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July 10th, 2009
July 9th, 2009
04:07 pm - secret masters of the universe accidentally admit they control everything
Sergey Aleynikov, was arrested July 3, charged in a criminal complaint with stealing the trading software.
At a court appearance U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti said the theft poses a risk to U.S. markets:
“The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.”
So goldman-sachs accidentally admits that it uses their top secret black box trading programs to manipulate the market.
This is a pretty big blunder by them, because now everyone is left wondering, how exactly goldman-sachs skims from and manipulates the market? If there is a possibility to cheat the market, nobody believes goldman-sachs would refrain from abusing this power. So, is it front trading, where you get to see the quote of your competitors ahead of time (in microseconds) and you execute your trade before they do?
We want to know what is in your little black box, Goldman-Sachs.
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July 8th, 2009
01:32 pm - why did jacob steal esau's blessing and what did god think about it?
So I despise that part of animes where you can be as stupid as you want, in fact being stupid is good because it shows your good heart. Which reminds me of the tale of isaac and his two sons jacob and esau in the bible.
22Before Rebekah gave birth, she knew she was going to have twins, because she could feel them inside her, fighting each other. She thought, "Why is this happening to me?" Finally, she asked the LORD why her twins were fighting, 23and he told her: "Your two sons will become two separate nations. [f] The younger of the two will be stronger, and the older son will be his servant." 28Esau would take the meat of wild animals to his father Isaac, and so Isaac loved him more, but Jacob was his mother's favorite son.
29One day, Jacob was cooking some stew, when Esau came home hungry 30and said, "I'm starving to death! Give me some of that red stew right now!" That's how Esau got the name "Edom." [i] 31Jacob replied, "Sell me your rights as the first-born son." [j] 32"I'm about to die," Esau answered. "What good will those rights do me?"
33But Jacob said, "Promise me your birthrights, here and now!" And that's what Esau did. 34Jacob then gave Esau some bread and some of the bean stew, and when Esau had finished eating and drinking, he just got up and left, showing how little he thought of his rights as the first-born.
1After Isaac had become old and almost blind, he called in his first-born son Esau, who asked him, "Father, what can I do for you?"
2Isaac replied, "I am old and might die at any time. 3So take your bow and arrows, then go out in the fields, and kill a wild animal. 4Cook some of that tasty food that I love so much and bring it to me. I want to eat it once more and give you my blessing before I die."
[Rebbecca heard this and schemed]
14So Jacob brought the meat to his mother, and she cooked the tasty food that his father liked. 15Then she took Esau's best clothes and put them on Jacob. 16She also covered the smooth part of his hands and neck with goatskins 17and gave him some bread and the tasty food she had cooked.
18Jacob went to his father and said, "Father, here I am."
"Which one of my sons are you?" his father asked.
19Jacob replied, "I am Esau, your first-born, and I have done what you told me. Please sit up and eat the meat I have brought. Then you can give me your blessing."
20Isaac asked, "My son, how did you find an animal so quickly?"
"The LORD your God was kind to me," Jacob answered.
21"My son," Isaac said, "come closer, where I can touch you and find out if you really are Esau." 22Jacob went closer. His father touched him and said, "You sound like Jacob, but your hands feel hairy like Esau's." 23And so Isaac blessed Jacob, thinking he was Esau.
24Isaac asked, "Are you really my son Esau?"
"Yes, I am," Jacob answered.
25So Isaac told him, "Serve me the wild meat, and I can give you my blessing."
Jacob gave him some meat, and he ate it. He also gave him some wine, and he drank it. 26Then Isaac said, "Son, come over here and kiss me." 27While Jacob was kissing him, Isaac caught the smell of his clothes and said:
"The smell of my son is like a field the LORD has blessed. 28God will bless you, my son, with dew from heaven and with fertile fields, rich with grain and grapes. 29Nations will be your servants and bow down to you. You will rule over your brothers, and they will kneel at your feet. Anyone who curses you will be cursed; anyone who blesses you will be blessed."
30Right after Isaac had given Jacob his blessing and Jacob had gone, Esau came back from hunting. 31He cooked the tasty food, brought it to his father, and said, "Father, please sit up and eat the meat I have brought you, so you can give me your blessing."
32"Who are you?" Isaac asked.
"I am Esau, your first-born son."
33Isaac started trembling and said, "Then who brought me some wild meat right before you came in? I ate it and gave him a blessing that cannot be taken back."
34Esau cried loudly and begged, "Father, give me a blessing too!"
35Isaac answered, "Your brother tricked me and stole your blessing."
41Esau hated his brother Jacob because he had stolen the blessing that was supposed to be his. So he said to himself, "Just as soon as my father dies, I'll kill Jacob."
6Esau found out that his father Isaac had blessed Jacob and had warned him not to marry any of the Canaanite women. He also learned that Jacob had been sent to find a wife in northern Syria [b] 7and that he had obeyed his father and mother. 8Esau already had several wives, but he realized at last how much his father hated the Canaanite women.
[Jacob runs off and years later comes back to meet Esau]
4Jacob told them to say to Esau, "Master, I am your servant! I have lived with Laban all this time, 5and now I own cattle, donkeys, and sheep, as well as many slaves. Master, I am sending these messengers in the hope that you will be kind to me."
6When the messengers returned, they told Jacob, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he is heading this way with four hundred men."
7Jacob was so frightened that he divided his people, sheep, cattle, and camels into two groups. 8He thought, "If Esau attacks one group, perhaps the other can escape."
1Later that day Jacob met Esau coming with his four hundred men. So Jacob had his children walk with their mothers. 2The two servant women, Zilpah and Bilhah, together with their children went first, followed by Leah and her children, then by Rachel and Joseph. 3Jacob himself walked in front of them all, bowing to the ground seven times as he came near his brother.
4But Esau ran toward Jacob and hugged and kissed him. Then the two brothers started crying.
So what are the lessons here? If you read christian bible studies there is a real problem here. Because Jacob lied he cheated, and stole from Esau, definitely sins, and he got away with everything. So to the christians this is a story of forgiveness, which means that even though Jacob did so many bad things, Esau forgave Jacob which shows god's forgiveness. Which is totally out of line with the real intent of the story. Clearly the star is Jacob, god blesses him, and wants him to be the future king of israel. If you read jewish studies of this story, they rationalize it by saying that basically god works in mysterious ways. Isaac wanted to do god's will and figured that meant giving his blessings to the oldest, even though Jacob was clearly a more capable leader. So in order for god to work his will, he tricked Isaac through Jacob. Also, Esau didn't deserve the birthright because he married foreign women. I think all this is a lot of rationalization.
Here is what I think the lesson of this story is:
Either Jacob or Esau was going to be the future leader of the nation of Israel. Now on one hand you have Esau illiterate, impulsive hunter, and on the other you have literate, clever, self controlled Jacob. Look at at all the ways that Jacob displays how he plans, he tricks Esau out of his birthright, yes, but he also is clever enough to play out by himself all the possibilities if Esau wants to kill him after they reunite. Now it's true that when Isaac is first tricked by Jacob, all of it is done by Rebbecca, but you have to remember that Jacob is his mother's son. All of the cleverness that Rebbecca displays has been passed down to Jacob. And all of the stupidity that Isaac has was passed down to Esau. Isaac is like Esau. Isaac is too dumb to realize that god's will is that Jacob should lead the nation of Israel even though Jacob is the younger. So while Rebbecca did trick her own husband, all the cleverness in the story is assumed to be passed down to Jacob also. Now as to the rationalization that god wanted Jacob to be the father of Israel because Esau married foreign wives, well Esau did realize at last that this was a problem. So you see, it's not that Esau married foreign wives, but that he was so stupid he didn't understand it was a problem.
Now if you look through the entire bible as a whole, you'll see many many times Israel forgets what the point of god is, they worship pagan symbols and gold calves at the drop of a hat. And again and again, the only way they can be brought back to a monotheistic god is because their religion is written down. Today that is why the jewish faith survives as it does when many other faiths of that time are long dead. They are the people of the book. Even Muhammad realized the power of being the people of the book, so when he prophesied he always made sure to explain that he was not making shit up, instead he was reading from the holy book of god (even though Muhammad was illiterate) because there is great power in writing, and that is the power to carry through time words exactly. With a mere oral tradition you get the telephone game. Also, in the struggle to conquer Israel after deuteronomy, clever war leaders would be needed, not just faith in god and brute strength.
Jacob must have known the power of intelligence, the power to read to write, to think to scheme, and he must have known he was better suited to lead Israel, and he even risked the curse of his father to obtain this power. His brother was stupid and impulsive, so Jacob schemed and stole the power.
The lesson here is that god hates warlike impulsive morons as leaders for his chosen people so much that he would rather have a liar, thief and a cheat than that impulsive illiterate moron Esau in charge of his people. It's true that what Jacob did was evil, but in this case the ends justified the means. It's a very troubling lesson, that sometimes you have to do evil in order to do good, and that's why this lesson is so often mis-represented in bible teachings. It's a terrible lesson for children to learn that sometimes leaders have to lie and scheme. So they don't teach it, the two lessons above are taught, that either it's a lesson of Esau's forgiveness or that god has this big mysterious plan in the works. Especially since the central lessons of Jesus are all about the weak, the humble, the stupid, here this lesson of Isaac, Jacob and Esau is all about how the elite, the clever, could and should take advantage of the stupid impulsive morons who would lead their own nations into disaster, and cheat them out of their birthrights, because to the clever go the spoils. Like I said it's a troubling lesson, but I think it's the best interpretation, and a favorite story in the bible, just because how the story rewards brains and guile over brawn and impulsiveness.
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July 6th, 2009
04:35 pm - what I learned from anime heros
Smart people are invariably evil. The single best way to turn from a good guy into a bad guy is to plot and scheme in order to obtain something you want. The way you get something you want is to want it real bad, then it will happen. Suppose you want super powers. Just want it really bad and then a mecha will fall on you and you'll suddenly have super powers.
Girls love stubborn guys. Once you make up your mind, never change it. Because changing your mind is the sign of weakness. Be strong, and always do the same thing over and over again. Then the girls will all fall into your lap.
If there is something you want, don't try a new approach. Remember like I said before scheming and thinking and intelligently plotting your life out only leads you into great evil. But if the thing you want is hard to get you might have to yell to get it. Start low with a yell, then have the yell go higher and higher until it goes "YEAAAAAAAOAH" and then you'll get what you want by trying super super hard. If you try hard enough you will change color. Sometimes your hair will get extra spikey if you try super super hard. It's like when you are sitting on the can and you are trying to poop out a log, and you are so constipated that nothing happens, but if you just push hard enough, there it goes, kerplop! My face only turns red from all the pushing on the can, but I learned that maybe I'm not pushing hard enough. If you push hard enough your whole body will turn gold, or sometimes matte black, and your sword (or mecha, or body) will increase to a monstrous size.
Everyone has a super power. So if someone says to you, "Why are you hiding your superpower?" Don't answer back, "What do you mean, I have no super power." Yes you do, just start pushing hard, and grunt grunt grunt until you start changing color and you turn gold.
Your super power is always the most special and most super powered up, even though it makes absolutely no sense for the stupidest person in the world to be given this power.
No matter what happens, you will be forgiven. Kill a few people, grab the boss's daughter's tittie, steal the forbidden scrolls, it's all good, you'll get a slap on the wrist that's all, because everyone knows someone as stupid as you are must be working for the forces of justice and good.
There is no better way to solve problems than getting really really angry. If something pisses you off get angry, that helps your super power make you turn gold, makes your sword longer and helps you grunt hard.
The best way to grunt is to use lots and lots of "K" sounds. Like, "KEK!!! kek kek KEK KEK!" that's how to grunt good. My superpower has never turned on no matter how much I grunt, I'm thinking maybe that's because I grunt like a pig instead of like an anime hero.
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July 2nd, 2009
12:07 am - steampunk candle
this turned out way more cool than I thought it would be:
this is made out of a butane microtorch (refillable), glass chimney made from a guitar slide, coleman mantle and a candle stick and some stuff to stick it all together, strips of aluminum and a pipe collar. It glows at about 2 or 3 candles, very nice. This was actually the exact effect I was going for but I really didn't think that this mantle would work quite so well, it really glows with a nice brilliant but tiny white light. This picture is under room light, I don't think my camera can capture how it really looks in a dark room. Just think steampunk, and you'll get an idea of the kind of illumination you get from this.
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July 1st, 2009
02:19 pm - sanford & king david
I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.
Sanford
I think everyone remembers the story of basheba, king david committed adultery with a pretty young wife and sent the husband to the front lines to kill him. But God didn't topple King David. Instead he punished David by killing the son from the infidelity and kept David in power.
from 2 Samuel 12
1 The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4 "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
7 Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'
11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.' "
13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD."
Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for [a] the LORD, the son born to you will die."
So what to make of this? Why didn't god topple King David who disobeyed god? It is because God chose David. According to the bible, god anoints people people to various tasks, and one of these tasks was to govern the jews, so pretty much no matter what sins David committed, God would have forgiven him, because he was God's chosen.
I think pretty much every petty dictator feels the same way. They feel that yes, they might have committed evil crimes but they are forgiven because only they can save their own people. Nobody else can ever do what they do. Mugabe in Africa knows he might have committed some crimes, but only he, only Mugabe can save the nation of Zimbabwe. At least that's how he thinks. The petty dictator, the petty governor begins to feel he is irreplaceable and because of it, he feels any crime he commits can be forgiven.
The truth is that the people feel about their politicians the same way we feel about our sports coaches. When times are great, we love them, but as soon as there is a losing season we want them fired. The problem is, it might be years before the owner finally gets rid of a despised coach. The difference between a coach and a politician is that when a coach gets fired, he knows it is coming, he knows the performance isn't there and can feel the pressure. But when a politician gets voted out of office for poor performance, it always seems to come as a surprise to them. They get used to the power and feel like being in power is the natural way of the universe, that only he or she should be in power forever, instead this power being a representation of the fickle will of the people. It is extremely rare to find a politician who is reflective enough to even wonder if maybe he isn't the right man for the job. Or to put it the way that Sanford thinks: He was chosen by god to be governor and god doesn't make mistakes.
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June 30th, 2009
01:31 pm - is it so wrong to take the pawn?
is it so wrong to take the pawn?
nadjdorf, poisonpawn, move 8. Why not take the pawn! Kasparov did it vs Nigel.
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June 27th, 2009
03:23 am - jbs haldane
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.
On a planet more than a billion years old it is hard to believe, as do Christians, Jews, and Buddhists, that the most important event has occurred within the last few thousand years, when it is clear that there were great civilizations before that event. It is equally difficult to doubt that many events as significant for humanity will occur in the future. In that immeasurable future the destiny of humanity dwarfs that of the individual. If our planet was created a few thousand years ago to end a few years or a few thousand years, hence, it is conceivable that the main purpose to be worked out on it is the salvation and perfection of individual human beings. No religion which accepts geology can regard such a purpose as anything but subsidiary.
-- J.B.S. Haldane
"Fact and Faith" (1934)
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June 26th, 2009
02:12 am - in retrospect we shouldn't be surprised
"Jackson recently OD'd on Demerol and Jack Daniels. Jackson has overdosed a couple of times. Jackson was high on drugs at his child molestation trial, shooting himself in his leg with a syringe filled with Demerol."
The National Enquirer, December 2005
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June 22nd, 2009
04:30 pm - ws burroughs
I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from Control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out.
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June 19th, 2009
12:21 pm - finally finished the modern corporation and private property
The only example of a similar subjection of the economic interests of the individual to those of a group which appears to the writers as being at all comparable, is that contained in the communist system. Though the communist ideology differs and the communist application is more drastic, the principle seems similar. As a qualification on what has been known as private property in Anglo-American law, this corporate development represents a far greater approach towards communist modalities than appears anywhere else in our system. It is an odd paradox that a corporate board of directors and a communist committee of commissars should so nearly meet in a common contention. The communist th8inks of the community in terms of a state; the corporation director thinks of it in terms of an enterprise; and though this difference between the two may well lead to a radical divergence in results, it still remains true that the corporation director who would subordinate the interests of the individual stockholder to those of the group more nearly resembles the communist in mode of thought than he does the protagonist of private property.
The shift of powers from the individual to the controlling management combined with the shift from the interest of the individual to those of the group have so changed the position of the stockholder that the correct conception with regard to him must be radically revised. Conceived originally as a quasi-partner, manager and entrepreneur, with definite rights in and to property used in the enterprise and to the profits of that enterprise as they accrued, he has now reached an entirely different status. He has, it is true, a series of legal rights, but these are weakened in varying degree (depending upon the completeness with which the corporation has embodied in its structure the modern devices) by the text of the contract to which the stockholder is bound. His power to participate in management has, in large measure, been lost to him, and has become vested in the "control."
"The Modern Corporation and Private Property"
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June 17th, 2009
04:41 pm - bruce lee vs Jet li and tony jaa
I recently watched the entire series once upon a time in china 1-6, and all the Tony Jaa films.
jet lee is not in 4, 5 but he is in 1-3 and 6. 1-3 are great, 1 starts off with a completely china nationalistic view of the world how the evil foreign empires are raping china (which was true, go read about the opium wars). the stories are all about Wong Fei Hung. He's the kung fu master who would beat you up and then (because he was a doctor) he'd fix your wounds after kicking your ass. As far as I can tell, Wong Fei Hung is China's Daniel Boone. There are a million stories about him, but he didn't really do anything special, it was not what Wong Fei Hung did, but who he was. He made the chinese proud to be chinese and defined for many the national character. Sure he was a revolutionary during empress dowager cixi's reign but it was not the revolution that was important but the style he did it with.
Amazing movies, Jet Li has the long fist and pole action that is just incredible. You know you are watching a great martial artist when the best scenes are the ones without any wirework.
Bruce Lee didn't live long enough to do his own versions of Wong Fei Hung. He did big boss, fist of fury, way of the dragon, and enter the dragon, that's it.
But there is still one thing that sets Bruce Lee apart from the rest. I think it was fear. Plain old fear. When Bruce kicked, it was with full power, and he would miss your face by less than an inch. The extras were afraid they would be literally killed by Bruce. In "Enter the Dragon" when bruce kicked bob wall, it broke Wall's sternum, and the two extras behind wall had their arms broken, and it put Wall in the hospital. Wall also cut Bruce Lee for real with the glass bottle by accident and thought that Lee might kill him on one of the takes. This is method acting at its finest :-)
In most Bruce Lee films there's this moment, when Bruce Lee says "Get lost. My fight is not with you!" And there is this hesitation and real fear. This doesn't happen with Jet Li or especially Tony Jaa.
Think about it. You see Jet Li or Tony Jaa beat up and kill 100 people. Why do you want to fight HIM? Yet it's like a video game. The enemies just come one after another.
That's what makes a bruce lee film special. The baddies don't come one after another. They are afraid of bruce lee and will escape if possible.
Another thing is that in a bruce lee film violence solves nothing. In the big boss, lee tries to stop the boss instead of going to the police and ends up in jail for murder for killing the boss after his girlfriend fetches the police to try to stop bruce from murdering him. In fist of fury, he leaves his school to take vengeance on the other school, but while he is gone on his mission of revenge, all his friends are murdered, and the very last scene is him launching himself in the air with a ferocious kick to be killed by volley of riflefire. In the Chinese connection, bruce fights for the restaurant and people all around him die . . . but if he had just let things be, the uncle would have sold it to the mob and nobody would get hurt. Violence is always the worst solution for Bruce Lee but he can't help but fight.
In a Jet Li film, violence is the answer of last resort, but it always ends up being the best answer. He's "Don't fight, don't fight, ok well if you want to fight, FIGHT ME!" and then he solves all problems with his awesome fighting ability.
My favorite martial artist I think is bruce lee just because of that. In a bruce lee film, the violence is never the answer, no matter how bad ass you are, there's always a better solution.
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01:37 pm - rule 5 again
Since the makers of the game needs some help in understanding why people play the game I thought I'd write a little post explaining it.
First of all, people are not attracted to the game due to its simplicity. The same people that balk at understanding the stack are the same people that don't get summon sickness, they don't understand why there has to be an upkeep phase, they don't like having to understand a phase at all, they don't like it when there is a chance to play sorcery spells after the main attack, they don't like it when they find out that lands are colorless, these same people will not play the game no matter how you change the combat step. The makers of the game seem to think, "If we make this little change, those people that find the complexity of the game too much will give it a chance." No. They will not. There are people that see a game of bridge and think, "Wow that seems cool, teach me what a 2 No-Trump bid means" and there are people that say "What? I don't want to have to memorize the point count of a no trump bid." And if you make the no-trump bid less complicated it won't help them! Because it is the entire whole complicated mess that is the problem.
Fixing the combat step does NOT attract noobs. Period. There is only one reason to change the rules, and that is to improve the game, to make it more playable. A rule of thumb is this: "There should be no UNNECESSARY complexity to the game." The rules should be made as simple as possible. Rule 5 helps nobody, because it doesn't actually make the rules simpler. It's a complicated set of fixes that increases the size of the rule book, that could be better solved with a "red zone."
Ok lets get onto the other reasons people don't play the game. People hate the players, because they are rules nazi's and dicks, they laugh at you when you make a mistake, they intimidate you, mostly because the game is made for 13ish boys that haven't matured yet. This entire crowd is incredibly mean and it's more about where the game is pitched to than the game itself. The game isn't mean, it doesn't call you names. But the players do. That is one of the biggest reasons people quit playing.
Another reason people don't play the game is the collectible aspect. They don't want to build a collection! Period. Of course there are others who are drawn to the collectible aspect of the game. The makers do understand this reason, by the way, that's why we have the theme decks, a great idea.
Another reason people don't play is that the game itself is unfriendly to girls. The combat step is a good reason for them to opt out. They'll say "Oh I don't understand this," and politely decline but the real reason they don't want to play is they take one look at the ogres and swords and macho creatures and that's it, they find some other excuse to not play. The makers have made a conscious decision to pander to the 13 year old boys. I'll just have to trust them on this one, I guess, but it doesn't make any sense to me to have so many girl-unfriendly cards.
Another reason is that that if you're a noob and you get killed by an infinite combo you'll quit right there. It's no fun to not interact.
The marketers do not have a good grasp on why people are attracted to this game in the first place. There is a sense of depth to the game, a sense that even a noob can feel that this is not just Tekken on cardboard, and that's what draws them in. They understand at some level that the game is more like a combination of chess and bridge with cheesy monster pictures than Snakes and Ladders. They walk by a gaming store and there's a game in progress, 20 permanents are in play, and nothing is happening, so the noob asks, "What are you doing whose turn is it?" And someone says "It's my turn." And then the noob asks, "Why aren't you doing anything?" And then when the player says "I'm thinking," that's when the noob gets hooked on the game. That's what makes them want to play.
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June 16th, 2009
02:54 pm - efoy fuel cells
This is a sweet fuel cell, it's the efoy 600. All that talk about hydrogen fuel cells doesn't make sense to me. What you want is a fuel cell you can top up with a liquid fuel, like gas or diesel. The efoy's run on methane which is fine. No noise! 600 watt-hours per day, 1.1 litres per kW hour. So expensive though, $1,800 euros. Not available in the united states yet. Only 14 pounds and about a foot long. This will be big in about 10 years when technology gets better. By comparison a gas generator like the smallest briggs-stratton generator the G1000M costs 1/5th that of a fuel cell and produces 50 times more power but the fuel cell is twice as efficient. This price and power difference is what you call the difference between cutting edge and a mature technology, but even now the fuel cell is more efficient and quieter than a piston engine.
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June 14th, 2009
02:16 pm - rule 5 and damage
one more rant about rule 5. First of all, a rose is a rose, by any other name it would smell as sweet. Just because the DCI calls something "damage" or they say that something is "played" doesn't mean those words mean you actually "play" a spell. A spell is "cast". Which by way, one of the great changes they made.
Now in 6e, when we said that "damage" went on the stack one way to look at it is that this wasn't damage itself. Even though we said it was damage, even those the DCI rules said it was damage. What could really going on is we were declaring how much damage would be dealt to the various creatures. When 6e rules were invented, there was an exact symmetry between the spell stack and the damage stack. So for instance when Tim 1 and Tim 2 face off, Tim 1 pings Tim 2, there's an activated ability on the stack, then Tim 2 responds to Tim 1, there's another activated ability on the stack. Tim 1 dies to the Tim 2 ping. Then Tim 2 dies from the (now dead) Tim 1. This is exactly symmetrical to the situation where a mog fanatic blogs a 2/2, puts "damage" on the stack, sacrifices itself to ping the 2/2. Damage resolves and the 2/2 dies to the (now dead) mog fanatic.
You can either say that the "damage" put on the damage stack isn't really damage it's just a triggered effect caused by the damage stack, or you can say that when Tim 1 and Tim 2 face off against each other, the activated abilities on the Tims are real damage.
If you are a noob (this is the purpose of the entire Rule 5 experiment) then the purpose of these changes is to make the game work more like our intuition, so if you are a noob, it's clear that what is going on the stack when a Tim pings is actual real damage. That's how they think.
Now for the problem. When a Tim pings another Tim or a mog fanatic puts damage on the stack and then sacs himself, this creates a non-intuitive result. A dead creature has an effect on the stack.
That's what needs to be changed! Nothing in rule 5 helps the noobs. All we have now is a strange weird line up of creatures at bat, which are necessary because they killed the damage stack. So what has effeectively happened is that the "damage on the stack" has moved from the "damage stack" section of the game all the way up to "declare blockers", because it is during the declare blockers step that where the damage will be assigned is decided. This splits up damage into two stacks. This weird unintuitive fix makes combat damage work differently from everything else in the game. If you wanted to make the game symmetric again so that the spell stack works like the combat step, each player would grab the other players entire set of permanents, line them up in at bat order, have a "Spell Phase" which is the only time players can play spells, and have all the spells go off at once, affecting in order the permanents that are lined up, and then just errata any cards that have interactions. The amount of spells that would have to be errated would be immense, but it would eliminate the entire spell stack and this whole confusing first in last out thing. Combat, fortunately is not as complicated as spells, so we only have to errata a few cards like the death touch thing for the current kludge.
I think the correct fix for the game would be "Except for permanents which were sacrificed to put an effect or damage on the stack, unless that permanent is in play, that effect or damage will fizzle."
leave the old damage stack. But if a mog fanatic blocks a 2/2, yes he can put 1 damage on the stack, yes he can sac to deal 1 damage, but the combat damage would fizzle because he is gone.
You can explain to a noob all day long about Tim 1 and Tim 2 but unless he understands the stack, he'll never get it. This fix lets him play without really understanding the stack. Tim 1 pings Tim 2. Tim 2 pings back in response. Tim 1 dies. Then Tim 2 lives, because the ping from Tim 1 fizzles. This is exactly how noobs think, it's intuitive to them.
This is just one suggestion. I know there are other fixes to the game that might work, but the current system hasn't fixed anything. We still have a complicated stack that doesn't work like the noobs think it should work. The line up of at bats was worked out so that you can save creatures with a healing salve because you know how the damage will be asssigned. This is called a kludge. It's awful, ugly and no better than the damage stack. It's unsymmetrical, creates erratas and unnecessary. Just fix what is broken!
If damage was prevented to one creature, the attacker would just kill the other, which is unintuitive. Players expect to be able to use their healing spells to save creatures that are actually going to die. To solve problems like these, during the declare blockers step, if a creature is blocked by multiple creatures, the attacker immediately announces an order in which that attacking creature will be assigning damage to the blockers. When it comes time to actually deal the damage, lethal damage must be assigned to the first blocker before any can be assigned to the second, and so on.
Proponents of this change have said that "Damage never went on the stack for spells" which is just a quibble about nomenclature.
Rule 5 has not fixed anything for noobs. It seems to create more than anything a pre-6e rule, where combat damage is weird and different from every other part of the game. Why is it that creatures line up? Why as a noob do I have to assign lethal to creatures. What if I don't want to kill the first guy in the row? What if I assign "lethal damage" to a creature but it doesn't die? What if you have something in play that reduces the damage by 1, then "lethal damage" won't kill a single creature. Why do I have to assign lethal damage to a creature that has protection from damage?
If lethal damage is assigned to the second one, the attacking player can move on to the third, and so on. This works very similarly to trample.
Trample is one of the most difficult concepts in the entire game of MTG to understand. And now it is part of every combat step.
You want something non-intuitive? How about this: The attacking player assigns the order of blockers.
That's right. The attacker picks up MY CARDS, my blockers, he pick my guys and HE moves my bockers into any order he desires. This is just not right. I can hear it already. "Why are you picking up my cards?" "I have to assign the order of blockers, because I'm the attacker." "But they are MY cards, I'm going to assign the order, get your hands off my cards."
Talk about non-intuitive. I don't think the game will change too much. The real change is that in order to fix a non-intuitive aspect of the game they introduced incredibly non-intuitive mechanics.
A general rule of thumb is that a player should never be picking up and ordering his opponents' cards. I don't even have to explain how wrong that is.
Actually I think my favorite fix for this mess is just to create a "Red Zone", it's a part of the battle field. Creatures that are in combat have to be in the red zone to deal damage that's it. Now everything is intuitive again for the combat damage, and it fixes the mog fanatic problem, but doesn't affect Tim 1 vs Tim 2 stack thing.
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June 11th, 2009
01:37 pm - Compensation Is the Symptom, Not the Problem
The true problem underlying the compensation issue is corporate governance, and the way the Boards of Directors fail to represent the interests of shareholders. The way they systemically engage in the worst form of crony capitalism, transferring wealth from shareholders they are charged with representing to the senior management they are cronies with.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/
The only fix to crony capitalism is to force all the bankrupt companies into bankruptcy.
Peter Schiff on the Daily Show
How screwed up is corporate america when the only place for Peter Schiff to talk freely is a comedy show?
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June 9th, 2009
03:47 pm - the tarp is a lie
The rush to repay TARP monies gives us another opportunity to consider why the hell this absurd financial giveaway ever happened in the first place. From its inception, the TARP never made much sense. Forcing banks that did not need money to accept government bailouts was simply irrational.
The TARP was all a giant ruse, a Hank Paulson engineered scam to cover up the simple fact that CitiGroup was teetering on the brink of implosion. A loan just to Citi alone would have been problematic, so instead, we gave money to all the big banks.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/repayments-confirm-tarp-ruse/
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02:58 pm - the walking dead
Asimov's, Analog, The magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Interzone . . .
These are the walking dead.
They are reaching massively fewer people every year.
We care because we associate print magazines with an intelligent curation process overseen by functional salaried adults. An online magazine can be thrown up by any drooling lunatic with access to the net and a credit card.
The magazines’ teams don't consider anything to be wrong. They’ll provide what their remaining audience want, until they all die of old age. Then they’ll turn out the lights. And that’ll be it for the short-fiction sf print magazine.
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6240%22
If baffles me that sci fi workshops teach short stories when there is no future in it. The novel is all that is left for sci-fi writers. It's like teaching candle stick making. Fun sure, but you can't make a living at it.
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12:42 pm - The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolph Berle
im about halfway through The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolph Berle, and its somewhat horrifying. Everything in this book in 1932 is exactly the same as it ever was now in 2009. When corporations were first created in america in the late 1800's and early 1900's it was about large industry. You see there are only so many ultrarich, and if you want to build a big industry, well you have to pool investors, that's why you need corporations. At the beginning, the state handed out all contracts, every single corporation was argued over in the state legislatures. Every single corporation in america was like the "Big Dig" in Boston, that is to say formed by the state with a specific purpose funded by a variety of sources. Secrecy was not allowed by corporations. Every aspect of its existence was examined by a body of state representatives. At this point, all ordinary companies were owned and manged by the actual owners, just like small business is today.
Inevitably, however, businesses had their way and the states had less to say about how corporations were run, the owners (shareholders) were increasingly rid of power, proxy votes were claimed by the very businesses that run the business until it is what we have today, where the owners have no control over their own business and the managers have all the control over their own business and if you believe like I do . . . that there is no such thing as morals in humans that we are all greedy bastards who only want to get stuff for ourselves and our families, then the managers will inevitably suck dry a corporation of all wealth because they are not the owners, so why should they care?
This book was written in 1932, back when the great depression was still merely a "stock crash" and it wasn't considered to be the great disaster it would yet become. In fact, the people in 1932 felt exactly like we feel today. You know, the green shoots thing? That's not 2009, that's 1932 again. Somehow Hoover and FDR (who continued most of the economic policies of Hoover, but with sweeter words, just like how Obama is following Bush's economy policies) with the cooperation of big business crashed the economy. So we're in the middle of another social experiment. I can't tell exactly which lever it was that they pulled which cratered everything . . . this time around we have no smoot hawley fixing tariffs or national industrial recovery act fixing prices, but who knows, we only get to do these kind of social experiments once every 75 years, which not coincidentally matches the living memory of a human. Anyway, enough with causes of the depression, that's not what this book is about, it's about big enormous corporation and how it got out of control from the ownership society.
There are parts of this book which are hard to wade through especially when Adolf (there's a very 1932 pre-hitler name) is talking about defunct companies like Bethlehem steel and their stock prices and ownership numbers, and some things like pyramid stock ownership schemes which are now illegal, but the scary part of this book is how nothing could ever stop this process of divorcing control from ownership. There is no way to take the ownership back. There are only so many ulta-rich (if there were more ultrarich they could just own entire companies outright and the problem of companies self-destructing would be solved: say what you will about Rupert Murdoch, he never killed the golden goose) and because the fruits of modern mass production enterprise require large corporations, there are indeed economies of scale, and because of the slow and inevitable accumulation of laws that favor corporations over stockholders, the ability of the actual owners (the shareholders) to control the companies is now absolutely zero. The managers take no risk to their own personal wealth for the companies they run. The scenario that Adolf saw as inevitable back in 1932 is now here.
A big corporation is a Marxism at gnawing at the heart of capitalism. Corporations make a mockery of the ownership society. And I keep reading this book by Adolph Berle, looking for answers, but there aren't any. The problem is there is no push back. Businesses controlled by managers inevitably push law makers to give them more and more power, and the common shareholders are so dispersed and powerless that there is nothing they can do to push back against them. At best there is a holding period after something like the great depression where the government institutes regulations to control the corporations, but that's all it is, a holding action.
Back when corporations were first formed, by the state legislatures, there were an incredible amount of protections for the owners, for instance, the corporation was not allowed to do any sort of business except for the business at hand (for instance, build a particular railroad), the stock could not be diluted, the management of the companies could be voted out at any time by the stock holders, basically the corporates were legislated to such an extent that we would not recognize them today.
Now all of society's wealth is controlled by managers who have no stake in the wealth they control. Adam Smith would not recognize our corporations as capitalistic. And that is why it all crashed down. Greedy bastards working towards their own self interest is no longer benefiting society. Remember the premise of capitalism: greed creates a better society, greed is good. Greed is what makes the owner of a company create great products, and be careful about the direction of a company. Greed is what makes a company fearful of too much risk. The greedy owner never wants to risk losing his entire company to a coin flip.
It's not an accident that the solomon brothers went to hell in the 1987 as documented in "Liar's Poker". The beginning of it all, the tip of the iceberg of financial companies bent on taking on so much risk they self-destructed. Because that is the same year the the owners took the company public, and the owners became divorced from the management.
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