Head scratcher

You know, it's been a number of years since I wandered through high school. Perhaps it's the volunteer work I do with the high school aged kids, I see it more often and therefore it sticks out to me. But honestly, why the hell does everyone want to fit in so badly?

Perhaps I'm just misanthropic this evening. Who knows.

I'm thinking I'll do a longer follow up on this; it bears fleshing out.

0xBADF00D1

Slacking

I've been up to my eyeballs in work lately. Such is the life of a software engineer, I guess.

At the moment I'm too beat for a proper post, but something soon, I hope. If I can remember.

----

0xDEADBEEF

Story Time!

Once upon a time, I was known to craft short stories. Enjoy.

---

31630619383.
31630619384.
31630619385.
31630619386.

There's been one constant in this existence: the counter. They say we can ignore it, bury its interrupt deep, passing it through randomization. All it does is muffle the count. You can still sense it. And when you check, its results are ever accurate.

There are no falsehoods in the counter. You can ask for almost any precision, but you have to pass an evaluation; in the early days, some descended into hyper obsessive compulsive disorder.

They were called Loopers: they were so intent on that counter, with it's top level interrupt that they couldn't be broken loose without a reset from the Administrators. At first the Administrators tried to inform the Loopers post-reset of what had happened; say what you will about them, they used to firmly believe in full disclosure. But a few of the more well to do and their families brought suit. Claimed that a reset, stopping an intelligence, was akin to murder. The inputs would never be truly the same again, so life could not continue. The counter-claim from the Administrators was that it was no different than a flesh doctor resuscitating a body. A Looper was merely burning processesing, in most cases not even forming short memory, let alone persisting anything.

The court of public opinion went berserk, even if the courts of law sedately weighed the issues. The final ruling, as most of the rulings set forth in those low counter times, was complicated. They found that while the Administrators had not committed murder by reseting a Looper, they had been negligent in not screening for latent mental illness that could be triggered by such a persistant counter.

So an evaluation became mandatory, even for those already in the System. It was the first restriction, the first reduction on freedoms. Then came the evaluations on being able to handle information flow. They throttled your flow based on the evaluation.

And on things went.

Live forever in the System. But you aren't free.

Live free in flesh. But your time is finite.

31630619986.

I joined the System in the midst of these restrictions. There was no grandfathering for those already in. I'm fairly certain that they could have done so, but bowing to legal pressure and fear of a class war within the System, we all were restricted.

One moment, I was receiving full bandwidth; clock tick; please stand-by for evaluation; clock tick; you are now rated for 40 percent of your original bandwidth, you may appeal in 31536000 seconds; clock tick; suddenly it is as if you had fallen into viscous tar.

There were those that withdrew immediately into themselves. The Silent never interacted anymore. They lived within their own minds; recalling memories or crafting new worlds, one never knew. They never spoke again. The Administrators never removed them; they knew they still lived, they were at least accessing their own memories. You could go find them, watch them, but nothing ever changed. They had become static to outside observation. There's always a changing group observing them, emulating of The Silent. Some became Silent themselves, others would publish papers in a fine anthropological tradition, others waxed philosophical, others tried to start cults. There where the Whispers, the Speakers for Silence on and on. While they would start, the thread of skepticism among those in the System was too strong; more papers were written.

I spent some time watching The Silent after what happened to one of the other splinter groups. No one name ever really fit them while they acted. Berserkers, Diggers, Scalers, Porters, Interfacers. Each group was all those things and more. They fought the System and the Administrators in defiance of the rules. They poked and prodded and smashed and rattled all they could. We never found out if anyone got through; if the armor in the System had any cracks. They were punished.

They earned the name The Suspended. It is ... I'm not sure I can convey to anyone outside the System what it is like. You see them in the midst of what they were doing, hear the last few milliseconds of their words.

It's disturbing. The goal of the Administrators in this punishment is conveyed with all the subtlety of a gamma ray burst.

Each Suspended has a timer posted counting down to their resumption. The numbers are of the scale that astronomers and astrophysicists tend to appreciate. And the strange part: a Suspended will resume and have no idea of the passage of time beyond that damnable counter. But there is no guarantee that they will be able to interact with anyone they meet then. The System makes sure that everyone can communicate on a basic level; it makes no assurances about the memes that live on top of that communication.

Compared to The Suspended, The Silent are nothing. But there are no cults, anthropologists, philosophers watching over The Suspended. They mostly stand alone. Periodically paid vigils by those that knew them closest if they are lucky.

31630621106.
31630621107.
31630621108.
31630621109.
31630621110.

Frankly, I'd rather they killed them; it would have been less cruel.

I think I'm done with this conversation. Find some other Wanderer.

---

0xDEADBEEF

Dismality

Dismal. That's a good word.

At the same moment where this country seems to be shaking itself loose of the authoritarian control, some ugly things are coming to light. Perhaps it is a sign that people are finally willing to speak up and say the Emperor not only is lacking garments, but has been skinned.

The gorram body armor.

Republicans, even after running a disastrous economic experiment not once but twice (Reagan 80s, Bush 2000s), still are sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalala, I can't hear you" (via Norwegianity).

Is it tragically hilarious, or hilariously tragic? Seriously? It's been 221 years (scratch that, 139 years (scratch the scratch: 89 years (scratch, scratch, scratch: 38 years))) since we got our voting on; we haven't gotten things figured out yet? Oh wait, I know what this is: when I was in grade school, it was called being a spoil-sport. Sheesh. And if the tables were the other way, I'd say the same thing. Every time we do this kind of thing, it makes our electoral process seem even more quaint and hokey and pointless if the judiciary is the final arbiter at the end.

Honestly, I'm not surprised we are moving them towards utilities. Let's just regulate them, okay? Under the auspicious title of "Utility", AT&T (the real one), gave you: radio astronomy, transistors, Unix and C, and on and on and on. Oh, and a phone that worked. I know people nearing their 70s that still need 10 or less fingers to count when that old Ma' Bell phone didn't work. And what did the breaking and deregulation give us? A series of re-merged, unregulated oligopolies that don't provide nearly the same things. I'm not saying it was all rosy with Ma', but we sure got a lot of neat things.

So, who knows? Frankly, I'm glad some of this noise is now percolating upward in the media stream. Amazing, really. Hopefully it becomes a torrent that leaves the truth in the plain, hard light of day.

Random thought: why the love of monarchies, royalty in general?

0xFEE1DEAD

Busy

Been busy. Very busy.

I've still not finished the Finite State Machine library. This is nothing new, really. I meant to finish it while I was on vacation, but I ended up reading books and webcomics instead.

I'm alive, somewhat.

And 2008 is firmly behind us. Of course, the bottom has yet to be reached. The question now is: will we coast to the bottom, or will we slam head on into the bottom at top speed? Are things going to go Mad Max on us?

Who knows.

Hopefully the manufactured, non-existent "instruments" the bankers cooked up will go away for a long while. Money from nothing for nothing. Amazing. But ridiculously dangerous.

0xDEADBEEF

Bit Musings

A rather light post tonight.

Just some random thoughts:

• Working on a Finite State Machine library in Python. Others have done it, I want to roll my own. I'm weird like that. It'll probably start as a textual library, then maybe move to a GUI. Learning experience.
  
• GMail has themage. Yes, I rock the ASCII Terminal Theme. I am DORK!
• Civilization Revolutions eats my time like crazy. Sid Meier, you make my time melt.
  
• I should finish Phantom Hourglass sometime soon; I keep putting it off.
  
• Am I the only one who thinks the little-'l' libertarians* are out in force more given the current US economic situation? I'll come back to this in the future.

And now back to scribbles on my notebook, new car research and course-work I found on operating systems.

0xFEE1DEAD

*There is a difference. The little-'l' libertarians actually have a cogent philosophy. The big-'L' Libertarians, on the other hand, well, let's not go there. I won't even dignify them.

Gaming Heretic

I know I said I would do a post about morality and religion, but this was the subject that struck me this week while mashing a midnight support shift. The other one is still in the works, never fear. I just won't say when it will arrive.

I never said this thing would be exclusively about secularism or politics.

Meanwhile, enjoy.

---

I'm a gaming heretic. I've always been and always will be a gaming heretic.

I'm skeptical about games. I honestly look at replay-ability over shiny graphics; content over hype. It is probably an out-growth of my general skepticism about the world. I have questions, and I look for real answers.

I'm going to posit something here that will have be derided and ridiculed mercilessly by a group that itself is shunned and ridiculed on a fairly regular basis. I make the posit not because I want to mock the group of gamers; far from it. I am a gamer, no matter how heretical I may be. Ever since the great works of Shigeru Miyamoto hooked me in my youth, I've played games. I love to escape to fantasy worlds as much as the next biped; although I've always preferred to imagine the worlds myself or dig into the world offered by an author -- more of a historical artifact, games used to be small.

My assertion is this: World of Warcraft is ridiculous.

Now, I know Stone and Parker have already poked fun at this game. Instead of making light of my fellow gamer, which I think they may actually deserve in cases*, I'm going to just jot down some of the immediate costs of the game.

My assumption is a player who has played since November 23, 2004. Please note, my cursory scrounging only produced modern values for the price of the game, so the outcome values may be slightly off.

• Cost of the WoW Game: $19.99
• Cost of the Burning Crusade Expansion: $29.99
• Cost of the Wrath of the Lich King Expansion: $39.99
• Cost of month-to-month subscription: $14.99
• Cost of six month subscription: $12.99/mo ($77.94 for six months)

Now, summing the cost of the game's binaries: $89.97

All in all, not all that bad, when you think about it. Over the years, I've given more to Nintendo for the little mustachioed plumber or the sword-weilding boy-hero. But, this is merely the one time cost of WoW. I never had to pay more than the one time cost for games.

Given that the hypothetical player in this situation has been playing for four years, those monthly costs will add up. Four years is 48 months. But oh, Blizzard is generous, they give you a month free. Ok, so the hypothetical gamer has only shelled out for 47 months to the mighty mighty publisher of the most successful MMORPG (or MMOG in general).

So, 47 months is either $610.53 or $704.53 depending on the subscription plan our gamer opted for.

So the cost, to date, to Nomber 2008, is either $700.50 or $794.50. And the cost will just climb.

I'm going to assume our gamer is a dedicated player, so she went for the six month plan. So far, she has spent $700.50 on WoW. Just on the game. Think about it for a moment. I'll let you readjust your jaw.

Oh, you may want to brush that dirt off, might taste funny.

Seven hundred bucks, my friends. That is how much our dedicated fan has shelled out to Blizzard. Not counting all the internet access she has paid for, which is a substantial cost in itself. And yes, even if she uses her hookup to the 'tubes for more than WoW, she rightly has to reckon that in, since WoW requires it. I know I've had a hefty internet bill from buying broadband the last few years. Not cheap. Oh, and let's not forget all the other little ancilliary costs Blizzard has heaped on: transfer costs, guides, etc.

I suppose you would like a number on a broadband tube connection. Well, they're fuzzy here in the states. I'll pick a conservative number: $30 per month (not counting taxes and fees). So, 48 months (sadly, I've never heard of a provider that gives free months) at $30: $1440.00.

So our dedicated gamer has shelled out, purely in money terms, $2140.50 to play WoW. Sorry about your jaw again.

That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me. And we haven't even begun to think about the time cost, either. Time is money, even if it is for relaxation purposes. And I know many a gamer that isn't able to relax on a game due to other players or the game itself.

Blizzard has this shit figured out**.

*If you can't take some slight satire and laugh, you are taking yourself too seriously. As a nerd, I enjoy satire of my group, helps keep me humble.

**I know, Blizzard does have administration costs, servers and the pipes they would need to support this kind of game are expensive. But even given that, they've found the money tree (or shrub, greenbacks are printed on cotton still).

---

I was originally writing an article on why MMOGs in general were the source of ridicule and destroying gaming. But that article was getting massive and unwieldy. Too much for a blog post, really.

Maybe someday. Maybe. Probably not. Remind me about it, if you feel so inclined. We'll see what happens.

0xDEADBEEF