it. Neat. I've already managed to find two bugs in it that are clearly reproducible; both of them are annoyances, though one is a bit more severe than the other. This is about that one. It's more interesting, too, at least if you understand any UNIX bits at all.

( If you don't care, don't click )