I haven't done any extensive research on this, but this guy is claiming that Facebook got most of it's startup money (13+ million) from groups interested in spying on, and collecting data about US citizens. (People related to DARPA and the CIA...)
Between this, the latest information coming out about Bush circumventing the legal processes for spying on US citizens, and the information about people being held and tortured in various secret US prisons around the world, our human rights record is starting to look about like China's. It's too bad we can't move in positive directions like some South American countries.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Friday, August 12, 2005
Faith Based Games
With all this ruckus about Grand Theft Auto leading children in the land of inequity, and a cry issuing forth from the faithful for Faith Based video games, one would think that I might be feeling a bit alarmed about the future of gaming. This could not be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is, that a nice mix of Faith Based video games, and a good Literal Interpretation of the Bible will make for some real serious entertainment.
The next video game I want to see Rockstar Games put together should be a real retro piece, about ancient Jerusalem. Basically, you start out as a youth, torn between the allure of the big city, and following the word of God. The city is a rampant hot-bed of sin of course, and then there are all the enemies of God just waiting to be slain. Basically this game has sort of a Jedi Knight approach. If you follow the path of the Lord, you become sort of David like. If you choose the wicked path, you are left to fend for yourself.
David's path is a holy one, killing sinners, maybe even with some competition thrown in to keep things fun; sort of a mini-game approach. Of course, God's servants need to do more than just kill sinners to gain his favor. One fun level could be made up of an armed assault against the Philistines, where the player has kill 200 uncircumcised men, then lop off their foreskins in order to buy a wife. To really appease the Christian right, we are going for a straight up literal interpretation here, so the graphics and viscera need to be real good. Of utmost concern, is the collection of foreskins, which should be as realistic as possible.
Even the very faithful get bored of killing and foreskin collection from time to time, so perhaps we could mix things up a bit with a few Sim type levels. Using the spoils of holy war, one could buy land, and slaves to work on it. Balancing a kingdom and all of the financial details of being a land/slave owner can get tricky at times, so maybe some occasional beating would be necessary to keep the slaves in line. The Bible provides guidance on how handle slaves, including how to beat them to death if need be.
Another thing that a budding new leader needs to consider is progeny. David was certainly serious about his. Points would be rewarded based on the number of wives one accumulated, and at higher levels, the option of using one's kingly powers to send soldiers off to their deaths in order to steal their wives would certainly be available. The point system in this part of the game might be a bit difficult, but with a little ingenuity something could be fleshed out.
The successful leader and follower of God would be need to balance war, finances, and procreation with a firm and righteous hand. This would certain provide a challenge to todays young gamers.
Taking the path of wickedness provides a much more complicated situation for the game designer. The Bible provides a straight and narrow path for believers, but sinners and heathens seem to be cut loose to pursue whatever ends they desire. Perhaps those who chose not to follow God could become merchants, or even join up with the enemies of the city, and try to defend the women and children of their villages from the rath of the righteous. Getting captured and sold as a slave would certainly be a concern, as would death by stoning. In fact, choosing the path of wickedness might lead to more of a survival and escape sort of game. Obviously all the details haven't been worked out, but come on Rock Star, get to work!
The next video game I want to see Rockstar Games put together should be a real retro piece, about ancient Jerusalem. Basically, you start out as a youth, torn between the allure of the big city, and following the word of God. The city is a rampant hot-bed of sin of course, and then there are all the enemies of God just waiting to be slain. Basically this game has sort of a Jedi Knight approach. If you follow the path of the Lord, you become sort of David like. If you choose the wicked path, you are left to fend for yourself.
David's path is a holy one, killing sinners, maybe even with some competition thrown in to keep things fun; sort of a mini-game approach. Of course, God's servants need to do more than just kill sinners to gain his favor. One fun level could be made up of an armed assault against the Philistines, where the player has kill 200 uncircumcised men, then lop off their foreskins in order to buy a wife. To really appease the Christian right, we are going for a straight up literal interpretation here, so the graphics and viscera need to be real good. Of utmost concern, is the collection of foreskins, which should be as realistic as possible.
Even the very faithful get bored of killing and foreskin collection from time to time, so perhaps we could mix things up a bit with a few Sim type levels. Using the spoils of holy war, one could buy land, and slaves to work on it. Balancing a kingdom and all of the financial details of being a land/slave owner can get tricky at times, so maybe some occasional beating would be necessary to keep the slaves in line. The Bible provides guidance on how handle slaves, including how to beat them to death if need be.
Another thing that a budding new leader needs to consider is progeny. David was certainly serious about his. Points would be rewarded based on the number of wives one accumulated, and at higher levels, the option of using one's kingly powers to send soldiers off to their deaths in order to steal their wives would certainly be available. The point system in this part of the game might be a bit difficult, but with a little ingenuity something could be fleshed out.
The successful leader and follower of God would be need to balance war, finances, and procreation with a firm and righteous hand. This would certain provide a challenge to todays young gamers.
Taking the path of wickedness provides a much more complicated situation for the game designer. The Bible provides a straight and narrow path for believers, but sinners and heathens seem to be cut loose to pursue whatever ends they desire. Perhaps those who chose not to follow God could become merchants, or even join up with the enemies of the city, and try to defend the women and children of their villages from the rath of the righteous. Getting captured and sold as a slave would certainly be a concern, as would death by stoning. In fact, choosing the path of wickedness might lead to more of a survival and escape sort of game. Obviously all the details haven't been worked out, but come on Rock Star, get to work!
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Gigabit!
Gigabit used to be an expensive, and far away dream. Newegg.com now has gigabit cards for $10 (vs the $60-$100 they used to be) and gigabit switches for $50 (vs $200+ previously!). Suddenly gigabit is fairly cheap! I did some research on the cheaper cards Newegg offers, and decided on the GE1000-AXP from GigaFast because Linux supports them fairly well. Three of these little cards arrived arived Monday, and today I got a few minutes to test them out. The GE1000-AXP installed on Mandrake 10.2 without ANY user intervention. I didn't want it using DHCP however, so I did have to assign it a static IP (about 10 seconds and 5 mouse clicks... Linux is just SOOO difficult I'm exhausted).
Normally one would expect about this much performance from the different speed ratings:
(eqn: (10mb * 1,000,000)/(8*1024*1024) or 10 million bits with 8 bits per byte, 1024 bytes per Kilobyte, and 1024 Kilobytes per Megabyte)
10mb = 1.2 megs per second (10.2 minutes per full CD)
100mb = 11.9 megs per second (1.03 minutes per full CD)
1000mb = 119.2 megs per second (6.2 seconds per full CD)
In real life, these speeds are not actually attained. The 100mb interface on my main windows system can do about 8 megs per second, and the 1000mb interface on my Linux workstation can do about 20 megs per second. This is about half as fast as some of the results obtained in this benchmark. I don't know if this is because of the cheapness of the card, switch, or network cable. I am using genica cat 5 (maybe e?) cable, with ends I put on myself, and an eight port Netgear GS608 gigabit switch. Apparently there is also a bottleneck in the PCI bus which limits speeds to well below true gigabit, but some things I've read suggest that this is in the 400mb range. None the less, 20 megs per second is pretty dang fast, and twice as fast as my old network. Interestingly, if I copy files from the server with two systems at the same time, the total bandwidth is about 26 megabytes per second... hmmm.
Normally one would expect about this much performance from the different speed ratings:
(eqn: (10mb * 1,000,000)/(8*1024*1024) or 10 million bits with 8 bits per byte, 1024 bytes per Kilobyte, and 1024 Kilobytes per Megabyte)
10mb = 1.2 megs per second (10.2 minutes per full CD)
100mb = 11.9 megs per second (1.03 minutes per full CD)
1000mb = 119.2 megs per second (6.2 seconds per full CD)
In real life, these speeds are not actually attained. The 100mb interface on my main windows system can do about 8 megs per second, and the 1000mb interface on my Linux workstation can do about 20 megs per second. This is about half as fast as some of the results obtained in this benchmark. I don't know if this is because of the cheapness of the card, switch, or network cable. I am using genica cat 5 (maybe e?) cable, with ends I put on myself, and an eight port Netgear GS608 gigabit switch. Apparently there is also a bottleneck in the PCI bus which limits speeds to well below true gigabit, but some things I've read suggest that this is in the 400mb range. None the less, 20 megs per second is pretty dang fast, and twice as fast as my old network. Interestingly, if I copy files from the server with two systems at the same time, the total bandwidth is about 26 megabytes per second... hmmm.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Petrol
Abo pointed me towards this page the other day.
From the page:
* If we raise fuel efficiency standards in American cars by one mile per gallon, in one year, we would save twice the amount of oil that could be obtained from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
* Raising it by 2.7 mpg would save enough to eliminate all the oil imports from Iraq and Kuwait combined
* Raising it by 7.6 mpg would save enough to eliminate 100% of our gulf oil imports into this country
So.. why don't we just make cars more freaking efficient? Wouldn't that be a lot less painful that going to war with Iraq, drilling in various reserves, and furthering global warming? (Oh, I guess it wouldn't make as much money for the administration..)
(Note, a 1992 honda civic gets about 45mpg on the freeway... we haven't come very far in fuel efficiency.)
From the page:
* If we raise fuel efficiency standards in American cars by one mile per gallon, in one year, we would save twice the amount of oil that could be obtained from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
* Raising it by 2.7 mpg would save enough to eliminate all the oil imports from Iraq and Kuwait combined
* Raising it by 7.6 mpg would save enough to eliminate 100% of our gulf oil imports into this country
So.. why don't we just make cars more freaking efficient? Wouldn't that be a lot less painful that going to war with Iraq, drilling in various reserves, and furthering global warming? (Oh, I guess it wouldn't make as much money for the administration..)
(Note, a 1992 honda civic gets about 45mpg on the freeway... we haven't come very far in fuel efficiency.)
Thursday, July 14, 2005
The fox is guarding the hen house...(again)
The other day, I was driving through the beautiful green fields of Northern Idaho, and listening to a very disturbing report on NPR about the high levels of mercury used to keep vaccines free of bacteria and mold. What was especially alarming about this report was that, it has a huge impact on a very large group of people including me, and most everyone I know. Basically, if you have had a vaccine since 1931, you have probably been exposed to some level of mercury. Apparently some data and studies strongly suggest a link between these early doses of mercury and some of the odd neurological dissorders such as autism, hyperactivity, learning dissabilities etc which are causing a lot of trouble in schools these days. The mercury is part of thimerosal which is a preservative. It comes in the form of ethylmercury which one can read about here in the PAN Pesticides Database which says that it is a fungacide which acts as a developmental or reproductive toxin in humans. On this page there is a list of things which also contain ethylmercury. And on this page you can calculate how much mercury you have been exposed to from vaccines.
A good article covering the political aspects of this situation can be found here on Salon.com. If you don't have a Salon membership, you have to view an add to get access to the article. But, the article is WELL worth it. One of the more disturbing things it points out is that the CDC, FDA, and various pharmaceutical companies have known about this for a long time, but have made a pretty major effort to cover it up. This coverup was probably made possible by the serious conflict of interest on the part of CDC and FDA officials who are also heavily involved with pharmaceutical companies. This whole deal seems strangly reminiscent of the oil men and arms dealers running a war in Iraq. When will we learn that letting the fox guard the hen house isn't the smartest idea?
A good article covering the political aspects of this situation can be found here on Salon.com. If you don't have a Salon membership, you have to view an add to get access to the article. But, the article is WELL worth it. One of the more disturbing things it points out is that the CDC, FDA, and various pharmaceutical companies have known about this for a long time, but have made a pretty major effort to cover it up. This coverup was probably made possible by the serious conflict of interest on the part of CDC and FDA officials who are also heavily involved with pharmaceutical companies. This whole deal seems strangly reminiscent of the oil men and arms dealers running a war in Iraq. When will we learn that letting the fox guard the hen house isn't the smartest idea?
Friday, July 08, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
A question for the religiously inclined to ponder..
So I saw this weird thing on slashdot, about how "Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution." Apparently they can keep the dogs "dead" for at least 3 hours before reviving them, at which point they come back with not apparent brain/organ damage. They plan to try it on humans sooner or later. So, if the animal/human is dead, where does the soul go during that time? And, if someone had this done, and then wasn't brought back, at what point would they really be dead? Would their soul stick around until the probability of resuscitation was nill, and then head for warmer (or in some cases more temperate) waters? If this is done to a person, and the soul gets kinda confused and takes off too early, will the person be revived a soulless ghola? We need answers from someone with some serious religious training here!
Thursday, June 23, 2005
A little road trip
I went up to the UofI in Moscow last weekend, they have a nice campus up there. Tshering showed me the lab where she's sectioning fish eyes, and looking for optic nerves. The lab was spacious, modern and organized compared to others I've seen. Tshering even has her own desk!
Moscow is kinda fun too. The city reminds me of a mini Boulder CO, lots of big old style houses rented by students, some artsy shops, and lots of young people hanging around. I imagine the place is a real riot during the school year.
It was nice to be in a cool green place after dealing with the first heat wave of south Idaho summer. I was also particularly impressed by the huge rolling fields. Apparently they don't have to irrigate at all up there. The rain is sufficient to keep things green and growing.
Driving through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, and then down out of the mountains into the lush green camas prarie, I couldn't help but wonder how the previous owners would view the roads, houses and towns which dot the fields which once were theirs. Seeing the richness of the land, gave me a new understanding of the motivation behind driving Chief Joseph and his people off of the land.
Moscow is kinda fun too. The city reminds me of a mini Boulder CO, lots of big old style houses rented by students, some artsy shops, and lots of young people hanging around. I imagine the place is a real riot during the school year.
It was nice to be in a cool green place after dealing with the first heat wave of south Idaho summer. I was also particularly impressed by the huge rolling fields. Apparently they don't have to irrigate at all up there. The rain is sufficient to keep things green and growing.
Driving through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, and then down out of the mountains into the lush green camas prarie, I couldn't help but wonder how the previous owners would view the roads, houses and towns which dot the fields which once were theirs. Seeing the richness of the land, gave me a new understanding of the motivation behind driving Chief Joseph and his people off of the land.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Questions...
So I was wondering.. if you are a pro-lifer, do you start calculating age at the day of conception? Since "pro-life" seems to be the way the country is headed (George et. al.), maybe we ought to throw out this whole "birthday" idea, and adopt "conceptionday" in it's stead. This is a whole new war yet to be fought between the pro-choicers and pro-lifers, and of course, the pro-choicers will all end up being 9 months younger, which could sway those who are worried about old-age towards a pro-choice stance. Still, it would be more compatible with what appear to be the up-and-coming social views (who cares whether they are biologically sound anyway). And lets not forget about the interesting impact on legal drinking age.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Monday, March 14, 2005
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Hot Dawg!
Well Hot Dawg, I have a new Blog!
It is all about ECM research.. and hence has the address "ecmresearch.blogspot.com". I've already gotten a couple fun pictures posted, and more should be on their way soon.
It is all about ECM research.. and hence has the address "ecmresearch.blogspot.com". I've already gotten a couple fun pictures posted, and more should be on their way soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)