Misfiring Neurons

Goodnight and goodbye

2005-09-14T15:04:00.000-04:00

Even though I have never been consistent about posting stuff to my blog, I have enjoyed having this outlet to talk about things that are on my mind. With this in mind, I am sad to say that I am pulling the plug on sharing my thoughts in this medium. I reached this decision when I saw the Google blogsearch beta today. I typed in a couple of pieces information and up came my blog. There is something very creepy and Orwellian about Google getting their paws on my personal thoughts, but so is life in the internet days. The collection and aggregation of data by super corporations with unknown agendas (sorry, but I do not buy into Google's do no evil mantra for one second) is just not agreeable to me, and I don't feel the need to provide them with more fuel for the fire. So, with that said, it has been fun, this is me signing off for the last time. Goodnight and goodbye internet blogging world.

One stage for all the players

2005-07-06T14:27:00.000-04:00

In my last post I talked about leveling in gaming that forces new players and veteran players into two different versions of the same game. I think the best way to illustrate this problem is to look at that large MMORPG that I play. In this game you start at level 1 and end at level 60. A level 1 player in this game would have ZERO chance of doing any harm to a level 60 player. In fact a hundred level 1 players could not bring down a level 60 player (or do any damage for that matter). Is this rewarding of levels with super human attributes and abilities realistic? I know, you are saying that it is a game realism does not matter, but I think it does to an extent. When making comparisons between two objects (say in our case two human warriors), baseline attributes should be better apportioned. Going into combat a couple hundred times might make you slightly stronger warrior (say +100% tops), but what is really gained from doing so? I think the most obvious answer to this question is experience. But this experience should not translate into enhanced attributes, but the ability to perform actions. A warrior with years of experience is not going to beat the green warrior with brute strength, he will win because of his ability to wield a blade. This brings up another interesting question to me, should this skill be reflected as a stat (i.e. 135 sword rating)? Or should it be a hand eye coordination skill that is imbued in the player?

Level Fever

2005-07-01T14:42:00.000-04:00

MMORPGs represent one of the bright spots of the game industry. The have brought a real epic feel to gaming, and have engaged people into a person to person style that has never been seen in games before. The game we are building is something of an RPG hybrid that will develop into full RPG game with time. So I am forever trying to figure out what would make a better mouse trap in regards to online RPG games. I think the first major weakness that has to be addressed is the gap between high level players and low level players. I think this is a silly concept and to me it turns the game into work and sucks the fun out of it. You get sucked into an obsession to level up your character. Thankfully the concept of level caps has appeared in a few games, but the difference between a starting player and high level player can amount to hundreds of hours. So as a game developer you are left with the choice of making the game fun for everyone that plays and appealing to the "hard core" people that are not afraid to spend two to three waking months of their life leveling up a character. And if you remove this level driven style, what keeps people coming back?

From the Earth to the Moon to Wherever

2005-07-01T14:07:00.000-04:00

Starflight by today's standards would not look like much, but it packs a punch that is missing from most modern games. Starflight had an amazing plot that would see you struggling for survival in the beginning and would lead to the liberation of the galaxy in the end. There was nothing linear about how this happened, the story could take hundreds of twists and turns along the way, and you were free to roam and find this way. You had the ability to customize your flag ship and the fleet of ships that followed along. It had hundreds of star systems, and this universe actually felt like it was grand in scale. In minutes you could easily play this game, but you could spend many hours mastering it. Everytime I pick up some silver in the large nameless MMORGP, or mindlessly waste covenant soldiers in Halo, I find myself missing this game play. Where did this style of game go? Are graphics killing the plot? Have big companies taken the fun out of gaming? Or have gamers been so dumbed down by 1st person shooters, that a game like this would never sell?

Retro Gaming

2005-06-30T10:22:00.000-04:00

After a long break from working on projects on side (most of this break was spent playing a very popular MMORPG), I am back to the drawing board of what to work on. I have spent the last couple of days digging up old code and taking stock of what we have to work with. So far the team consists of one jack of all trades developer, a math guy and a 3d graphics artist in training, so we can assume that the next GTA will not be coming out of this lab. We have kicked around various ideas of what to build over the last couple of weeks / months and I will talk about them in future posts. But before I do this, I think it is useful to understand what is driving my thinking, and I feel that I should elaborate about my feelings on the game industry (This will not be the first or last time I go off on this topic). Over the years I have watched the gaming industry evolve and grow and then stagnate. In the beginning I had a pong game with the two wheel controllers and it was good. I played pitfall on the Atari 2600 (I can still hear the theme song when I think about it). I played the first 3d polygon arcade tank games, with the green outlines for objects and the periscope view port. This was the age of innocence of in this business; everything had a "project" feel to it. Developers were making hardware do things that challenged both the equipment and every byte of memory it had to offer. But this time could not last, the wheels of industry took hold and money would become the driving factor behind development, soon the market would see its future in the form of Nintendo. I think this is when my disconnect with the game industry began. Oh yes, there was other machines out there, but the Nintendo was first spawn of what has saturated the entire market these days. This is when game development became a "team" effort and the focus was no longer on making games but making graphics and building a game to suit them. My interest would move away from console games when my family got our first PC and I installed a game called Starflight.

Smart move

2005-04-29T13:40:00.000-04:00

I so often complain about things I feel the government does wrong that it seems rare to credit them on a good move. But California is making an excellent one. California is pushing a bill through the legislature that would ban the use of RFID chips in state identity documents. I am glad to see that there are people in government that still value individual liberty and privacy.

Changing gears

2005-04-21T14:51:00.000-04:00

Blogger lost the 2nd half of my last post (that I of course don't have a copy of) so I am just saying screw it. That piece was even boring me. I want to stop bitching about things I almost no control over and work on things that I do have some control over. Most of you who know me know that I have wanted to develop a computer game since I first started using computers. This has been the passion that I have dabbled in over the years, but to this date have never invested the time into making it happen. I want this to change. I plan on using my blog as a kind of day to day journal of my ideas, progress and challenges. My hope is that this keeps me on track and the project moving forward. We shall see.

The ugly weed

2005-04-04T13:53:00.000-04:00

I have looked at the free market as both a defender and a critic, so I don’t wish the following post to be viewed as an outright attack on free market economics. A couple of minutes ago I mentioned to a friend that I though of economic markets like a garden. I felt like I needed to explain my reasons having this opinion.

To have a successful garden you have to do a couple of important things: pick the right plants, have good soil, provide the right light, provide the right amount of water and remove weeds. Notice that the word “right” is used a lot in the last sentence. Plants don’t respond well to being overdone. Many plants have certain light and moisture levels that stimulate growth. If you over water a plant its roots will rot. Some plants respond well to being trimmed back, cut too much and they will suffer, not enough and they grow wild. But understanding how plants are tended is both an art and science; this is what separates your neighbor’s normal size pumpkin from the prize winning ones that can fill the bed of a truck. Growing a successful garden is not only about growing plants, it is about growing the right plants and protecting the soil for sustainability.

Anybody can let nature take its course on a piece of empty soil, you just leave it alone and the plants will just show up. No only will plants show up, but they will thrive. Various weeds will grow and spread; they will cover the ground and provide both control for erosion and food for insect life. In many cases trees will replace this ground cover and block out the light for weeds creating the clear forest floor. This natural cycle is both wondrous and elegant, but it is self serving for all the organisms in it. Any living thing that can’t cope with its surroundings dies in favor of the stronger plant or animal.

continued later...

Back to the blog

2005-03-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

It has been awhile since I have posted anything on my blog. I am not really sure why, but I think it has to do with me being tired of bitching about stuff. I read about something everyday that I disagree with, but I am powerless to change, and even then I might not be right if I could affect change. A good example of this is bankruptcy reform. I tend to not be in favor of it. But I am sure there are people out there that could find abusers of the system that justify this regulation. I guess as I get older I am just starting to see the world more in its many shades of gray than just black and white. I find it easier to sit in the middle of almost every issue because the people that take polar sides of the issue obviously bend reality to suit their argument. Damn, it is just cathartic to talk to dead air every few months.

Feeling Detroit 2

2004-11-15T01:37:00.000-05:00

one day has elapsed in "blog" time....

In the early 80's imported steel and cars started to take a hit on the employment ranks of unionized workers. I being a young Republican took the same stand to this trend as my contemporaries did, which was, tell them “adapt”. As a young man with no experience, I could not appreciate the level of skill it takes to perform work of this nature. Many people have the attitude that these guys just bolt parts together and their jobs could be done by trained monkeys. This line of thinking seems to be popular with free market fan boys and economists that are in no danger of loosing their jobs. I had no personal connection to the reality of globalization. But now having invested years into a career field that is in danger of getting outsourced to cheaper labor markets, I can see the storm clouds on the horizon. The subtle reality is hitting home that if I want to keep doing my job it is going to be for less and less money every year. That I am in a labor market where I will be fighting for a job with other more qualified and better educated workers, and I now I know how the auto workers felt back in the 80's. But as a bit of poetic justice, people have as little concern about my industries plight as I did for other outsourced workers as a kid. Funny how the circle of life comes back to bite you in the ass.

Feeling Detroit

2004-09-28T10:15:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time when I was younger I considered myself to be a Republican. I believed in the power of the free market, the virtues of smaller government, and worthless nature of labor unions. I was so naïve that I even voted straight ticket Republican and found time to go to a Republican fund raiser. When I got old enough to have to support myself I pushed my political interests to the backburner a bit, but still had the energy to go ten rounds with somebody about why global warming was a sham. My first real job happened when the auto parts company I was working for moved me into their IT department, and I became a computer programmer. I had learned this skill by teaching myself the basics of software development as a teenager (much to my mothers dismay “you waste too much time in front of that computer…”). This was a great time for me, because I was now getting paid for something that used to be a hobby. I was actually one of those people that loved what they did for a living. I have been doing this for about a decade now, there have been some ups and downs, but overall it has been a pretty good run. I would like tinker with source code and build software for the rest of my working days, but I know this will not happen. My industry is on the leading edge of the outsourcing trend.

To be continued tomorrow…..

Iraq

2004-08-20T16:09:00.000-04:00

I read yet another piece in Slate today about how we were wrong to send troops into Iraq. The reasons are mostly the same: we lacked international support, we don’t have enough troops to secure the country, we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, and Bush is just mean. Well, the truth is I can’t argue against any of those points, but I don’t think any of these points represent enough reason not to have gone into Iraq. Genocide is THE BEST reason to remove a leader from power. Let me repeat this. Saddam Hussein committed genocide as a regular matter of practice during his reign. It was a CRISIS when Hitler, Stalin and Milosevic did it, and it should have been a crisis when Mugabe and Hussein did it. To me this is just plain racism, and it is really crazy because it is being carried out by the people that normally champion fairness between all races and creeds. All human beings are special and important, and to allow people to be slaughtered by crazed dictators when we have the power to stand up for them is immoral in the worst way. Do we actually think that because people are African, Arabs or Asians they do not deserve the chance to live? Do we turn a blind eye toward atrocities around the world because it might put our troops in harms way? Is comfort in our backyard worth allowing untold numbers of other humans to die?

Forgotten Names

2004-08-08T10:59:00.000-04:00

I was telling my girlfriend about how people that do acupuncture insert needles without causing pain. I told her that it was my understanding that they applied pressure before inserting the needle so that you would only feel the pressure. She asked me how I knew this. Had I been to an acupuncturist before? I told her about a girl that I used to be friends with in school that had it done. It had been many years since I had seen this girl and I was struggling to recall a name or face for her. I remembered that she was tall, very thin, had brown hair with big curls, and wore thick rimmed Lisa Lobe looking glasses. I also remembered that she was a bit strange, but very sweet and kind of pretty also. I even remembered that she did some modeling a couple of times, but I could not recall a name or face still. And I started to think about all the people that I have known over the years that have fallen out of my circle of friends or day to day life. I find it interesting the details that my brain neatly files away and the ones that just pass into the ether. It also seems that only the strongest or most strange personalities get etched into our mind forever; I mean, how could I forget my angry obese second grade teacher that had me go to the principals office because she did not like my serial killer looking all caps handwriting? But the normal people just seem to fade away, and if I remember them it will only be for their quirky traits, like getting acupuncture done.

James Bond in your backyard?

2004-07-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5388509/site/newsweek/

Well, it looks like VP candidate John Edwards seems to be pushing for the creation of domestic spy agency based on Britain’s M.I.5. Bad idea does not even begin to describe how I feel about this. The CIA, NSA, etc do not spy on our countries citizens for a good reason, we have the FBI. The FBI is a law enforcement agency that is made to play by a strict set of rules, for your own safety. Please people, stop sacrificing the future of your liberty on the altar of today’s safety.

Postponement of the election?

2004-07-12T13:35:00.000-04:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5411741/site/newsweek

This is one of the most shocking articles I have read in quite some time. Basically the Department of Homeland Security is seeking the power to postpone federal elections in the event of a terrorist attack. I am afraid to even speculate on the nature of this request, because I am too far appalled by the concept of it.

Bring on the fries

2004-06-25T09:33:00.000-04:00

"Acrylamides, a family of chemicals recently found in cooked foods that is known to cause cancer in rats, pose little threat to the U.S. population, an expert panel has reported."

I think this is perfect example of our knee jerk reactions to diet these days. We hear the smallest bit of information without the benefit of proof or supporting research and we attack it with the zest of ultimate stupidity. There are legions of people out there that think eating a handful of potato chips will give them inoperable cancer. I dream of a world where people are capable of intelligent and informed decision making.

Bowling for brain cells

2004-06-24T02:05:00.000-04:00

I have gotten to be a little more liberal as my years have gone by, but I have never developed a taste for the propaganda of the far left. The chief mouthpiece of the left these days seems to be Michael Moore, a man that I can't seem to find the words to express my dislike of. Anyway, I just read a brilliant article in slate by a guy that has issues with how Moore operates, and I just wanted to pass it along to anybody that shares my disgust. http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723

NASA who?

2004-06-21T10:00:00.001-04:00

Many congratulations to the creators of SpaceShipOne, which made its first historic flight into space earlier today. The earth just got a whole lot smaller.

Snow White

2004-06-17T01:17:00.000-04:00

So after trying a couple of Mac computers on for size I finally broke down and ordered an iBook. Now I have a piece of polymer wrapped art work and a pile of assorted Macs that must find new homes via eBay (a desktop PC that is going to get the eBay boot also, one is already in Arizona). The moral of the story being that I am breaking even (at zero) on the other macs and will have sold two paid for PC computers to pay for this pretty new notebook. Why a Mac you ask? Well, after getting a particularly nasty windows based virus one night, my friend John told me he was buying a Mac, and I said to myself "what a damn good idea." I will have to write another post to tell you what a marvelous piece of software engineering OS X is, because I plan on using this one to tell you about the piece of nerd eye candy that is iBook. The thing is about the size of a piece of paper and one inch deep, is is brillant white over every square inch and has no doors or cheap feeling port covers. It is also like a pimped up lowrider with a glowing Apple logo on the back lid and a amber and green glowing disk around the AC adapter. It runs dead silent and so cool that you barely feel the heat under your hands while typing. I ask myself "why the hell does everybody not have one of these things?" And then I realize that it is the same reason that people shop at Walmart, in that if something is cheap people overlook style.

Religion in government

2004-06-08T14:54:00.000-04:00

I was reading a Regan speech on John’s blog today and I felt the need to speak about it. First off, for clarification, I see myself as a religious person; I am often am a little more private about religion than most, but I would like to think that my core principals are driven from my beliefs. But I find myself very much on the other side of the ideological divide than most religious people on this issue, in that I think religion and government should have definite walls of separation. I am going to give you a couple of reasons why I think this should be the case, and hopefully explain my reasons in enough detail to support my view.

My first reason is that we all see our religion as “the one”, and I think this is a natural byproduct in having faith. But our religion is not the only one; there are a variety of religions in this world, each with a very distinct value system and definition of morality. One of the glaring differences is that some religions are monotheistic others polytheistic. And in making this observation we start running into obvious problems like: does a Christian think that religions that are based on the worship of many gods true religions? So we have to ask ourselves right out of the gate “do we consider all religions to be true?” I think in all fairness most of would have to say no. I do not consider worship of the Earth Mother a true faith, but I am sure there are many who would beg to differ. This inability to define a true religion is unimportant for the follower, but much more problematic for society as a whole. When we start trying to protect religious freedom in public funded life, protecting prayer in school might sound like a fine idea, but do Muslim students have the right to a prayer bell ringing several times a day?

Another big problem with not drawing this separation is the tendency of some religions to promote a state sponsored status. I think most of us can think of one very large religion that thinks religion should drive all areas of public life. Growing populations can make a religion that practiced by a small number today the dominant religion tomorrow. Now I know that I am going to get hit with the constitution protection against state sponsored religions argument, to which I would reply “and I also have the right to bear arms.”

My third point is that while most of our laws come from the law of God, our government needs to operate by the law of man. I don’t think that our public servants have any more business placing a stone relief of the Ten Commandments on the foot of their courthouse than a stone Koran. A person facing a judge should know that he is dealing with a person that operates beyond outside influences. If he or she runs over a cow and gets charged with reckless driving, that person should know the judge will not throw the book at him for running over the reincarnated spirit of a dead relative.

I could make several more points but I would like to sum up by saying that I think separation of church and state is good because it goes a very long way in protecting everybody’s right to free practice of religion. I relate it very much to dieting; you take a certain amount of food out of a bag instead of eating out of the bag to keep you from consuming everything. I just feel that this separation protects us from our own worst tendencies to be gluttons.

Weekend update

2004-06-07T15:30:00.000-04:00

This has been one of my busier weekends in a long while. Friday I went and saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I was very pleased to see that Warner Brothers had picked such a capable director for the third installment of the series. Alfonso Cuarón really showcased his talent here. The lighting was brilliant, the transitions seamless, and a very complex story line was handled with grace and precision. I was really blown away and can’t wait for number four. On Saturday we made a trip up to Gatlinburg Tennessee to visit the Ripley’s aquarium. It was very impressive. The main attraction was a central tank that housed a variety of species of sharks. There was an underwater tunnel that circled the tank, which provided some of excellent close up views. Also, on Saturday, I learned that President Reagan had passed. I was saddened to learn of his death, but relieved at the same time. I have seen people suffering from chronic illnesses and it is very sad to see people pass away one little piece at a time. He was a very good man, and the world will be a lesser place without him.

Why I am ashamed to be a Republican

2004-06-02T15:13:00.000-04:00

So I was reading on CNN today that the majority of federal land being leased to oil exploration and drilling companies sits unused while the administration pushes usage of new public areas such as ANWR. I also read that these companies were paying two to three dollars per acre for this land and using it to pad the books for valuation purposes. While I usually err on side of caution when it comes to information from CNN, certain facts here are just not refutable. While I don't think this amounts to an oil company land grab; I do believe that is nothing more than giving these companies access to the low hanging fruit. Why should they invest the money exploring the existing lands when they can go and cherry pick these easy pockets of oil? It is in most businesses nature to try to maximize their profit, so I can't blame them for this behavior. It is up to us our elected leaders to carry a torch of social responsibility, and I think this is another instance of us being let down.

Urban blight

2004-05-30T23:01:00.000-04:00

Usually when we watch something deteriorate, the impact of our observation is tempered by the span of time it takes for the event to happen. Much as the beginning of life is a slow and steady process that marches along with time, so is the death of things. This gradual progression of events helps our minds acclimate to the adjustment in reality. This basic truth was very much violated today when I visited an ingles grocery store to pick up some food for a Memorial Day cookout. I had last visited this store about seven years ago when it very much still a gleaming beacon of commerce. I find there is a certain quality that is reflected in young things both organic and inorganic; they hold all the promise of the future within them, it is almost as if hope, dreams and imagination where bottled up and waiting to be discovered. But the last seven years had not been kind to this store. The parking lot was almost deserted. Garbage was collecting near a clothes for charity drop off box. And the building looked many years older than it seemed it should. I found myself very saddened during this visit. The shock of seeing something in the final phase of existence was not the depressing part; it was the sudden change in reality, and how this change brilliantly highlighted this phase. Maybe this was a more personal revelation? I guess I had realized that while I did not notice, time had moved on.

Greetings from boredom central

2004-05-25T00:19:00.000-04:00

I attended my first day of a government conference today for a certain public health information system. One of the primary things that I have learned to accept in government is a tendency to talk problems to the point that they have been resolved by either age or irrelevancy. From a taxpayers perspective this is a nice thing, since it is still cheaper to talk about resolving a problem than acting on it. And even if they do act on it, the resolution tends to be more problematic than the original problem. But now back the original point of this post. Government conferences are terribly boring. I come from a technical background and I have learned over the years how boring technical lecturing can be. The crazy thing is that medical lectures are far worse. You take all this obscure detail oriented crap, mix it with a little Latin, throw in a pinch of statistics and you end up with a stew guaranteed to handle your worst case of insomnia. I just wish people could write painfully boring books instead of subjecting me to the live version of it. I will be there for the next four days, so more exciting stories coming tomorrow.

The future of learning?

2004-05-22T21:50:00.000-04:00

So I decided to go back and take some classes at Georgia Perimeter College this summer. I also decided that I was not interested in doing it in the classroom, so ended up signing up for an English class and a Math class that were delivered online. I paid my tuition, got my books, and was ready to start. Eager to get going, I logged in for the first time on Wednesday; this is about the time the rug got pulled out from under me. I would spend the next couple of hours trying to decipher one of the most screwed up and convoluted systems ever conceived by man. The first and most glaring problem was the fact that the two classes were driven by completely different systems. The math class was provided via an Addison Wesley website, and the English class through the primary WebCT website. The second problem was the fact that professors have no standardization in how they teach these online courses. Some want you to go to this website and print out these documents to mail back, and others want you to perform online tests. The third problem is there is almost no guidance about how to actually do a web based class. Professors provide you with a syllabus, academic rules, calendars, pacing guides, and every other document under the sun, but it seems to be too much trouble to just give you a little sheet with instructions on how to do the class. I guess I am just not patient enough to expend the energy it would take to figure out all this mess. Maybe I belong in a traditional classroom? I just have to ask, is this really the future of learning????