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silveradeptI’ll stick this up high where people can see it - I’m thinking I want to go to the Video Games Live concert in Dertroit in four days. Assuming they’re not sold out, is anyone else going that I can meet up with and converse and possibly play silly things with, if they brought the entire entourage? It’d be a nice way of enjoying an evening.
That also said, my yearly annoyance at my date of birth is fast arriving. Simply because it’s rather difficult to find anybody in the area to celebrate on the day. Maybe I should push the celebration to the weekend, then, and see if I can’t get a couple more people. If I can get any. So, the other part of this is, if you’re in my area from about Wednesday on, and you want to help celebrate my birthday, then drop me a line.
Today was spent playing some part of Nethack. After several quick deaths, I managed to get a game going that I was able to explore all the of the Gnomish Mines with (helps not having the residents attack you as well as the monsters) and reach the Sokoban level (where I realized rather quickly that I suck at Sokoban.) It was an okay game, all told, as the Mine town altar wasn’t aligned with me, I got poymorphed into a leprechaun and live to tell the tale, and it probably only really came about because I found an most excellent +3 suit of Dwarven mail that stuck my armor class in the negative. When all was said and done, an electric vortex zapped me into nothingness. Score was a little over twenty thousand, so for a beginner, it was a reasonable game. However, how easily a game can go pear-shaped is a serious aggravation, not to mention that finding food when your pet is alive can be difficult (and none of the Mine Town stores sold food, so I couldn’t stock up). I think my biggest problem with the game is that identification of objects is a crapshoot. You either take a chance that something’s going to hurt you and try it, or you have a lot of cool stuff that needs a scroll of identification. Which, if nobody’s selling scrolls, means you have to hold your nose and try some scrolls to see if you can find the right one. Anyway. all of that was an explanation of how much Nethack can be intentionally evil to you, yet still addictive, even to a casual player such as myself. So it’s probably wise to keep me well away from it until I learn patience or find a system that works. Not that any system actually works-works.
Enough of Nethack-speak (I’ll probably change over to some other game, once I get re-set on actually wanting to play some different games. I should really be spending time on Final Fantasy XII, honestly.), it’s time for links.
Be careful of drunk driving violations in Virginia - they're going to get very expensive. To the tune of $3,000 U.S. or more, when the fine, the court costs, and the additional civil penalties are all assessed.
"Veggie Booty"-branded snacks are being recalled in total. The packaging looks familiar. But there’s apparently a big salmonella thing going on with those snacks, such that the whole lot is being recalled. Pitch ‘em and get a refund.
There is, apparently, a boycott protest of Nestle products based on their marketing technique of baby foods. We provide so that you’re informed if someone else looks at you oddly or summons 1d6 mobsters (armed with pitchforks or torches) upon noticing you have selected a product that is under the Nestle umbrella.
Truthful T-shirts to display one's geekiness in puntastic ways. Including the Mad Scientists’ Local 42, among others.
The beverage cup of the future! Or one that certainly looks like it. Don’t know if it can actually hold enough beverage to be a useful cup of the future, though.
Turning toward more serious things, iRobot and Taser have teamed up to provide the Pentagon with automated non-lethal weaponry. The serious fear that develops from that is that it’s not too hard to develop a robot that does fire lethal force from there on out, and then at some point to equip that robot with programming and intelligence that permits it to use that lethal force without the specific input of a human being. The would be a useful genocidal weapon, if you drop enough robots in. With accusations flying that Iran is supporting the Iraq insurgency, and, actually the continued presence of terror attacks, more sophistication in the robotics might save a couple plots by correctly identifying and then disabling someone who was about to detonate, it could just as easily kill an innocent who looked suspicious. As more suspects are determined in the latest attempts in the UK, it’s showing that it’s very hard to determine what makes a terrorist. Of course, that doesn’t stop the United States from warning there's going to be a "terror spectacular" this summer, even with no solid evidence of a plot.
Moving from mechanicals and maniacs to men who have no hesitation in helping out their boys when in trouble, Mr. Bush commuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2.5-year prison sentence, effectively rendering his trial a sham. Mr. Libby will have to pay the fine enforced upon him, but will serve no jail time. It’s nice to be in good with the one authority in the country that can make sure you don’t see jail. If the sentence was going to be reduced like this, then what was the purpose of the trial again?
Read the following letter and watch the cross-shaped vein in my head pop out and throb menacingly. According to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jokermage, the letter writer has written before, on the same subject, and I probably linked to it the first time around. That said, Judy Paris writes a letter to the editor saying same-gender civil unions are "not a civil rights issue", claiming that there’s no scientific consensus on whether there’s a biological marker or unit that determines sexual orientation. So, because you’re not “born gay”, it’s not a civil rights issue. I also would like to know which studies she’s referencing by saying “Most psychologists agree that ideally children need both a mom and dad for their ultimate benefit.”, because if she means in relation to sexual orientation, the APA itself says that being raised by homosexual parents does not mean maladjustment for children. Lastly, she demonstrates ignorance of reading the law by saying that someone “has to become a homosexual” to get a civil union. While homosexuals may be the primary beneficiaries of the law, the law itself makes no mention of a homosexual requirement (it’s a short read, trust me). Oy. I’m glad to have people that will tell me when I’m making things up out of whole cloth or need to go find some sources before I start tarring people. I hope that the slew of letters in response to this gives Judy the impetus to do some research, or at least pick up some facts.
There is some good news today, in all this - for young women in Egypt - the practice of female circumcision was officially banned. It will take time, however, to change the mindset of the people. More encouragingly, some religious leaders are also speaking out against the practice. Even more encouragingly, a Saudi Arabian woman has spent four years in court trying to get justice and appropriate discipline exercised against the religious police that took her and two friends on a wild drive out into remote areas and then left them there. All apparently because the defendant’s daughter’s veil didn’t cover her eyes. This is one of a few cases against the hypersensitive Saudi vice squad. It’s long odds, most likely, but if cases like these can keep getting heard, and possibly even a judgment or two against the religious police, maybe Saudi Arabia can be a catalyst for a more liberal form of Islam, rather than the Wahabist fundamentalism that they’re often associated with. Wouldn’t that be fun to see?
Of course, at the same time, there are several on the fringe of the Christian religion that would like nothing more than to see their own interpretations of the Bible become the law of the land. Sufficiently many, in fact, that they held a four-day conference on what to do to bring about this reconstruction of America. So, the problem’s certainly not going to go away. They’re in your millitary, transforming a war of aggression into a divine crusade to spread the Chrisitan word and JHVH’s bidding. And they have posters trying to get you to think that every patriot in this country has always been just as fervent about their Christianity .
All is not lost, however. Suzanne Fields, on Townhall, would like to remind us of something - to behave like Rome is to invoke Rome's fate, and that if making comparisons between current America and Ancient Rome is scarily accurate, then there should be something done to distance and make the current empire endure in a more virtuous manner.
And just before you thought you could get away with ending on a high note (we recommend the frequency that shatters glass), a different Townhall contributor, the editor-at-large of the National Review On-line, Mr. Jonah Goldberg, that the country has a free speech disorder, because we protect pornographers, strippers, and artists who have sacreligious and homoerotic art, (Whoops, there goes the Greeks...) and then want students to be able to express themselves with things like “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. And we had the audacity to say that, up until the recent Court decision, that politically-minded organizations couldn’t try to sway people’s votes on the day of their balloting, or for some time beforehand. (I don’t know, maybe people need time to make up their minds and digest the stuff that’s been thrown at them for so long?) But now, thanks to the recent 5-4 decisions, which he thinks shouldn’t have been that close, the country is once again being runs by the grownups, who can and should be able to tell the students when to sit down and shut up, and to tell you to vote for their policy or platform on your way to the election booth.
Tch. Hopefully they at least keep the rule about canvassing near a polling place intact.
Seriously, though, I thought schools were supposed to be places where students had the liberty to test ideas, thoughts, and attitudes out before they started having significant real-world consequences. Getting suspended for poking fun at religious figures and the national obsession with marijuana sends a lot of messages about conformity and that some things are taboo from scrutiny or humor. Which cannot be the case if we want to continue making progress. Although, as noted above, there are lots of people who think that the amount of progress we’ve made already is too much, and that we have to go back to “the good old days”, wherever in the mythic timeline they exist.
Oh, and there’s also a second run of the Blog Against Theocracy thing happening, that started on 1 July. I totally spaced out on it, because I was just planning on scribbling an entry when I had a light news day. That hasn’t happened yet. For that material, however, I need someone who can point me in the right direction to find the appropriate Greek characters for “theos”, the root from which theocracy derives. I’m trying to trace it as far back as it’ll go, so if someone knows that theos actually has a root somewhere else and can point me to an appropriate explanation thereof, do get in contact with me.
Now, bed. There’s much writing on the horizon, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on it.
That also said, my yearly annoyance at my date of birth is fast arriving. Simply because it’s rather difficult to find anybody in the area to celebrate on the day. Maybe I should push the celebration to the weekend, then, and see if I can’t get a couple more people. If I can get any. So, the other part of this is, if you’re in my area from about Wednesday on, and you want to help celebrate my birthday, then drop me a line.
Today was spent playing some part of Nethack. After several quick deaths, I managed to get a game going that I was able to explore all the of the Gnomish Mines with (helps not having the residents attack you as well as the monsters) and reach the Sokoban level (where I realized rather quickly that I suck at Sokoban.) It was an okay game, all told, as the Mine town altar wasn’t aligned with me, I got poymorphed into a leprechaun and live to tell the tale, and it probably only really came about because I found an most excellent +3 suit of Dwarven mail that stuck my armor class in the negative. When all was said and done, an electric vortex zapped me into nothingness. Score was a little over twenty thousand, so for a beginner, it was a reasonable game. However, how easily a game can go pear-shaped is a serious aggravation, not to mention that finding food when your pet is alive can be difficult (and none of the Mine Town stores sold food, so I couldn’t stock up). I think my biggest problem with the game is that identification of objects is a crapshoot. You either take a chance that something’s going to hurt you and try it, or you have a lot of cool stuff that needs a scroll of identification. Which, if nobody’s selling scrolls, means you have to hold your nose and try some scrolls to see if you can find the right one. Anyway. all of that was an explanation of how much Nethack can be intentionally evil to you, yet still addictive, even to a casual player such as myself. So it’s probably wise to keep me well away from it until I learn patience or find a system that works. Not that any system actually works-works.
Enough of Nethack-speak (I’ll probably change over to some other game, once I get re-set on actually wanting to play some different games. I should really be spending time on Final Fantasy XII, honestly.), it’s time for links.
Be careful of drunk driving violations in Virginia - they're going to get very expensive. To the tune of $3,000 U.S. or more, when the fine, the court costs, and the additional civil penalties are all assessed.
"Veggie Booty"-branded snacks are being recalled in total. The packaging looks familiar. But there’s apparently a big salmonella thing going on with those snacks, such that the whole lot is being recalled. Pitch ‘em and get a refund.
There is, apparently, a boycott protest of Nestle products based on their marketing technique of baby foods. We provide so that you’re informed if someone else looks at you oddly or summons 1d6 mobsters (armed with pitchforks or torches) upon noticing you have selected a product that is under the Nestle umbrella.
Truthful T-shirts to display one's geekiness in puntastic ways. Including the Mad Scientists’ Local 42, among others.
The beverage cup of the future! Or one that certainly looks like it. Don’t know if it can actually hold enough beverage to be a useful cup of the future, though.
Turning toward more serious things, iRobot and Taser have teamed up to provide the Pentagon with automated non-lethal weaponry. The serious fear that develops from that is that it’s not too hard to develop a robot that does fire lethal force from there on out, and then at some point to equip that robot with programming and intelligence that permits it to use that lethal force without the specific input of a human being. The would be a useful genocidal weapon, if you drop enough robots in. With accusations flying that Iran is supporting the Iraq insurgency, and, actually the continued presence of terror attacks, more sophistication in the robotics might save a couple plots by correctly identifying and then disabling someone who was about to detonate, it could just as easily kill an innocent who looked suspicious. As more suspects are determined in the latest attempts in the UK, it’s showing that it’s very hard to determine what makes a terrorist. Of course, that doesn’t stop the United States from warning there's going to be a "terror spectacular" this summer, even with no solid evidence of a plot.
Moving from mechanicals and maniacs to men who have no hesitation in helping out their boys when in trouble, Mr. Bush commuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2.5-year prison sentence, effectively rendering his trial a sham. Mr. Libby will have to pay the fine enforced upon him, but will serve no jail time. It’s nice to be in good with the one authority in the country that can make sure you don’t see jail. If the sentence was going to be reduced like this, then what was the purpose of the trial again?
Read the following letter and watch the cross-shaped vein in my head pop out and throb menacingly. According to
jokermage, the letter writer has written before, on the same subject, and I probably linked to it the first time around. That said, Judy Paris writes a letter to the editor saying same-gender civil unions are "not a civil rights issue", claiming that there’s no scientific consensus on whether there’s a biological marker or unit that determines sexual orientation. So, because you’re not “born gay”, it’s not a civil rights issue. I also would like to know which studies she’s referencing by saying “Most psychologists agree that ideally children need both a mom and dad for their ultimate benefit.”, because if she means in relation to sexual orientation, the APA itself says that being raised by homosexual parents does not mean maladjustment for children. Lastly, she demonstrates ignorance of reading the law by saying that someone “has to become a homosexual” to get a civil union. While homosexuals may be the primary beneficiaries of the law, the law itself makes no mention of a homosexual requirement (it’s a short read, trust me). Oy. I’m glad to have people that will tell me when I’m making things up out of whole cloth or need to go find some sources before I start tarring people. I hope that the slew of letters in response to this gives Judy the impetus to do some research, or at least pick up some facts.There is some good news today, in all this - for young women in Egypt - the practice of female circumcision was officially banned. It will take time, however, to change the mindset of the people. More encouragingly, some religious leaders are also speaking out against the practice. Even more encouragingly, a Saudi Arabian woman has spent four years in court trying to get justice and appropriate discipline exercised against the religious police that took her and two friends on a wild drive out into remote areas and then left them there. All apparently because the defendant’s daughter’s veil didn’t cover her eyes. This is one of a few cases against the hypersensitive Saudi vice squad. It’s long odds, most likely, but if cases like these can keep getting heard, and possibly even a judgment or two against the religious police, maybe Saudi Arabia can be a catalyst for a more liberal form of Islam, rather than the Wahabist fundamentalism that they’re often associated with. Wouldn’t that be fun to see?
Of course, at the same time, there are several on the fringe of the Christian religion that would like nothing more than to see their own interpretations of the Bible become the law of the land. Sufficiently many, in fact, that they held a four-day conference on what to do to bring about this reconstruction of America. So, the problem’s certainly not going to go away. They’re in your millitary, transforming a war of aggression into a divine crusade to spread the Chrisitan word and JHVH’s bidding. And they have posters trying to get you to think that every patriot in this country has always been just as fervent about their Christianity .
All is not lost, however. Suzanne Fields, on Townhall, would like to remind us of something - to behave like Rome is to invoke Rome's fate, and that if making comparisons between current America and Ancient Rome is scarily accurate, then there should be something done to distance and make the current empire endure in a more virtuous manner.
And just before you thought you could get away with ending on a high note (we recommend the frequency that shatters glass), a different Townhall contributor, the editor-at-large of the National Review On-line, Mr. Jonah Goldberg, that the country has a free speech disorder, because we protect pornographers, strippers, and artists who have sacreligious and homoerotic art, (Whoops, there goes the Greeks...) and then want students to be able to express themselves with things like “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. And we had the audacity to say that, up until the recent Court decision, that politically-minded organizations couldn’t try to sway people’s votes on the day of their balloting, or for some time beforehand. (I don’t know, maybe people need time to make up their minds and digest the stuff that’s been thrown at them for so long?) But now, thanks to the recent 5-4 decisions, which he thinks shouldn’t have been that close, the country is once again being runs by the grownups, who can and should be able to tell the students when to sit down and shut up, and to tell you to vote for their policy or platform on your way to the election booth.
Tch. Hopefully they at least keep the rule about canvassing near a polling place intact.
Seriously, though, I thought schools were supposed to be places where students had the liberty to test ideas, thoughts, and attitudes out before they started having significant real-world consequences. Getting suspended for poking fun at religious figures and the national obsession with marijuana sends a lot of messages about conformity and that some things are taboo from scrutiny or humor. Which cannot be the case if we want to continue making progress. Although, as noted above, there are lots of people who think that the amount of progress we’ve made already is too much, and that we have to go back to “the good old days”, wherever in the mythic timeline they exist.
Oh, and there’s also a second run of the Blog Against Theocracy thing happening, that started on 1 July. I totally spaced out on it, because I was just planning on scribbling an entry when I had a light news day. That hasn’t happened yet. For that material, however, I need someone who can point me in the right direction to find the appropriate Greek characters for “theos”, the root from which theocracy derives. I’m trying to trace it as far back as it’ll go, so if someone knows that theos actually has a root somewhere else and can point me to an appropriate explanation thereof, do get in contact with me.
Now, bed. There’s much writing on the horizon, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 09:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 07:13 pm (UTC)Nethack is famous for having to be learned, with various things being capable of killing you the first time with little warning.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-05 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 05:50 pm (UTC)Oh, and did you see the other laws that were introduced as of the 1st?
Abortion: Women seeking abortions in Georgia must be given a chance to see an ultrasound image of the fetus and listen for a heartbeat. In Mississippi, an abortion provider must perform a sonogram and give a pregnant woman the chance to listen to the heartbeat.
I'm surprised more people haven't been all over that yet. At least, I haven't gotten wind of anything off the sites I read. Have you? That's HORRIBLE. They may not be out and out issuing a ban on abortions, but jeez, way to try to send the mother on a guilt trip over her decision! It's a hard enough decision to make, why make it harder like that? I wonder if they wanted to pass an abortion ban, but were unable, so this somehow got tossed in as the "middle ground" to appease all the Pro-Life folks?
If you really want me to, I'll come into town for your birthday. I'd rather wait and come out when I can make a lengthier visit to you to justify all the Gas/Toll money though.
Thanks for the Veggie Booty link. I actually just finished off a bag of it a few days ago. I'm wondering if that has something to do with me feeling ill right now.
I like the "Dragons rescued, virgin's slain" T-shirt.
Not a fan of the Futuristic Coffee/Tea Mug. As the blogger said, too small! I require a very large cup of tea.
Yay no more female circumcision in Egypt. Now let's get the rest of Africa on board with that.
I didn't know women in Saudi Arabia were required to also cover their eyes. I thought they were allowed to have an opening from their eyebrows to just under their nose to see/breathe. Those poor women. Although, it still makes me feel somewhat guilty that I have the freedom to roam around in a string bikini if I really want to.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-05 04:26 am (UTC)Well, if it says "give the chance", I assume that it can be refused, then. If, however, it becomes mandatory that the woman listen to the fetus and such, then it's probably a way of trying to ban/reduce abortions without actually banning them, which would run afoul of the precedent set by Roe.
Obviously, a woman has to be able to see while clothed, in whatever it is. I'm not current on the appropriate law, so I couldn't tell you whether the eyes also have to be covered by some sort of see-through mesh or not. I suspect, however, that the religious police were being, well, pricks, and then, when pressed, had to invent a reason for taking the three women out and abandoning them.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-05 04:42 am (UTC)Speeding - If your speeding has caused an accident, than you deserve the higher fine, and I think you DO get a higher fine in most states if you've caused an accident, and if someone dies from it, well, then you get charged with vehicular homicide. But if you're speeding and it's not effecting anyone else around you, why an over 1k fine? When I was pulled over for going...uhm...fast. There was NO ONE ELSE on the road. I was on a virtually empty highway. My fine was $158, and while I thought that was a lot at the time, compared to the possibility of paying over $1000, I'll gladly take the $158. Of course, I also received 4 points on my license, and my insurance went up by $10/month. so far, I've paid %158 for the original ticket, plus an additional $160 for the insurance hike. All said and done, by the time my insurance goes back down, I probably HAVE paid out $1000 for the speeding. Did it teach me a lesson? Yes.
don't listen to exesI mean, speeding is bad. Do I still speed? Not really. I'll still go 5-10 mph over when I'm on the turnpikes and interstates to keep up with the rest of traffic, but you won't see me doing 20 over ever again.no subject
Date: 2007-07-05 07:21 am (UTC)Regarding speeding, you're still in violation of the law. The municipalities are only restrained by any laws, precedents, and the requirements of the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishments in how they choose to enforce the traffic laws. So this is a deterrent, hopefully, so that people don't have to get the ticket or have the accident to decide not to do 20 over or drink and drive. If you know it's going to cost you 3k to drive drunk, you're probably less likely to do it, even if you're going to get caught on about the same frequency, because it's going to hurt a lot more.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 08:29 pm (UTC)If you have a unicorn horn and an unidentified (non-cursed!) potion, dip a useless item into the potion to test for polymorph; if the item doesn't change, quaff away and use the unicorn horn to remove any bad effects.
If you haven't looked into the spoiler sites yet, this is the one I use:
http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/nh/
no subject
Date: 2007-07-05 04:29 am (UTC)Also, would actually help if Nethack had a consider function, so that you could have an idea when something was coming along that you really didn't want to deal with.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-05 11:25 am (UTC)If you're not playing a priest, use the Stupid Pet Trick. Your pet will only walk on or pick up objects that are not cursed; if your pet avoids a square with an object, chances are that object is cursed. If a pet is forced to walk on a square with a cursed object, you will get the message, " moves only reluctantly." Again, the #name command is your friend. You can say 'yes' to name a specific object, and name it cursed so you'll remember for the future.
What class are you playing? Valkyries and Barbarians tend to be considered the easiest for beginners; Knights and Tourists the hardest. Wizards are nice because they come with a cloak of magic resistance at the start (which nullifies nasty traps like teleport/level teleport and polymorph, as well as certain wands/spells directed your way), but you have to make sure you don't equip them with metal armor, or you won't be able to spellcast. Priests have the intrinsic ability to detect whether an item is cursed or blessed; that's damn useful.
Back to the energy vortex... eating certain types of corpses carries a chance of giving you an intrinsic resistance to something. Poisonous corpses may make you poison resistant, for example, as do unicorn corpses. Shock resistance can be tough to get early, but you can get it from eating gelatinous cubes, black/brown puddings, and storm giants. If you stumble upon a tinning kit, tin all poisonous/acidic corpses before eating them to get rid of their harmful effects. The chances of gaining an intrinsic are unchanged, and tins are pretty light to carry around. Another thing you want to eat whenver possible is giants. Giant corpses raise your strength when eaten, to a maximum of 18/**; the only way to get higher is to wear gauntlets of power, which will give you STR 25. The problem, of course, with giants is that they're huge, and will satiate you quickly. If you are ever asked if you want to stop eating because you're very full, SAY YES or don't be surprised when you choke to death. Read the food spoiler for a full list of what corpses give you what intrinsics.
Um... what else? If you find an amulet and discover it is uncursed, go ahead and wear it unidentified. It might be an amulet of lifesaving or reflection, and as long as it's not cursed, bad amulets can be removed (even strangulation). The amulet of change is annoying, but harmless; it just reverses your sex. Restful sleep can be identified pretty quickly, and all the other amulets are beneficial.
Rings can be tried on if you know they're uncursed, but don't wear them for long periods of time unidentified unless you already know which ones are teleport and polymorph. Some rings auto-ID when you put them on; most don't. If you come across a wand or potion of enlightenment, you can always put on uncursed rings and zap/quaff to see what may have changed.