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Monday, November 23rd, 2009
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3:03 pm - Education
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Some things which are done counter to the perceptual habits of most people.
Is history still taught from the ancient to the modern in public schools?
We start learning about what is nearest us, most immediate to us, outward. Eventually time is a matter we grasp and start looking to our own personal past. Start by teaching recent, current history, and maybe doing current events, then scope it back wards. Teach history with the bad stuff in it, anybody who is anybody gets fed up when the simple happy go lucky version doesn't match up with one non-text book reference you can find in the school library. Also this might avoid that Dinosaur stage, which I never recovered from, fuck Napolean he wasn't a giant lizard that had horns on his face!!!
Is mathematics still taught by repeating the algebra for 8-12 years of a students life span?
Seriously? Basic Math, Algebra, Trig, Calculus. Maybe Basic Math and algebra in elementary, then accounting and geometry before pre-calc in middle school, Trig and Calculus in high school. I moved around a lot though so every time I learned something when I went to the new school it wasn't the subject matter at hand.
Arts and Music.
Some correlations.
Music and mathematics anyone? Anyone?
Visual arts and biology anyone? Anyone?
Clay, pottery and geology anyone? Anyone?
Modeling - airplanes and ships and physics anyone? Anyone?
Additionally, wood shop, car shop, and home economics. If there is a recession coming up, these classes must be made current and practical, have the kids help repair the house for when the market picks up or in case it never does. Hell, have them rent a garage/warehouse and make chairs for cheap in the neighborhood, probably make a better chain than buy a cheap ass plastic one at Target.
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10:10 am - GAH!
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I'm an idiot.
Yes there are reasons I am.
Don't really think this is up for debate.
Maybe I should just focus on girls and propagating, at least then I'd be too busy to notice.
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| Saturday, November 21st, 2009
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2:59 pm - ugh
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So this morning my mother commented how most people grow up and then get over games.
Two things bug about that, it's no longer true - generation thing? - and it's also seems to fly in the face of her trying to help me produce the board games I work on.
So I like games.
I am not going to feel bag about finding fun in exploring someone's else world, in the face of all the fiction they read. Sheesh!
Besides, I find them a little fascinating. I also find player's willingness to repeat game play with slight variations an essential component of human appetite that as a designer I'm appealing to as a player I'm refining.
I was talking about this when she made that comment. The issue at hand was the differences between Torchlight and Diablo 3. Short version, some of the talent that worked on diablo 1, 2 and some of the Warcraft projects removed themselves from Blizzard North and formed their own company which has released a single player game called Torchlight which is a dungeon crawler. At their core both games will involve the same gameplay, go into an environment and kill the bad stuff and get gold or better equipment, repeat.
Yet some differences are paramount to the experiences. Torchlight has a very refined interaction, shift and ctrl and alternate clicks and hot keys expedite the equipping and skill using capacities. Diablo 3 has an assured multi-player experience. Diablo 3 has 2 familiar characters 2 and unfamiliar ones, and is graphically very intense and should run on newer and a few years recent gaming platforms. Torchlight has 3 familiar characters, all with large differences in skills and thus feel of play with the additional option of a spell bank which each character (if they spend character points to meet the requirments) could use in the game. Additionally even non-gaming platforms and laptops will be able to run Torchlight. The 3 characters are pretty much the tried and true differences made in Diablo 1. Diablo 3 will use 2 of these character extremes the Barbarian and the Wizard and then in-betweens. All in all the experience of Diablo 3 is going to differ in tone/story and that it will include higher leveling oppourtunities and multiplayer experience.
However the mmorpg has been done succesfully for free, you get the range of characters -in some cases even a large range or characters than either game offers- although maybe not always a strong a story. The story/tone of Diablo 3 is that the corruption of the world hasn't stopped (despite numerous goings on of the players killing demons and etc...) and really the player characters should just kill everything that's left that doesn't offer to sell them goods. I mean Diablo 3 doesn't even seem to have a world left to save. Torchlight presents itself as a story much closer to Diablo 1. There is a local mine of a precious magical resource which was mined and then - oops - found to be harboring corrupted magical resource which might just be the start of something bigger than Torchlight (the 'town' which sprung up around Torchlight. What's neat though in Torchlight is that one of the player characters you can choose actually sounds like he might be verging on evil/greed and might cause things to get worse in his search for the magical resource. It's got a world populated with workers and kids and the implication of a larger functioning world beyond. The cities and outposts of Diablo 3 seem to be places you'd rather leave or let burn to the ground than save. The Diablo series of games seem to be about the ineffectual outcomes of dealing with Demons... and all that is left is the violent world the demons sought to create - they've already won... the writers of the game just know a cash cow when they see it.
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| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
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5:44 pm - Still a (Jerk).
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When he forgets things, were supposed to accept it, not blame or guilt him.
When you forget things you were doing it on purpose and he retaliates.
In this case by stealing power cords but not even fessing up to it, until were at the family dinner where he's protected by the formal and social situation. Then being smug and humming after admitting it. Again, when he does it, it's a human weakness to be understood and forgiven, when other people do it's malice.
This is behavior that is not unlike various terms of feces.
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| Saturday, October 31st, 2009
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9:59 pm - A value of falsehoods.
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A lie is always bad.
A truth is always good.
The value of a falsehood can not be expressed in simple terms, nor should it be. With finer grades of falsehood the esteemed “white lie” aside, it should be acknowledged that considerable debate and serious investigation can be caused by the realization or suspicion of a person that another person has lied to them. This unfortunately seems to over-value the truth and so we lean again back to those moments in our life where a “white lie” or the social-contract for decorum soothed the otherwise tenuous daily possibilities for conflict.
How are you today? That's great! Oh I'm fine, busy though, I'll see you again same time tomorrow? Excellent, I look forward to it.
Somewhere between each extremes lies the eventual life.
There are situations, we can probably all share familiarity with. Two people, with a similar basis of knowledge who are strangers to one another and in the conversation one makes a false statement which the other knows to be false. The outcomes aren't important to the situation, just that it's familiar. When you meet a stranger, after having such experiences, should the knowledge that they may state a false hood bias you against them. Certainly not, without knowledge of the field to which they talk you can not know either way if they speak falsehood or false. The value of a falsehood isn't in what it claims to be false, but when it inspires you to create in yourself the willingness to avoid letting stated fact lay in a conversation as fact. Yet, with some little experiences in life we know that this comes upon as a habit.
Because indeed the outcome of our experiences drive us to the capacity to understand that persons who do not lie, when they speak can be relied upon for testimony. They create verbal or stated declarations of fact supported by their capacity to determine facts by their individual faculties. Again this would seem to drive us to make the simplistic argument that since it can be a human habit to rely upon the testimony of others, a truth is always good. But I say that such an experience is without regard to the need for individual investigation, thought and learning. Lest no one ever question the value of testimony.
Suppose an individual who is young, and without awareness of the complexity of their society, in description of the behavior of adults the testimony they might give could be lacking in appropriate understanding and they conclude erroneously. Supposition is at the heart of the value of a falsehood, not in making it, although supposition is perhaps an act of constructing hopeful falsehoods (where the hope is the supposition is correct and not false, but it is not factual in nature and thus very open to being a falsehood) the real value of a falsehood is when the audience learns that falsehoods exist and they seek to identify the testimony of facts in their life which if supposition would prove greatly harmful or mis-leading. When the father tells the child that the sky is blue because it reflects the ocean and a healthy mixture of falsehoods has been appreciated by the child and the child goes on to investigate the world as a physicist, those falsehoods may have had value.
Up until this point I have not spoken to the ethics of this value. I have focused on identifying a part of falsehoods which has value, although I will venture to say that if a person tries to justify the stating of falsehoods because of this value you have identified a person who values their capacity to speak unattached to correct or accurate observations who you may wish to avoid taking or trusting any testimony from. The value of the falsehood is a status or realization in a person, additional falsehoods beyond that which creates a drive in the person to investigate testimony is un-necessary and possibly harmful. Do not create in your friends people who denounce all testimony as (likely) falsehoods or else you risk creating harm to the act of spoken communication and record keeping.
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Rough
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| Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
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3:04 pm
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So much time on my hand. Watching some series online. Supernatural ... kinda okay but kinda ... predictable, I want to like it, but I don't. So I watched an episode of Kolchak and I liked it.
Partially this is probably my experiences with that show and reading the comic series Constantine. While it didn't always have strict rules, it managed to not be ... overly hooky and lame. Partially the other problem is that I observe their actions and the story could easily by of two boys who get to drive around and commit crimes without consequence and blame supernatural events ... at least in the broad overview.
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| Monday, October 19th, 2009
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8:23 pm - Short rants.
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1. Living with people who do not finish their laundry. If college has taught my anything it's that not finishing your laundry is effectively the clearest indicator that you are an abuser of shared/public resources and should be run out of the college/town.
2. Being a jerk. It's one thing to tease, it's another to tell people they are stupid. I'm moderately existencial, just because they aren't contributing doesn't mean they are stupid, just that their life's experiences haven't equipped them with the useful context or information base for solving the question. Granted exceptional persons of intellegence may work around their limitations, they are the exception.
3. Your face. Just kidding. The third rant is that I am really really feeling pressured with no alternatives or no good alternatives, but everyone seems to have six sents or a dozen worth sharing on my problems. Seriously, are you me? Are you a recent college graduate with a basis and no skills learned because the academics figured out how to get more money out of the colleges? Are you a less than pretty, amusing, socially hesistant highly critical and detail oriented slightly egotistical but ultimately humble honest and hard working person stuck in a society where getting the first impression down gets you more milage than not being all in everyone's face like some sort of overly social bonabo...
4. Moving vs My Emotional Detachment. Were moving again. I want to complain that this makes me feel un-rooted, and it does because where were moving from is the closest to a home-town I have. Yet, the length and breadth of my socialness with new people is the act of exchanging money for goods (and not sexual services). While they might seem interesting, or are attractive (to my preferences) I'm not overly eager to waste their time with my fears and anxieties. I don't have many, but I have enough, and another person with advice won't help. Not to mention that other people don't give as good a backrub as I do.
5. I am not physical enough. Nor do I enjoy your physical efforts at pleasing me. It annoys and possibly shames me that your gratuity includes getting off. Why this is so, is subtle and simple at the same time. Were not supposed to relate to each other as objectifications of our own desires, but without that, I am to relate to you as a person. I view sexuality in most persons (and this is subtle and simple projection) as a source of conflict, and when it's not it's a source of indescrition or on rare occasions happy luck and an almost-ever-after.
6. Recession. I have no idea if my failure to get employement has anything to do with me. Never have I felt as simple in my appeals for work as when I first started. But now I understand some of it's reasons more, which is only a comfort in that I'm hopefully this is a recession and will pass... in time.
7. Job vs Car vs Get a job vs Need a Car vs Fuck a duck.
4.
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| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
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11:06 pm - Self Indulgent
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*whiiine* My friends and I are going to see a concert but the band were going to see isn't showing until 11pm and they want to arrive at 8:30 and... I'll get tired and *whiiinee*
Although lately I keep staying up till at least midnight, that's without a lot of physical activity. Maybe I'll nap until 10:30 in the car.
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| Monday, October 12th, 2009
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10:01 am
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Went to a friends birthday party over the weekend. It was a little awkward the next day talking about it, not because of anything I or others did, but the amount of detail I hadn't acquired. There was a person at the party I entirely forgot about until I was shown a picture. What a poor showing.
Highlights.
There was an effort to put me in the pool, even in jest and I without a lot of conscious effort past deciding that my nice shirt shouldn't get wet managed to assert myself without hurting my man-handler. Thankfully she was also a fellow Aikido person so the reaction she had helped to keep me from hurting her. I was reminded in later rough housing with her that I miss Aikido, and hope my leg repairs itself soon! I was very pleased however in my use of it, there are so many techniques and some of them center around a few movements, there is one which I can do outside of a proper set up because I seem to "understand" it quiet thoroughly.
There was a muffin. Which I refused to eat. I was under much pressure, eventually the other side of the table was almost chanting at regular intervals of the conversation. When some friends of theirs showed up I snuck my muffin onto one of their plates. She ate the muffin! HAHAHAH! I'm so sneaky. Sneak Sneak Sneak like a cat. Which was a point of clarification I'm not sneaky like a ninja, I have cat stealth. Possibly cat creepyness. Speaking of creepyness, is eating a muffin somehow some kind of euphomism I didn't pick up on? I mean it was a girl telling me to eat a muffin she got just for me... (ah, youth.) hehehe.
Lets see... a conversation about parrellel dreams and universises and Stephen Hawking. It seems less impressive now.
I drove two people home, imagine me - driving! *gasp*. That went rather well then I had to gas up my tank. While gassing up my car a Highway Patrol Officer drove up to the station with his bike. I got back onto the freeway only to notice him on the on ramp just behind me and shortly just after noticing him he did something to his motorcycle and it bleeped loudly. I slowed down.
He pulled up alongside me, were both still going he signaled for me to roll down my window. I did.
"Turn your lights on!"
zomg
"THANK YOU!" I shouted as he accelerated away from me. It was 3:50 in the morning, I think he must have known he wigged my probably not 100% self out. I was still wearing the glow stick collar around me neck. I totally forget about these things... which reminds me, did I put on make up this morning?
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| Friday, October 9th, 2009
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4:13 pm
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I think a lot of the out-cry concerning Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize here by Americans (excluding the Taliban's complaints) and a few others. I think Bush and his companions in the oval office caused a lot more perceptual damage with their rhetoric and actions than was at first apparent to me. I use the word damage seriously.
Other nations are sovereign, by tyrant and accepted or bludgeoned populace, by election of representative bodies, by election of a supreme leader, by election which is challenged, by the mandate of heaven, when recognized by America (or perhaps, at all or by enough countries) a nation is sovereign of itself and it's people in the way it is. The Bush legacy leaves American's and perhaps American supporters with an ideology of intervention. That a country which isn't democratic (enough), or somehow deemed oppressed is a nation America must occupy. I say must, to reflect the discussions I've heard and read in facebook groups, a few blogs, and heard from the mouth of some of our elected representatives. This clear disrespect or violation of the basic premise of sovereignity - however it is created, validated, and enforced - when the nation has been recognized leads to the statements that Obama's respect for and national leader meeting and greeting and respecting is somehow not action. Because after Bush's campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, American's think they know what action is: military occupation of another nation, destruction of their capacity for self government free from the shadow of invasion by another disagreeing nation with their method of self government. Sure Saddam wasn't a humanitarian, but when our government invades their country for the cause of creating a self ruling democracy, Bush and his supporters created an international environment of hostility and disrespect to any nation which has been recognized as sovereign.
To which much is being said, "He's not Bush that's why he gets the award." While this answers the above situations created by Bush, he gets the awards for not acting like Bush for creating a less hostile international environment, not-being Bush demotes his actions and is a poor explanation besides. Would McCain have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize? Perhaps, but I expect that he was less in the running than Obama because during his campaign to be President he avoided the idea of talk talk, or as Churchill said it, "“To jaw-jaw- is always better than to war-war” Winston Churchill quotes and I found another one I like, “Leadership is a word and a concept that has been more argued than almost any other I know. I am not one of the desk-pounding types that likes to stick out his jaw and look like he is bossing the show. I would far rather get behind and, recognizing the frailties and the requirements of human nature, would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.” said by Dwight David Eisenhower
For Obama to deserve it only for "Doing more" (in contrast to what he has done) don't seem to make sense unless the respect for other nations, their acceptance of the current governance, self governance, and their leaders. He's persisted in encouraging conversation, talk, dialog to pursue peace or a less world-ending situation (nuclear disarming/non-militarization).
Getting peace is never up to one man - unless perhaps it's a spiritual peace. There is something to be said to point out how awkward that makes the award, one person gets it for several people coming together to have the same out comes, but this isn't being said either. Please Americans, tone down your outrage with international matters and accept that they have a say in matters also. Otherwise we might need invading for our own good.
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| Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
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12:06 pm
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At this time we cannot accept the correction you have submitted for one of the following reasons:
- Could not verify
- Incorrectly formatted
- Provided URL did not confirm
- Some data on high-profile items is not editable
!!! Could not verify? Did you contact Activision, did you look at the box? Why is product sold only on descriptions anyway?
!!! There is URL to confirm, Activisions website still claims that MUA:2 will be four players without distinction from it's versions.
!!! It's not editable? Why? Contract?
To help us make sure your submissions are correct, use proper case and correct punctuation and spelling, don't add comments or questions and include a valid URL from an authoritative source for verification.
Attribute: Product Details
Current value:
Create and customize your ultimate team. Assemble your dream team from the Marvel Universe and select from over 24 playable characters, each with specialized powers.
Cooperate with your ultimate alliance. Take full advantage of the Marvel Universe by playing Cooperative Mode with up to four friends, both online and offline.
Pick a side in the ultimate ideological rift that could yield irreparable consequences for the Super Hero community! Support the pro-registration side and defend national security, or choose to be anti-registration and fight for personal liberties.
Combine Super Hero powers for devastating results. Team up with Human Torch and Thor to create a spectacular fiery tornado. Over 250 unique fusions arm you with an unimaginable arsenal for unprecedented battles.
Demolish and interact with everything in your path. Pummel your enemies by launching crushed cars, lampposts, machinery and anything else you can pick up in your way.
Your suggestion:
Create and customize your ultimate team. Assemble your dream team from the Marvel Universe and select from over 24 playable characters, each with specialized powers.
Cooperate with your ultimate alliance. Take full advantage of the Marvel Universe by playing in a Cooperative Mode with one friend offline.
Pick a side in the ultimate ideological rift that could yield irreparable consequences for the Super Hero community! Support the pro-registration side and defend national security, or choose to be anti-registration and fight for personal liberties.
Combine Super Hero powers for devastating results. Team up with Human Torch and Thor to create a spectacular fiery tornado. Over 250 unique fusions arm you with an unimaginable arsenal for unprecedented battles.
Demolish and interact with everything in your path. Pummel your enemies by launching crushed cars, lampposts, machinery and anything else you can pick up in your way.
Data accuracy is highly important to us. We appreciate the time you have taken to submit your updates to us.
Best regards,
Catalog Department
www.amazon.com
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| Sunday, September 20th, 2009
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10:30 am
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I sent e-mails to Gamestop with pictures for the literate impaired!
They deny describing the promotional package inaccurately.
The promotional pages have all been taken down.
They ignore my pointing out that their product is described with falsehoods.
http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?sku=282032 see "Expanded Information".
The game is two players, I purchased it with the 1-4 players hope almost entirely. There have been few arcade-like experiences I've had with my friends that we can so readily share together. I LOVE games, let me be clear, because they bring people TOGETHER.
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12:20 am - A review of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for PS2 After Pre-Order.
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I'm sure this is your number one issue on a bright Sunday morning.
The difficulty in writing a clear review for me will be in dealing with my expectations.
I pre-ordered this game from the Activision website - a beautiful site - which did not clarify differences between the game you would get if you purchased the game either from different retailers or for different consoles. The description given for the ps2 purchase was exactly the same as the X-box 360 and Ps3 versions, the only difference emphasized was the Juggernaut character ... if you pre-order the game through a retailer.
The game I purchased had the following expectations:
1) Multiplayer, up to four players offline or online as described on the Activision website.
2) Juggernaut, if pre-ordered as described on the Activision website.
3) Character lists as described on the Activision website - including the special ordered website.
4) A game which resembled the great MUA:1 which my friends and I were playing even just a few weeks ago (we find the Hard mode adequately satisfying to try out strange and alternate teams).
5) Cool videos, fun dialog, leaping mutants, explosions of a visual gratifying nature and Nick Fury being... Nick Fury.
The game I received had the following qualities:
1) Multiplayer, up to two players.
Pretty much the worst thing you could have done in the release is exclude my friends ability to share more experiences with each other at the same time. A lot is brought to the game with multiple peoples enthusiasm and sense of humor. It's free value-added.
2) No Juggernaut, no Juggernaut release code. Ever.
3) Character list different in many ways from the lists described on the Activision website - including characters like: Psylocke an outline that looks like Cyclops and is Blade a special character? This is not necessary a negative, but keep in mind, all that is very clear to me is that the game I have in my console is not the game I thought I was getting.
4) The meat of this review.
The first MUA had a number of redeeming qualities, most of which the sequal seems to share. A diverse range of characters each with abilities and play styles that benefit familiarity with either the genre of game, the Marvel universe, or a gamers appreciation of finding that character that's "Fun for them."
The largest thing would have to be the shock my friends and I had at learning the camera was restricted. The greatest success of the X-men and MUA games is that you could move the camera into a position that worked. It made the players more engaged, more involved and sometimes I remember we felt like we made things cooler by getting the camera there - just in time. But this combined with a much more constricted level lay out and rather dull mini-map which could not be zoomed or scrolled as in MUA made it seem inferior!
The difficulty in giving the game a stunning review is that much like the map much of the play experience in MUA1 has been reduced, but not replaced or removed entirely. In MUA2 you are left with a remanent of a game feature which only reminds you of the superior execution of the idea in MUA1, as with the camera control being a partial thing in MUA2 the equipment and character diversity you get is only a partial thing as well. I read in another review that the "RPG" elements were simplified, and this is accurate. You have access to much more powerful, and different powers but it seems as if you are given fewer options for your characters - costumes or abilities/skills/powers - than in MUA1. As with MUA1 the characters are very distinct, and that is still a huge thing in MUA2's favor but it's not enough ... if you've played MUA1.
There are other smaller things. Less of the environment feels destroyable, more the the walls and doors seem difficult and awkward to get through - which compounds the frustration of not being able to control the camera at all times. The dialog seems less fresh. There seems to be less joy/fun in the characters - and perhaps that is intentional, the story of Civil War is much less typish and much darker.
I also have one small, person complaint! If only someone with sensible grammar had interrupted the character equipment or "boosts" tab creation. It is my experience so far that my party can only equip a single boost "medal" at any time. The boost "medal" gives your entire party a boost, but althroughout the "boosts" screen "boosts" is there in big letters... and yet I can only apply one boost medal. There are multiple types of medals, but I can only apply one boost medal. While streamlining the concept of equipment they stripped my ability to play an additionally flavored version of a character, in MUA1 I could equip a striking bonus and change Wolverines costume to Classic and play a brutal one hit-lots of damage pretty much always puts down the minions in one hit-Wolverine, while my friend could give him HP and put him in another costume and make him able to take incredible amounts of punishment, and yet somehow never going below half health! This is where 5) and 1) come together to make this game a very unfortunate game for me to own.
5) But yet the meat of the game is the same. Sweet powers and fun throwing badguys and moderately engaging combined-powers for a simpler and vastly more streamlined game. Which leads me say very confidently that the game itself is all right, many reviews have said fans will enjoy that game, and I expect they will. If the game they think they are buying is the game they are getting. I hope this review helps better prepare you for your purchase of MUA2 so that when you buy it, what you play, what you are hoping isn't in another castle.
http://marvel.com/news/vgstories.9492.MUA2_Store-Specific_Offers~colon~_Hulk%2C_Thor%2C_Juggy
The above link takes you to a page describing alternate bonuses purchasers could get from different retailers.
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| Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
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12:04 pm - Self Help
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Job submittal follow up script.
To personal taste: Call back 1 to 2 weeks after submittal.
Hi, this is _David Hampton_, I submitted a resume with you on the _(date submitted)_. I wanted to know if you'd had any questions or concerns after reviewing my resume that I could clarify for you?
If they are busy or they haven't reviewed your resume. Call back in a week.
I know someone was telling me that calling back the next day got the guy to get his resume from the pile and review it right then and there, that was for an outside sales position and gumption is desired.
Versions.
Good afternoon this is __________, I submitted a resume with you on the _________. If you have a little time right now I wanted to make myself available to you so that I could answer any questions you had about my resume?
When/if they say no, just remind them that your available __ to answer any questions they might have.
Versions.
Voice mail.
Good afternoon this is __________, during the application process the question and answer section was rather limited, I'm sure you have some more exacting questions in mind. I'm available at the following number _____
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| Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
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11:30 pm
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Being an ass is something most of us experience at one point or another.
Usually I can realize when I've been on. But if your an ass all the time, eventually people try to ignore you to cope. I'm not surprised this ass I know recently got into a fight with some friends of his, because he's always going out of his way to be an ass and create these little conversation conflicts he can win. But he got into a fight because he'd decided they were passive-aggresive, you gotta be careful when an accusation takes away all retributions for your behavior when their condition of being a ______ is all the justification you need to be an ass to them. That's a little different than the occasional foot in mouth, the over-the-line socially awkward/retarded/defiant. A few days later the person apologizes for "teasing" one of his friends, when I got up and walked out the room after he created a little conversation digression as a set up to be the person who was right in a little conversation conflict. He didn't apologize for interrupting the conversation to create a semantic digression which he was prepared for, prepared for and ready to bring to everyone else's attention how he was right and we were not because he knew the definition!!!
Congratulations, your an ass.
And I'm calling you that? Way to over-achieve.
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| Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
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2:57 pm - oh dear.
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I was talking with a friend of mine about poetry, grabbed a book. Commented about how I haven't tried my pathetic over self-indulgent maybe emo-like poetry in a while. So then later, joking about loneliness ...
I've been lonely, since I became aware of it.
Sitting at the table eyes aglow
or across the room inside a glance
doesn't make us closer your eyes alone
laying aside our meal eyes aglow
is all we do to share your eyes alone
then it's our banquet inside a glance
though we've wetted eyes aglow
Like most appetities, it is never adequately rewarded.
Now part of the reason I ceased and restrained was that the group of college friends I was gaining were both much more hope-full, willing to scrounge by communally, and more willing to do community service than I was. I'm not anti-social I just don't participate well in groups or when my public life becomes more associated with a group than me.
The other reason is they were much more talented than I was. Probably still are. But I might be leaving terribly embarrassing bits of effort here and there. Eventually I might get motivated enough to post up visual art. Now there we have a use of my time that satisfies.
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| Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
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10:04 am
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Okay ladies and gents, help me out on something. The penalty for a small business owner not covering or paying for health care of their employees will only go into effect if that business is showing income, or possibly writing off expenses?
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, August 27th, 2009
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3:36 pm
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Read a suggestion that working for free is the best way to get work in a recession.
In the simple, this seems unlikely. If I can employ a person for free, why should I offer to pay them. Either they start performing a service which I can not replace, or with-hold their services.
Assuming the first seems unlikely, unless we're discussing blackmail or creating strange situations in description. In the second, if they would do it for free before, any amount of cost from hiring them can be written off as a lower average than another employee (having gotten services for free) and arguably "any income" is better than "no income". So this sounds good, except that you have to do at least a good job or better for cheaper than the 35+ bodies with 10+ years of experience which are filling the ranks of employable persons right now. This kinda makes the work for free seem to be a way to recalibrate there willingness to take a pay cut at a lower price, but you won't likely be able to figure out that lower pay rate without insider information. Demonstration of experience beyond your years for free, might be the only way you get to demonstrate your capabilities.
What can I do that someone who's spent the last 10 years doing it, can't?
I perhaps see a part of his argument, "Nothing. The most I can do is do it on the cheap."
The best part is that this suggestion was for post-graduates (although it could just as easily be for graduating high schoolrs). So those (in my case 7) 4.5 years you spent in college better have created a skill which you are capable enough that you can under bid 35+ somethings. I'm an economics undergraduate, I have a load of theory which isn't appreciate the way a Masters or PhD program is because apparently? Well I don't why, but it sure seems to be the case. That said the article/thingy gives some helpful advice, Go learn a new skill which isn't very in demand and then offer to do it for free.
So any of you out there with a business, a question, someone calls you up and offers to do some work for free. It'd depend on the work, if he's a construction worker and you don't register him as an employee, where will you be when/if that employee you aren't paying gets injured? I choose an extreme example.
Work without cost is a fantasy. One you to can fulfill for another person to build a reputation for yourself, as a capable employee? The argument goes that if you do good enough work, eventually someone will offer to pay you for it. This certainly seems plausible, and I'd mouth off about how it's probably not true except that I had a good friend of mine do some art work which is still unpaid for - until I get a cost estimate I like that's affordable and start selling the product which uses her art... At which point I'll be paying her a percent of the income on each copy of the game it sells.
I don't have the equipment here to draw a graph, or do any fancy math, but on the idea that your marginal costs as an employer are reduced on average for any employee who's given you free work which allowed production and profits, the encouragement to go out and work for free isn't the worst I've heard.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
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10:50 am - Politicians are people also.
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This showed up in my e-mail box a bit ago.
I really wish people weren't so obviously pitching to their preferred audiences all the time I have NO idea what the person who e-mailed this believes is the "Current Political Debacle". Besides, it's politics, it's usually some kind of debacle, or spectacle.
My responses after wards.
545 vs 300,000,000
EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it..
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red ..
If the Army &Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
Hello Information List,
I'mma respond to this a little less tactfully than I try to usually.
First of all. A series of probably coherent sound bites isn't a very solid argument when there isn't a plausible there fore. He states in many cases that politicians of any flavor will behave in described ways, but he's too much of a pussy to come out and say he's either an anarchist or a separatist because what he thinks the solution is ... is to vote out the current politicians and then *"clean up their mess!" without a lick of explanation as to how. Useless mailing.
Some points in response.
1. If he excludes the federal reserve from being responsible, or involved, he's not actually talking about our country in it's entire complexities.
This an effort to reduce a very complex problem into a superficially simple one. Why?
2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those 545 people do not act in agreement at all times? To suggest they do somewhat misses the point that at different times in our countries history, different sides of the political spectrum have shot down others sides of it? Granted there have been moments of unity.
3. The Constitution is arguably the *"supreme law of the land"*, but there is also state laws and international laws or pacts which the US citizen is also ruled by. Why is he simplifying the issue?
4. He ignores public utitlities, FDA, sewage regulation, and state issues which have a similar structure to that of our federal government. His argument is unclear if it is the structure, or the persons which fail America. He might be a federalist, but I don't think he ever mans up and says so.
note: Later he clarifies that it is the people specifically and not the structure.
note: The structure of it is what gives 'them the power, not 'their personal charm.
5. The article presents in major overtones an argument that (everything wrong in America?) is the responsibility of the US congressmen, does the article present a fallacious argument? Which one? Do you agree with me that it is an "Ad Hominem" en mass "Abusive/Attack" against the person? If so is it also an argument of generalization, where not one of the persons is given due process as an individual in the spirit of our Constitution? What are the limitations of making an "Ad Hominem" argument?
note: The attack isolates the person, from what they do, a person who is a liarcan never say a true thing, so to with the position of a politician as he describe them by title and not specification once a person becomes one of his listed 545 people they will no longer be capable of acting in anyway other than he describes. Are his arguments descriptions of his bias? Do they have merit beyond this?
6. I liked this point. "Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.", however! "Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do." He ignores the federal reserve, international pacts and state constitutions. The world is more complicated than the Constitution.
What did they take an oath to do, uphold the Constitution... and anything else?
7. I read this and gather up that his world view is a (tiny) admission of dehumanization towards politicians, a lead up to some kind of take action against these not-people that look like we the people? Probably not.
8. I like his points on special interests. I dislike his points on special interests. Money is potent stuff.
Review.
This man is unhappy because his circular reality is basically that people who are way beyond his ability to control, are somehow directly making his life miserable. Well when they are Senator and Congressmen... I could see how this might in a few cases be true, but he gives very few cases. I come down in agreement with Obama's taxes, which the author is right to point out need approving by the houses. But the author mis-understands how he is represented. A single US citizen only gets to ask for representation in a few ways, through his state government, his US congressmen, his US senator, and his US president in different portions along the way for how many persons that individual politician is willing to claim a direct line of representation of. The author misses the mechanisms of the US political structure. I don't get a huge say, I get a small say, but maybe if enough people get a say at all... my step-dad's uncle can still not have health care this year. I'm thinking he should move to a small island where he can set himself up as King and set taxes on himself directly.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
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10:53 am
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