Carsonist At Large

Introductions: Make Them Care

2012-01-17T17:14:00.000-06:00

Just played the Kingdoms of Alamur demo, seems like a pretty ordinary Fantasy RPG of the modern age. It's clean and pretty, and probably better than Dragon Age. It's made by EA, so you know it's going to be obnoxious on several levels.

One complaint: The game opens by telling you about the evil king that started a war decades ago or whatever. DO NOT DO THIS. People don't care about a story until they care about the people in it. Introduce a character, not even necessarily the main character, then tell us the story by showing how it impacts that character.

It's odd; after showing the bad opening video, the game immediately moves into what the intro should be. It introduces your character as the generic blank slate of Fantasy RPGs, and leads you through a dramatic escape from a dungeon. By the character finding out what's going on in the world, we also find out what's going on. There are other ways to tell a story, but the good ones tell a story with characters, not just describing world events.

Tintin and Action Fatigue

2011-12-31T11:20:00.000-06:00

Tintin is great, Steven Spielberg really is a master of his craft. They managed to make a modern movie that's still true to the comic, except they cut out all the racism. Probably a good thing.

My one problem with the movie is action fatigue. I felt like we should have already come to the end of the climax, only to find that what I thought was the climax was only an entertaining diversion, and there's an entirely separate climax that's even longer. By the end, I'm just tired of all the crazy stuff that's happened.

I think this happens more nowadays because of the huge budgets that movies get. If Peter Jackson wants to have a fully CGI chase scene in King Kong that goes on for 40 minutes, he can do that without going over budget. By the end, I'm not going to care what happens to them, I'm just waiting to take a break from all the craziness.

Yellow Lights

2011-12-07T13:41:00.000-06:00

I ran two yellow lights today.

I think neither would get me in trouble if there had been a policeman watching, but the first was stretching it a little bit. I've never run a yellow light thinking, "I need to get through here because I'm in a hurry," I think that attitude is extremely dangerous and leads to traffic collisions. I only run lights because I can't stop in time to stay out of the intersection, which is my understanding of what the yellow light means.

I think if you talk to 10 people, you'll get 5 different meanings for a yellow light. People in general don't know what the laws that effect them actually say. Traffic law in particular seems to be a haven for folklore; a friend of mine insists that it's not illegal to exceed the speed limit if you're traveling at the "speed of traffic", that is, the general speed of the cars around you.

Anyway, does anyone have a rule of thumb for approaching green lights that are bound to change to a yellow any second now? I've been trying to think to myself, "I'm going to stop unless I get to that point up ahead", when I remember to, but it's an awkward system.

I wish we had the traffic lights I've heard other countries have, where the light actually changes in appearance as it approaches a change.

Crazy Old Guy

2011-12-02T23:52:00.000-06:00

I was bemused to talk to a crazy old man today. He's from some other country, not great with English, and very insistent that he not buy anything made in China, apparently because of his disapproval of their one-child policy.

In our conversation, he shook my hand at least three times, saluted me twice, and read the lines in my hand to read my future. I think people may be annoyed by people like that, but I find it charming.

iPod Touch External Speakers

2011-11-28T12:19:00.000-06:00

My new iPod Touch has external speakers so you don't have to attach anything to the device to listen to music/podcasts. I decided to test it out by listening to some They Might Be Giants, and it sounded horrible.

The sound quality wasn't that great either.

Shock

2011-11-21T13:00:00.001-06:00

The latest Simpsons was funny, and XKCD wasn't a waste of time? What's the world coming to?

Carl Sagan - Cosmos - Drake Equation

2011-11-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

We choose to go to the Moon

2011-10-30T14:22:00.001-05:00

one half (variable)(variable) squared

2011-10-30T08:37:00.000-05:00

I'm in a physics class right now. It seems like everything in physics involves the same formula:

1/2 * X * Y^2

that is, half the first variable, times the second variable squared. Here's a little contest: I'm going to list formulae that include this system, and let my readers figure them out!

1/2 MR^2
1/2 KX^2
1/2 AT^2
1/2 Iω ^2
1/2 αT^2
1/2 MV^2

PS. what is up with the math lettering system? Using X and Y as the most commonly used letters is insane. It's incredibly easy for an x to look like a y, and vice-versa. W stands for like three things, and so does T. It's like crazy people thought up the notation for physics stuff. Or maybe people with a truncated alphabet.

The Age of Accountability

2011-10-11T09:03:00.000-05:00

Most Christians think that death leads to one of two places: Heaven or Hell. They also believe that the only way to enter Heaven is to is to have faith in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth*. When people point out that this system is monstrously unfair, since many people are not exposed to the idea of Jesus, believers shrug their shoulders and say something about god being mysterious.

Oddly, confronted with an almost identical situation, many Christians reverse their position. When a child dies without having an opportunity to believe in Jesus, Christians invent the idea of an "Age of Accountability". If you don't reach the Age of Accountability before you die, then you're saved regardless of the state of your belief. There is literally no support in the Bible for this theory.

So what's the difference between damning people in distant countries and children that are only a few years old? The answer is obvious: People don't mind damning foreigners, but it makes them feel bad to think that their kids might go to Hell.

I personally like the Jehovah's Witnesses' take on the whole thing: they believe that everyone is simply dead and "asleep" until the coming of the "Kingdom of God". This has two plusses: it doesn't make god look like a complete jerk, and it's more supported by the bible than most interpretations.

*Both of these things are not very well supported by the actual bible. It's remarkable how many things in modern belief are based on incredibly vague or obtuse passages. Particularly the entire idea of The Antichrist being a person.

Why I Like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

2011-10-07T12:54:00.000-05:00

1.Fluttershy

2. Songs

3. Character Based Humour
4. The protagonist is an intellectual, pretty rare for a kids' show.
5. I haven't seen any other shows for girls, but it's nice to see the way that many of the characters aren't crammed into "girly" roles.

NOTE: MLP is a good show, but it's not a great show. Watch The Wire, Community, Venture Bros, Archer, etc. before watching it. Someone compared it to junk food, and that's a pretty good analogy. It's just fun.

Secret Antagonistic PCs

2011-10-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

I'm against Role-Players making and running characters that are designed to have goals that conflict with the ordinary goals of the party. This includes "moles" and "possessed" characters. My main concern is that it's done too often; I'd be more surprised if some players had a character without a complicated issue that never really comes up in the game but prevents them from really helping.

Also:
It makes "Character information" and "Player information" much more difficult to segregate, in most situations, a player that was concerned about it could just ask for clarification: "Did you say that in character?", but a PC with a secret agenda can't ask that because it would be very suspicious. The information problem runs the other way too, the secret actions will require additional adjudication by the GM, which will almost inevitably be noticed by the other PCs, unless they are completely oblivious. (This is why I have never detected a hostile PC ever)

There are a lot of things that go unspoken in an RPG, a player doesn't say that he turns on light switches, or goes to bed, or whether he locks each door he closes, or whether he checks his watches, or does regular virus checks on his computer, etc. But each of these actions, and endless more, could reveal or betray a PC that's acting against the interests of the party. The GM is forced to RP the PCs on behalf of the antagonistic PC, who ends up essentially acting against brain-dead players, no GM can imagine all the nonsensical things a party of PCs will do, and he has an obvious incentive to not catch the secret PC in action: that would end the entire plot line, and could easily lead to the death of a PC, or even the entire campaign. Thus, the players feel cheated that their "implied" actions didn't actually happen. The GM can't ask what sort of precautions are being taken because, again, this creates obvious problems with information between player and character.

Note, I don't mind if a character develops in such a way that they must oppose the actions of the party, I'm against a character designed with that in mind.

Congress is Skimming the Patent Office

2011-09-23T20:03:00.000-05:00

You probably know that the US Patent Office is sorely undermanned and underfunded. You may not know that the Office actually generates all its own income, and operates on the fees of those that use it.

What's worse, Congress actually takes money from the Office and uses it for the general fund. This skimming runs to the total of about a billion dollars over ten years. No wonder the system doesn't have enough capital! Hopefully the recent patent bill will help, but I've become a little pessimistic about Congress nowadays.

Drama and Character Vs "epic-ness"

2011-09-16T20:44:00.001-05:00

There's a common misconception in media. Essentially, it says that "more epic is more dramatic/emotional/powerful etc." That is, higher stakes, larger armies, more deaths, make for a bigger impact on the audience. Nothing could be further from the truth.

People care about people. Those people can be robots, or living toys, or humans or aliens, but they can't be countries, or populations, or even planets.

A few examples: In the Mass Effect series, you can decide the fate of entire planets. At the climax of the game, your actions save the entire Galaxy. You can commit acts akin to Genocide. But if you listen to people talk about their play experience, you wouldn't know that those things were in the game; you'd think that the game was a relationship/dating game. In the mind of a player, the most important decision is who to befriend/sleep with*. People care about people.

In Saving Private Ryan, the fate of the free world is at stake, but only in a theoretical sense. In the most "epic" events of history, the characters never know the significance of their actions on the world scale. What they-and the audience-care about is the fate of their company. The arrival of Air Power doesn't matter because it leads to Allied victory, it matters because Tom Hanks' life is saved (Spoiler Alert).

The perfect counter-example is in Star Wars Episode III. The final battle between Obi-wan and Anakin shouldn't be about the lava and crazy jumps and special effects. It should be about the character of the combatants. Instead, it's often impossible to tell which Jedi is which.

If your problem with my talking about Star Wars is that it's not long enough, you should check out Red Letter Media's videos about the series. They provide a lot of valuable information about storytelling and strange jokes.

*Correct path for Femshep: Liara, Garrus, Liara.
Maleshep: Liara, Tali, Liara.

Kanye

2011-09-15T08:51:00.000-05:00

Often times people don't believe me that I like Kanye West. Here are some songs that should show why I like his music. (You may not want to watch the videos, they're generally kinda dumb, and the second one is bad for people who have seizures. The Youtube versions also edit out the swears, which is pretty lame.)

"Write-Off" Candidates and the Media

2011-09-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

I just heard an interesting detail about covering political campaigns. News companies have a limited number of reporters to cover events, and they have to carefully distribute their resources. Each additional candidate requires more people, so the media has to choose a small number of candidates, (three at most, preferably two). Those candidates receive coverage, and the rest are essentially ignored.

This is why we get "write-off" candidates every campaign: the media picks the candidates that they decide can win. Often times they're right, most candidates don't have a chance. But this effect should bring chills to people who believe in Democrazy.

Post Office ISP

2011-09-08T14:22:00.000-05:00

The Post Office should become an Internet Service Provider. It could help with rural Internet-ification, would provide competition, and would create a function for an increasingly irrelevant part of the government.

Of course, the Post Office should stop delivering mass mailings at a loss, as well.. I assume this is the case because politicians like to do mass mailings.

Neither of these things will happen until we get a progressive government, so we may have to wait a while.

Taxes Take Away Happiness

2011-09-01T12:42:00.000-05:00

Regardless of how much money a person makes, they think that if they make 10% more, that will take care of their problems, or allow them to be happy. This is not true. More money does not increase happiness, unless the person is being brought up from poverty, which creates genuine improvements in quality of life.

I think this ten percent rule is part of why there is so much resentment to our relatively low tax rates in America. The government isn't just taking away 10% of your money, it's taking away your happiness. No wonder people resent it.

Saving Lives With Money

2011-08-27T15:52:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, the charities that provided medical intervention had a problem: how could the identify which injuries and medical problems were the result of the earthquake, and which conditions were pre-existing? Since the country had (and still has) such poor facilities, lots of people in the country had curable medical conditions from before the earthquake, and thought they could get in on that charity medical care.

My question: Why does it matter why anyone needs assistance? It's not as though earthquake victims are more deserving of assistance than someone who got hit by a bus. Neither person deserved their injury, and both would be better off with intervention.

Whenever someone dies of starvation or dehydration, the problem could have been solved with money. If we're willing to save a person that was starving as a result of an earthquake, then we should be willing to help someone who simply doesn't have land good enough to grow sufficient food.

Intervention that is used to prevent starvation, disasters, or injury has a multiplicative effect; if you spend a dollar on prevention, you save many dollars in the future. Logically, as a cost saving measure, the first world should spend all the money necessary to bring the benefits of modern civilization to anywhere willing to accept it.

Boring

Star Trek Back on TV

2011-08-25T13:28:00.000-05:00

There's a headline going around that a guy is pitching a continuation of the Star Trek TV series of series. My first reaction: extremely cautious optimism. There are a number of problems that face the Star Trek fan of today:

A show at this stage of development has low success rate of getting to the screen
Science fiction is more expensive than regular programming, further decreasing the chance it will be picked up
The guy pitching the show isn't even on wikipedia
Most shows are bad

There are probably other things I haven't thought of, but that's most of my concern. From the hints he's dropped, it sounds like the guy cares about Star Trek, and has a vision for the show, which is cool.

Would I like to see more Star Trek on Television? Absolutely.

If it was completely neutered like Voyager? Maybe not.

Youtube

2011-08-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of this website called Youtube? I've been putting some TF2 videos up there. You can find them on my channel. Here's one for those of you too lazy to click a link:

Dominion: The First Two Turns

2011-08-11T10:19:00.001-05:00

Dominion is a great game. The game plays like ascension, but has a more strategic element, since you don't get screwed by the changing cards available on the board. In Ascension, you basically make one decision: "Fight or Buy", and you try to focus on that build for the rest of the game. In Dominion, every turn requires quite a bit of thought, if you're trying to maximize your gains.

I've been thinking about the strategy of Dominion in terms of what to do in the first two turns.

First of all, the first two turns are interchangeable. If you buy card X in turn one and card Y turn two, your deck will be the exact same when you shuffle your 12 cards as if you bought card Y first and X second.

You want to start off with two cards that do something directly. No cards that simply help another card in the first two turns.

Village is a great card, but you're not going to get to use three actions in your third or fourth turn; you'll only have two action cards in your entire deck! Go with the Steward until you have some more action cards in your deck.

It's difficult to figure out the correct ratio between action cards that do things, and action cards that support playing more cards. A lot of it depends on how many cards give +2 actions.

If you can buy a gold or a Province, get it every time.

One last thing: Don't be afraid to buy silver in the first two turns. Your main goal in the game is to buy expensive things, and starting early works great.

EDIT:
I forgot the best part! This site has a random dominion starting generator. If you play Dominion, it makes for a lot of cool variety.

Price Drop Illogic

2011-08-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

Apparently many people are unfamiliar with the idea of buying things. It's a simple system: A person pays money for goods or services, and the recipients of that money delivers that good or service.

The furor over the price cuts of the 3DS and Team Fortress 2 imply some new philosophy of shopping. The thought seems to be, "If I buy something, and someone else gets that same thing for a lower price, I'm getting screwed."

You still got a product in return for your money. You thought it was worth ten dollars, or two hundred fifty dollars, and you got it for that price. Once that transaction is complete, the relation between you and the seller is complete. You may have been ripped off*, or you may have won a great deal**. Either way, the price in the future has nothing to do with the value of your purchase in the past.

Where have these people come from, anyway? Almost every consumer product's price goes down over time, except survival commodities like Petrol and Food. When did this completely ordinary process become an outrage?

I suppose I shouldn't bother; people will complain about anything nowadays.

*If you got a 3DS
**If you got TF2

All In The Family

2011-08-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

All in the Family is the best show ever made. It pushed more borders than anything today, (although a lot of that is the fact that there were more borders back then,) and the show is still funny, and sad, and powerful, in a way that still applies to modern day.

Lots of episodes are on youtube, check them out if you get the chance.

The Debt Ceiling Talks

2011-07-25T15:36:00.000-05:00

Here's my current theory: Obama has said that he will not sign a deal unless it extends the debt ceiling past the presidential election. The Republicans want to use this latest crisis to dismantle another large portion of the federal budget. Failing that, they're perfectly willing to have Obama ignore the debt ceiling as an exercise of the 14th amendment.

So long as the Republicans can make it seem like they made a reasonable offer, they win either way. If Obama caves like always, they win because they get to kill universal healthcare. If Obama finally mans up, they get to say that Democrats are increasing the deficit, they can say he should be impeached for breaking the law, etc., etc. The only way Obama can make this look good for him is by making it clear he went completely out of his way to make a deal, offering up Democratic sacred cows.

He did offer to increase the age for Medicare availability, (which would kill a lot of people, I would guess more than 100, but fewer than 10,000 a year) so he made the appropriate gesture. The question is whether he can sell this fact to the people of the United States. He will almost certainly win re-election against this terrible Republican field, but he needs a congress that won't threaten to blow up the country every time they don't get their way.

So this all comes to marketing, which Democrats have been incompetent at since LBJ. Hooray for the future.

Big Bang Theory is Bad

2011-07-14T13:51:00.002-05:00

I had never seen an episode of The Big Bang theory, and I had heard good and bad things about it.

To those of you who support the show, you are wrong. The show is bad.

TF2 Sanvich fakeout

2011-07-13T15:53:00.001-05:00

I just love this vid

TF2 Tourney DDOS

2011-07-12T10:15:00.001-05:00

TF2 tournament matches keep getting attacked by hackers. Is there a particular reason for this, or are they just going with the mafia "protection" idea? Anyone know?

TF2 Uber Update Thoughts

2011-06-23T17:50:00.004-05:00

I'm waiting for the Uber Update to come out, so I'm going to write my thoughts about what they've previewed so far.

Soldier
Liberty Launcher
Faster Rocket Launcher, I don't really care about items that just tweak percentages a bit.

Reserve Shooter
Mini-Crits on airborne targets. Sounds great to me.

Market Gardener
Getting Crits seems pretty good, but it's impossibly difficult to get consistent melee hits when you're flying by them.

Mantreads
If anything is harder than meleeing someone in midair, it's landing on their head. From some test jumping around, it seems like the treads would do ~100 damage, tops.

Disciplinary Action
This seems to be great. Going faster is always good, and getting a Heavy to go fast is fantastic. Also, you get to whip your allies.

Pyro
Detonator
Presumably, this'll be the Detonator from the Beta, so sign me up.

Scout
Atomizer
Third jump. Sweet.

Winger
Not that exciting, just tweaking percentages. I may use it for finishing people off.

Soda Popper
Charge up Mini-Crits by running around? I guess it could be good, depends on how fast it charges up.

Sniper
Bazaar Bargain
I'm a terrible shot, so I'm not going to use it, unless there's something we don't know about it, like it has iron sights or something.

Shahanshah
booooooooooooooooring

Demoman
Splendid Screen
Doesn't seem that great. I'd rather have more damage resistance from the regular shield than better collision damage, which I rarely get.

Persian Persuader
Weird weapon. If ammo becomes health, then you can't pick up any ammo, which means you'll run out pretty quickly. It's for a pure melee build, but I think doing it with the Grenade Launcher would be legit, if you use it sparingly.

Ali Baba's Wee Booties
Is there some thought in Valve HQ that Demomen aren't annoying enough?

Heavy
Tomislav
The "no-sound" business seems good, but no one listens to things anyway. See Spy frag vids for evidence.

Family Business
Tweaking percentages, I don't care.

Eviction Notice
Tweaking percentages, but the wrong way. Surely a set of spiked brass knuckles would do more damage. I'd have it do bleed damage too.

Spy
Enforcer
I use the revolver/L'etrange to kill people already, doing even more damage is awesome. The increased cloak length seems like it wouldn't effect the Dead Ringer at all. This thing could two-shot a low HP enemy at close range.

Big Earner
I don't think this will be that great. 100 HP max is very rough.

Made Man
Maybe it'll do something?

Says It All

2011-06-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

From Paul Krugman:

Banning Cards

2011-06-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'll play some Magic: The Gathering every now and again. There's an interesting question in that game: how do you decide what cards to allow?

I would have three rules.

If a card dominates a format, where every deck is about the card, or has to be an aggressive counter to the card.
If a card is in every deck, regardless of what the deck is about.
The card makes games really boring, or makes you do a lot of work, disproportionate to its effect.

Rule number two is why I think Sol Ring should be banned in everything. Even a deck with a crazy amount of artifact hate would probably be better off running as many Sol Rings as are allowed. This is an obvious indicator that a card is too powerful.

The obvious counter argument: "If everyone has Sol Ring, it's all balanced. What's the harm?" The harm is that some people are going to draw Sol Ring, and get the huge benefits, and some won't. Every game will swing by a significant amount just by who's lucky enough to pull a Sol Ring in the early game.

Terraria

2011-05-30T18:31:00.000-05:00

Terraria. It's basically Minecraft in two dimensions.

Pros: Freedom and Exploration

You get to run around, digging and exploring, or building as high as you want into the air. There are a lot of things to find all around you. The items are neat, and the interface works well. Thankfully, you don't have to figure out recipes, it just lets you know what you can craft with what's in your inventory.

I particularly like messing with water and lava. Water is the ultimate safety device; you can ride waterfalls down any hole, and it makes a safe platform of obsidian on lava. You can jump higher in water too, so you can "ride" waterfalls up to places that you couldn't normally jump to. I just wish water had some effect on your opponents.

Cons: MONSTERS

The enemies are terrible. There are three kinds of enemies, and they're all stupid.

The default enemy walks at you until one of you dies. If you're in a small area with them, you can get bounced around by the damage knockback, which prevents you from doing anything at all.

Then there's the enemies that teleport near you and shoot a projectile that goes through walls, so they can shoot you, but you can't shoot back.

Then there are the enemies that "fly" through the ground. Basically all you can do is attack as they get near you, trading damage until one of you dies. Once you get to the biggest ones, it's even odds which it will be, and they just keep coming.

The main problem with all of these opponents is their spawn rate. When enemies spawn as fast as you can kill them, and shoot magic shots at you from another room, it gets old extremely quick. Even the normal enemies can overwhelm you with numbers when they start dropping down from above, and you forget to seal yourself against them.

The Saxxys

2011-05-25T11:41:00.000-05:00

I've been spending quite a bit of time voting on The Saxxys, and I have this feeling that not many other people are.

When I start voting in a category, it is thick with ineligible videos. As I proceed, the number of videos that have nothing to do with TF2 thin out as I flag them.* If my work is making a significant change in the proportion of ineligible videos, days after the beginning of the contest, there must be very few voters indeed.

I can't blame the people that don't vote, why bother voting between two videos which obviously aren't going to win anything? This is by far the most common pairing of videos, and it's a waste of time.

I'd guess about half the videos are ineligible. Half the remaining videos are so terrible there's no chance of winning.** Only about one percent of the videos are good enough I would suggest anyone watch them. If I were running the contest, I would change two things: I would allow the voter to flag both videos as ineligible, and I would have a button that would indicate a vote against a video. An average voter can recognize that a video's general crumminess means it's not going to win anything, even if it's technically appropriate for the category. If a video got enough of these anti-votes, it'd be moved off the list of eligible nominees.

*this could be a psychological effect, which would mean that none of this is significant.
** A particularly annoying kind of video is a demoman sticky jumping to the enemy, and hitting them with the Ullapool Caber (see below). If it had never been done before, I could see the attraction. Instead of a novelty, it's become the most common thing in the contest.

The Best Animal Ever Tourney

2011-05-23T16:47:00.001-05:00

Fill out your brackets today, if not earlier!

Pirates 4

2011-05-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4. It's just about what you would expect. It's clearly the work of people who just didn't care. It's one of the many modern movies where you have no idea where you are or what's going on most of the time. They made the shot very pretty, but it's clear they didn't do the work to flesh out the world.

Al Swearingon didn't get as much to do as I would have liked, but he had an entire HBO series, and that didn't satisfy me.

Apparently some idiot in marketing thought the movie didn't skew young enough or something, so they added in a pointless romance between a young couple of "actors" with all of the "acting ability" (generic good looks) and none of the name recognition of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly. I thought cutting the boring romantic pairing was the best improvement to the series, only to see my hopes dashed. At least it didn't take up much screen time.

Speaking of, I hate that Hollywood seems to think "romance" is the same as, "the woman is attractive, and the man is attractive/funny", so they fall into each other arms, often having spoken for less than ten minutes. I'm not saying you have to show ten minutes of dialogue, although Tarantino shows it's possible. A movie can indicate that a romantic pair has had time to talk off-screen before they decide they'd die for each other. Pirates 4 was particularly bad, considering one of the pair was a monster, and the other was a priest.

No More Politics

2011-05-17T23:28:00.000-05:00

I know no one cares about my political stuff, especially since I generally just agree with Paul Krugman, so I'll take a break from that sort of thing, after I've said this one last thing.

Ralph Nader liked to say that people should spend as much time and effort judging political figures as they do thinking of sports teams. Apply the same process, ignore the rhetoric, look at the numbers, and do some real research. I think we can all agree this is an extremely low bar, but we don't live up to it.

Most political debates are completely tangential to the important things, and the basic premises of those arguments are usually incorrect or disingenuous. This only works because people spend less time analyzing politics than they do their local sports team.

Maybe Americans don't deserve America, even in the state it's in.

A Couple Political Planks

2011-05-16T15:37:00.000-05:00

I know everyone loves it when I write ill-founded political rants, (something largely missing on the Internet), so here's a couple things.

First of all, no one should ever die of being poor. We don't have to make everyone equal, but we should have an arrangement where basic preventative medical care and basic living needs are provided to those that would die otherwise. Right now, people below the poverty line, (a quickly increasing population), die five years or more, on average, than those that have a living income. That's not OK.

Second, we need to pay more on schools and education, with a focus on having decent facilities and teachers. Yes, technology teaching is good, but the first priority must be on having teachers capable of teaching. I heard once a teacher say that they had never received an evaluation of any kind in how they are teaching. Helping teachers measure their own performance would be the first step, after which, if the teacher could not reach some sort of standard, they would be removed from their position. In other words, you'd have a chance to shape up before you were kicked out, just like any regular job. Where a Republican plan has the goal of firing a lot of teachers, my plan would increase the amount of teachers, and only fire those teachers that couldn't meet a standard of quality.

The Logical Impossibility of the Trinity

2011-05-13T22:22:00.000-05:00

If I told you two "persons" were in the same body, had the same abilities, are made of the same material, and had the same mind, you'd say I was stupid.

You'd say the "two" persons were actually just one dude.

I would concede, "yes, they're the same nature, and the same being, but they're different persons."

Again, you'd say I was stupid. What's the point of being two persons, if you're obviously only one thing, you may ask.

"See, when they are active, they're one person. When they are simply existing, they're the other. It can be difficult to impossible to tell which person is being displayed at a given time, since there's no evident difference between the two, since they're made of the same stuff, and have the same abilities, as I said earlier."

You probably think this entire argument is stupid, and doesn't make any sense at all. What's the difference between a person and a being? Why should we care which is which, if no one can tell the difference? You would probably argue that they're not two people, it's more like two moods, or attitudes, of one person.

My theoretical dual person is self-evidently absurd, but this is precisely the position of the Divine Trinity celebrated by the majority of Christians. God is supposedly three persons at all time, but the "Holy Spirit" and the "Father" are essentially indistinguishable. They're both omnipresent and omniscient, and have the same intent. It's superfluous to describe such an organization as two persons, especially since the Bible doesn't describe the Divinity as three persons, it's inferred from indirect references to "the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". There's nothing to say that the Holy Spirit is a person, whatever that means, especially since "Spirit" means "Breath", and has obvious other potential meanings.

It seems to me the "Holy Spirit" is simply the feeling or attitude or ethos that a person has when they are holy. A person infused with the "Holy Spirit" isn't being ridden by a divinity*, they are living the divine life.

This diagram from Wikipedia is self-evidently absurd. Any first-year logic student knows that if A=B=C, then A = C.

The worst part is, none of this effects a single thing. Even the Bible doesn't indicate that belief in a Trinitarian God will affect a part of your life, or determine what happens in the afterlife. All of the endless debates about the nature of God are absurd and semantic, yet people have died for their belief in a non-trinitarian God.

*It's clear the Bible does not think that God is omnipresent, but if God is omnipresent, he can't be more or less with you at any given time.

TF2 Hat Update

2011-05-02T00:28:00.001-05:00

Man, all these new hats, I need to get my butt in gear and update my old hat list.

Why Has the Federal Government Grown?

2011-04-22T20:00:00.000-05:00

Since the Constitutional Convention that created the United States of America, the Federal Government has become far more powerful in just about every sense. The government started quite weak, with little revenue and a small administrative force. This post explains how we got to a government that reaches into most of the events of our day to day lives.

There are several limitations on Federal power. Primarily, they are: the Constitution, (especially the Bill of Rights), money, technology and manpower. No matter how badly the early Federal Government would have wanted to regulate the quality of the air, food, or water, it was impossible from a purely logistical standpoint. There wasn't nearly enough revenue to employ the people necessary to monitor or enforce the regulation, and there weren't the necessary technology to perform the tests. Additionally, there was a cultural resistance to Federal powers, one that still exists today, but it is not nearly as strong or pure.

What has changed since 1787?

First of all, there have been 17 more amendments to the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment in particular grants vast powers to the Congress. The Sixteenth Amendment created the Federal Income Tax, which provided the money necessary to enforce more sweeping powers.

Even without these Amendments, however, the Federal Government would still have far more power today than it did in 1800, thanks to the growth of Interstate Commerce. The Constitution empowers the Congress to regulate Interstate Commerce with no specific limitations on its scope. In George Washington's time, there were no American Corporations that spanned the world. Today, most of the things that go on in our economy go through an interstate company. Republicans who want to drag the United States back to 1900 (something I've seriously heard proposed), forget the way that this expansion of power is completely constitutional, not just a Federal power grab.

There has also been a cultural change in America, especially in the period from 1901-1950. It turns out that the Federal Government is the best unit to service a welfare state*. To be honest, I don't see the Constitutional justification for Social Security, but I do see its enormous benefits. Before FDR, the elderly were the worst demographic for poverty in the United States. Social Security and Medicare have done uncountable good in improving the lives of what were once our most vulnerable citizens.

The Federal Government is also the only place that we can create useful environmental regulation. Air and Water aren't limited to a single state, only Interstate authority is appropriate to regulate it.

*It's remarkable Republicans have made "welfare" into a dirty word; the Federal Government is supposed to "promote the general welfare", it's right there in the Constitution!

List of Game Ideas

2011-04-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

I've had a few ideas for games that I think would be cool, but I'd never fully develop. Here they are.

A RPG where the players build modestly powerful PCs, but then roll on a list of Famous/Epic items. They could get Excalibur, the Portal Gun, etc.

An Adventure game (Think King's Quest) where every problem can be solved by a crowbar, just like in real life! This could be a mod for an existing Adventure game, or a parody game built from the ground up.

Portal 2 got me thinking about how you could make a game where any role in a machine or organization can be held by any player. If you were the "commander", you'd want the system to work well, if you were in some other function, you may intentionally sabotaging that function for some reason or other. Ideally, people would only know who the commander was, the rest of the players would be anonymously fulfilling a function to further their own ends.

Portal 2 Spoiler-Free Thoughts

2011-04-19T17:40:00.000-05:00

Portal 2 is good.

There's an interesting dynamic of up being good, and down being bad. In the original Portal, you had no sense of what the elevators did, but 2 lets you see that you are going down, and therefore things are getting worse, or vice versa.

I kept wondering who they got to steal Stephen Merchant's schtick, only to find out it was Stephen Merchant.

Valve Lies, My Trust Dies

2011-04-15T22:06:00.000-05:00

Back during the Golden Wrench Update, Valve said that TF2 players could unlock any number of golden wrenches at any time; it was all dependent on how much crafting they did. Within a day, people had discovered that this was a lie, that the wrench drops were pre-scheduled, with only who got the wrenches determined by the time.

Now Valve is telling us we can buy a set of games, and Portal 2 will come out sooner if you play the games. I hope no one blames me if I don't rush to my credit card.

Arming Other Countries

2011-04-11T12:33:00.000-05:00

Why does the military like arming people that aren't America?

Before 2008, the Pentagon was trying to provide enough munitions for Iraq to fight for decades. Who are they supposed to fight? Each other?

And now, there's talk of arming the Libyan rebels, people who even Geraldo Rivera thinks are unprofessional. Maybe if we stopped giving other people weapons, they wouldn't have anything to shoot at us with when they inevitably turn on us.

Update

2011-04-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

When it comes to economic politics, everything that needs to be said is said by Paul Krugman.

Someone should make a song that samples from common ring tones, text message sounds, and Instant Messaging client sound effects. Everyone would be checking their phones and computer messages. There's already a song that sounds like a cell phone, I always forget what it is.

This video is a good test to see if you use Steam as a messaging client.

Amazon Review of a Pencil

2011-03-29T23:41:00.000-05:00

This review of a pencil is very funny. Maybe I just like it because it's late.

What's the Harm?

2011-03-21T11:35:00.000-05:00

I've been complaining a lot about Democrats' inability to communicate. Why does it matter? Why should we care about the war of words, so long as Democrats vote on the right side of issues?

There are X problems:

Most immediately, it hurts legislation going on right now. When Democrats vote for something that is only reviled in the press, they know they'll look bad for doing it. They'll hesitate before voting for good bills, and bow to demands to include Republican measures in the bills they pass.

Next year, we'll see 1/3 of the Senate, the entire House, and the legislatures of most states up for grabs. How can people vote for Democrats in these elections, with no mental capacity to defend them? I'm not saying that Democratic voters are dumb, I'm saying that there must be a justification for taking an action, and it must be enunciated. Obama has done more to fix the systemic problems that face the United States in living memory, but unless someone says it, it's hard to support him.

The problems of failed legislation and losing elections are going to be disastrous, but they're not the biggest issue of the mute Democratic organization. The real tragedy is long in the future, when the kids of today become the citizen-governance of tomorrow. When you grow up hearing both Democrats and Republicans saying that we need to cut the Federal budget to save the economy, (which is false) why would you doubt it?

Dragon Age II Impressions

2011-03-19T00:56:00.000-05:00

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Dragon Age Two, and so far, I'd give it the same review I'd give to Dragon Age One: It's a great story with great characters, lamentably tied to a "game" that's annoying, repetitive, and boring.

Dragon Age II might actually be worse for making you fight meaningless battles all the time. Any time you want to do something, you're inevitably jumped by a dozen interchangeable thugs or monsters. The first dozen isn't enough, though, once you're mostly done with the first group, another wave of people emerges from the scenery. This makes combat overly familiar, and the way enemies appear from nowhere makes the tactics mostly irrelevant. Combat should be significant, emotionally and in game terms. If Hawke kills 50 guys just to walk to where the mission starts, how are we supposed to care about a threat, or about someone's death?

If someone made a mod that removed the combat, that'd be great. I'd love to "play" it as a movie with occasional decision points. Dragon Age or Mass Effect could both be a great movie/TV series, but Dragon Age doesn't really work as a game.

Keep the writers, fire the people in charge of gameplay.

God's Evolution

2011-03-17T18:04:00.003-05:00

In a theological debate, Richard Dawkins was challenged thusly: "Religious convictions are common; why have we evolved to believe in god?" He answered along the lines of reasons why humans get psychological and social benefits from religion.

I would respond differently. Humans haven't evolved to believe in gods, god has evolved to fit into humans' beliefs. We've seen a steady development of religious concepts, shaping themselves to fit into our understanding of science, etc.

Video:

Infinite Prosperity

2011-03-16T01:37:00.001-05:00

In America:

There are more bedrooms than there are people, but there are people without a place to sleep.

There's more food thrown away than people need to eat, but people go hungry.

Cosmetic surgery and Homeopathic medicine both make billions of dollars yearly without adding anything to the health of anyone, yet we have children going without basic medical care.

There are enough resources, the only problem is distribution. The redistribution of wealth is necessary, and it would be beneficial for the economy. This fact is obvious, but it's politically unacceptable to say. Again, the Right-wing has made arguments of this nature impossible, and the Left wing has given up before the battle started.

We have an economy that could provide healthcare and homes for every person, and a political "debate" that argues over how we should further victimize the poor.

Ranking Elemental Powers

2011-03-13T17:51:00.000-05:00

Ice, Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Light, Darkness

There are lots of theoretical "elements", I've just trimmed them to ones that aren't stupid. Ice is clearly the best; it's capable of stunning, slowing, and straight damage.

Swears are Boring

2011-03-12T20:05:00.000-06:00

Is anyone else dissatisfied with our current repertoire of swear words? They're all about sacrilege, bodily waste, body parts, and sex.

I like the German "pig-dog". We need stuff like that.

PS. The Star Wars cartoon continues to be terrible. I don't see how people that (presumably) love Star Wars can be so contemptuous of its legacy.

Institutional Incompetence

2011-03-10T21:27:00.000-06:00

One of the causes of the fall of Rome was the Senate. Since various dynamic personalities, Causar, Pompey, Sulla, Augustus, etc. had taken the tiller of Rome for a few centuries, the Roman Government lost the ability to take the tiller back. Instead of trying to take back the power of the state and institute new policies, they became interested in advancing their petty positions. Even when incompetent Emperors reigned, and in the various margins between dictators, the Senate was incapable of governing the nation.

I wonder if this is the situation we face in modern America. The members of Congress are incompetent to legislate: they don't write the bills, and their "debates" are simply for show. They fly back to their homes every weekend, destroying any sense of community or congeniality amongst Congressmen.

It's telling that a Republican Congress would criticize the President for not showing leadership on the budget battle. It's partially a political maneuver, but surely the Constitution-loving Republican Party know that budget bills must begin in the very House they control.

In Rome, the impetus for State actions fell to the Emperor. Today, it falls to corporations, particularly those that influence the political sphere through media or political donations. The Emperor, unless he was completely insane (sometimes true) had to keep the state functioning. Corporations have no such interest. There is no conflict of interest for a Coal company to undermine the foundations of our nation, so long as those running the company make money.

TF2 Beta Update

2011-03-10T00:47:00.000-06:00

Pretty Sweet Beta update for TF2. Oddly, Valve seems to be more interested in showing their hands instead of actually implementing things, the reverse of their regular policy.

Finally bringing in a system to produce a recording of your previous life. One million points. I'm eagerly awaiting its actual implementation. Same thing for KOTH Badlands, which is supposedly available, but none of the servers can go to it with the new voting system. Other than a lack of Badlands, the new voting system is exactly what TF2 has needed for the past three years. Surprising it took this long to make, since it's the same as L4D's voting system.

I'm hoping they introduce the Detonator to regular TF2, it brings the Pyro closer to the good classes. Personally, I'd just make the detonation ability a pure buff to the Flare Gun, it's not like Pyro is overpowered. 20% explosive vulnerability is brutal.

For Profit Medicine

2011-03-06T22:12:00.000-06:00

Check out this article. The rest of this post isn't about that directly, it's just interesting news.

Medicine in America is a disaster, but privatizing is the source of the problem, not the solution. I think it would require a constitutional amendment, but the United States should provide healthcare to all Americans. No one should die of poverty, but for-profit medicine does just that.

A Left Wing Argument

2011-02-28T11:51:00.001-06:00

I've been attacking Democrats for failing to enunciate a left wing argument. Here's a suggestion:

Ayn Rand is wrong. No one accomplishes great things, becomes wealthy, or even invents a new kind of steel, by themselves. Everyone is a beneficiary of the state, and of their fellow man. Everyone is basically helpless for the first ten years of their life, and is a ward of their caretakers and their community. Even if you are educated by a private tutor on your survivalist compound, you still owe a lot to the country you live in.

It may be possible for private enterprise to replace most functions of the state, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Would you like your ability to travel to be contingent on the whims of a private company? Thanks to "socialized" roads, you can travel anywhere in the country. Do you want your water's purity to be determined by someone trying to cut every corner?

We all lean on each other for support. This isn't "learned helplessness", it's efficiency. If we all had to take care of our every need, we'd never get anything done. Civilization only works because we help each other out, even when there's not an apparent benefit. Republicans like to say that "a rising tide lifts all boats", but they don't realize that applies to helping the most vulnerable in society too. Someone trapped in the thrall of an insidious drug does terrible damage to himself, those around him, and society as a whole. The expense of helping someone free themselves from a drug is far cheaper than bombing Colombia, elaborate sting operations on dealers, and imprisoning a generation of "three strikes" violators. It's not just the most humane solution, it's also the best for the economy, and for the government's pocketbook.

PS. This is just something I wrote off the top of my head. Left Wing solutions have a lot of benefits, we just need someone to speak out about it.

Canonicity Addendum

2011-02-25T09:51:00.000-06:00

Just one other thing about Canon. Lots of people say that Star Trek and Star Wars violate their own canon. The problem goes like this: Worf says "A Klingon would never allow himself to be captured." Later, Worf gets captured. What a violation of canon!

This is rather silly. Just because Worf says something, doesn't mean he can't be exaggerating for effect, for example. Essentially, whenever someone says something that's later contradicted, it can be chalked up to a lot of things other than a mistake of the writers.

Dragon Age: Bosoms

2011-02-23T13:51:00.001-06:00

I didn't know whether to call it Dragon Age: Bosoms, or photoshop a picture to change the II in Dragon Age: II into the letters TiTs. In the end, the photoshopping would have been more work, so here you go. In the half an hour demo, you end up with this party of ladies.

I liked the characters of the first Dragon Age, and I'm sure I'll like the ones in two, but their attitude to medieval "armour" is just as bad as 1970's Dungeons and Dragons books. It's possible to have attractive ladies in a game without having huge breasts on display. See: Uncharted.

Monkey!

2011-02-22T16:48:00.000-06:00

Non-Canon

2011-02-22T00:15:00.001-06:00

I've decided to become the arbiter of canon. This came about largely because of Star Wars, which is determined to dig its own grave.

With this new power, I can dismiss any event I dislike in any work of fiction. In the future, when someone says that the podrace in The Phantom Menace was stupid, I can say, "That didn't happen. In fact, almost nothing in Episode One is canon."

If a show is good, everything in it is provisionally canon. If bad, then everything has to be personally approved by me. This means that most everything in Star Trek: The Next Generation and DS9 is canon, almost nothing in Voyager is canon, about half the things in The Original Series is canon, and so on.

All of the Star Trek movies are non-canon except Wrath of Khan. The only canon in Star Wars is episode 4, 5, and 6.

PS. Everything involving Section 31 in Star Trek is mostly non-canon. Basically, they're actually a faux-organization designed to satisfy other species' need for intrigue.

Abolish Military Branches

2011-02-18T16:50:00.000-06:00

The way the US military operates now, it's stupid to have the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army as separate entities. I'd abolish all of them, (and the Coast Guard and the Marines) and make the chain of command operate in terms of regions. The different branches serve no function.

Obama Economics

2011-02-12T11:27:00.001-06:00

I recently indicated that Obama is the best living president. He is, but this is largely because of the competition, which ranges from terrible to mediocre. Obama's recent decision to go along with Republicans' plan to cut the Federal budget is going to be disastrous. There's no guaranteeing anything in economics, but reducing the flow of money in an already slow economy will probably result in an even slower recovery, or even a second recession.

Not only will the cuts be bad for the economy, it will also harm the most vulnerable Americans. Cuts to social services will result in more hunger, more sickness, and ultimately, more deaths. Poverty kills, and not just the poor.*

This is the Republicans' plan for cuts to the federal budget. Take a look, and shudder for the future. Over a billion dollars cut from Community Health Centers alone. 1.5 billion cut from Global Health and Child Survival*. They also want to cut NPR and PBS, the drizzlers!

*I could elaborate on this, if anyone cared.

**You'd think a program like that would be protected by the supposedly "pro-life" Republicans. "Pro-life" only applies when you are in the womb or on your deathbed. This is why Pro-lifers oppose abortion and voluntary euthanasia, but have no problem with executing children and the mentally handicapped.

Random Rankings II

2011-02-09T16:10:00.000-06:00

Best to Worst:

Star Trek Movies: 2, 4, 3, 11, 8, 7, 6, 9, 10, 5, 1
Top Gear Hosts: James May, Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson
US Wars: Revolutionary, World War II, Civil War, World War I, Spanish American War, Mexican American War.
Living Presidents: Obama, Carter, Clinton, George HW Bush, George W Bush
Jeffrey Combs Star Trek Characters: Weyoun, Shran, Brunt, Kevin Mulkahey, Tiron, Penk

Star Trek Miscellania

2011-02-05T22:40:00.000-06:00

Star Trek is a great franchise. On average, you get a pretty good product. There's some garbage in there, but an average episode is good, and the best episodes are some of the best Television ever made.

The Original Series is good for multitasking. You can "watch" the show and read a book, make a blog post, or whatever, and not miss anything. For a show that was once radically progressive, the show seems ludicrously sexist. The skirts in particular are ridiculous, and the costumes for alien females are even worse. All the men wear little high-heeled boots, so it's not all on the women, I suppose.

I've been thinking about how you could make a Star Trek Draft game, where you draft a crew from the shows. Then each crew would go through challenges, like episodes of the show.

Redlettermedia.com's analysis of the Star Trek movies says most of what I think. He gets pretty picky with little details that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for them, but his complaints about the films' tone is the important thing. it's all violence and death, with no intellectual or ethical thought whatsoever. Star Trek can't win by being a half-assed version of other movies, it has to be what it is.

The new movie may seem to be a contradiction to this system. After all, it made a lot of money, and was pretty OK, quality-wise. The reason that it's successful isn't that it's all action-ey and stuff, it's because it has a huge budget. If they had spent all this money on something true to the spirit of Star Trek, they could have made something immortal, not just a generic Sci-Fi with the Star Trek characters thrown in.

Republican Presidential History

2011-02-03T15:56:00.000-06:00

Republican Presidents have an interesting life cycle. Support, Amnesia, and Mythologizing

During their presidencies, Republicans support them unquestioningly. With Fox News creating an intellectual monolith, and central control of funding to campaigns, both political and social elements of the right-wing support their president one million percent.

Once they leave office, Republicans erase all memory of the president from the world. This is George Bush's current status. This allows the Republican groupthink to overcome the problem of an unreasonable philosophy colliding with the real world. By forgetting all the times their politics didn't work, and had to be compromised for the sake of practicality, they lay the groundwork for the next Republican platform, same as the last one.

After a few decades, Republicans fill in the missing information with ridiculous myths. This is the status of Ronald Reagan, who reduced taxes, cut government, and balanced the budget, all without hurting anyone. They've created a man who won the cold war and rescued the Iranian hostages through pure force of will. Even Nixon has undergone this, to a lesser degree. Republicans will insist that we didn't lose the Vietnam War, for example.

TF2 Tips: Settings and Configurations

2011-01-30T12:46:00.001-06:00

This guide is for those TF2 players who don't want to mess around with editing files deep in TF2.

Open TF2. Click on "Options".

In the "Keyboard" tab, click on "advanced", and check both "Enable Developer Console" and "Fast Weapon Switch"

In the "Mouse" tab, make sure "Mouse Acceleration" is unchecked. Mouse sensitivity is a personal thing, adjust it until it works for you (That may take some time).

For the "Video" tab, just make sure your video settings are low enough that you have a decent framerate. In the "advanced" button, make sure your Field of View is at 90.

The "Multiplayer" tab is the big one. A custom cross hair is good, I use Crosshair3 with Red and Green maxed out, and no Blue. This makes for a nice yellow colour that doesn't appear anywhere during the game. Unless you like obnoxious sounds, make sure to set the download options to not download custom sounds.

The "Advanced" button brings up a large checklist. Make sure you have the following things Enabled:

Enable Minimal Hud
Automatically Respawn after loadout changes in respawn zone
Automatically reload weapons when not firing
Remember active weapon between lives
Remember lastweapon between lives
Turn on Colorblind mode
Until you're extremely familiar with the game, I'd leave viewmodels on.
Display Damage Done as text over target
Medic: display marker over player you're healing
"Medic: Injured teammates automatically call out" is a tricky one. It's very useful for a medic, but it can be annoying if you don't like the sound it makes.
"Play a hit sound every time you injure an enemy" also makes an annoying sound, but it's so valuable that it's worth going into the work of changing it.

Let's look at changing the hit sound. First, you'll need a new sound. TF2dingalings is where I found my sound, but any brief .wav would do the trick. My personal preference is the sound of kicking a shell in Mario games, found Here.

Once you have a .wav file, you'll need to do some work.

First, go to

Program Files\Steam\steamapps\[Your Steam Account]\team fortress 2\tf\sound\ui

Replacing [Your Steam Account] with the name of your steam account.

Then put your .wav file into that folder. Rename the file to "hitsound.wav", and you're done.

I may do a post about installing a custom HUD later.

Obama And The Deficit

2011-01-25T21:32:00.000-06:00

Obama completely conceded the argument about the National Deficit. I doubt they'll actually manage to freeze spending and eliminate Earmarks*, but by conceding the argument, Obama has neutered even the smallest possibility of the government repairing the economy.

My economic State Of The Union would go like this:

"Economists call this a jobless recovery. I say that there is no such thing. Without jobs, there is no recovery. It is clear that corporations have neither the desire nor the incentive to provide employment, so the government must employ people to create more jobs. The projects that the government must undertake are anything but 'make-work'; the infrastructure of our nation has decayed to a point where repairs would be necessary even if our economy did not need a boost. Like the America of the Greatest Generation, we can pave the way for prosperity for the next fifty years. Fortunately, the United States can borrow at impossibly good rates of interest, so our debt won't go out of control, etc. etc."

I'd probably be more ironic about the Republican's dishonest dealing, particularly about the Deficit. It's clear that Republicans only call for debt reduction as a means of dismantling our economic safety net. All of their plans to reduce the Deficit are completely absurd, even after a cursory inspection.

*Eliminating Earmarks is stupid, by the way. If Congress doesn't direct the flow of money, then they're just writing the President a blank check.

Drug Law Constitutionality

2011-01-25T19:35:00.000-06:00

I was just listening to NPR, the "Constitutionalist" on the program was arguing that the Federal Government can bar the creation and use of drugs, even on a purely private level, thanks to the Commerce Clause, because the drugs could end up on the market.

Shouldn't there be a burden of proof that the person who grows and smokes his own drugs was distributing drugs to others? Not just for a lower sentence, but to prevent Federal prosecution of any kind. If I grow something and consume it,* it's impossible to claim that it applies to Interstate Commerce.

*Note, I don't do any kind of drugs.

State Of The Union

2011-01-24T17:58:00.000-06:00

Obama's State Of The Union should go like this: "Republicans think that Government spending can't help the economy, and can't generate jobs. That's just stupid. The best way to get out of this hole is to go further into debt right now, and pay off that debt when the economy doesn't suck. Making cutbacks now is just hitting ourselves while we're down."

But Obama believes in bipartisanship, and that seems to include deferring to the enemy's bizarre economic beliefs.

Obama Retraction

2011-01-23T17:08:00.000-06:00

A while ago I mocked Obama's hostage analogy on the tax deal. Since then, the lame duck congress passed those five or six important bills, so I think it must have been a private deal. Anyway, the analogy was bad, but it's nice that he got good returns on it.

42

2011-01-19T20:15:00.000-06:00

I assume it's probably been said somewhere before, but The Ultimate Question in Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy is probably "Pick a number, any number". Two characters in the show know the question, and they both ask it.

Eddie asks the crew to "Pick a number, any number", immediately after they finish asking about the Ultimate Question. They treat it as a request to generate an improbability number to make the ship go, but it could be Eddie trying to help. It's been established that he knows the Ultimate Question.

The other possessor of the Ultimate Question is Marvin, who scanned Arthur Dent to find it out. Later, to impress a mattress, he asks the mattress to "pick a number, any number", as evidence of his intellect. The mattress' guess of "Seven" is wrong, so it must be "Fourty-Two".

Sarah Palin

2011-01-19T09:11:00.002-06:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

Video Archive

Pro TF2 5 Point Maps

2011-01-15T17:23:00.000-06:00

There's a lot of talk in Competitive TF2 about the speed of play. They don't want multiple medics because it would slow the game down. They don't want multiple heavies because it would slow the game down.

You know what slows the game down? 5 point maps. They don't punish waiting, since neither team is losing anything while time goes on. In Payload and Attack/Defend maps, one team is always on the clock, so there's always an incentive for action.

Payload and Attack/Defend also make the less used classes more legitimate as well.

The Wire

2011-01-15T11:14:00.001-06:00

I know I'm late to the party, but The Wire may be the best TV show of all time. There are different ways you could measure that sort of thing, so I'll say it's the best show on average, as every piece of it is so perfectly executed, and there's never a bad episode.

Other shows, like The Simpsons, and All In The Family, have been more influential, thanks to their larger audiences, but The Wire pushes boundaries further than most any other show. Unlike those other shows, The Wire quits when it's still on top.

It's interesting how the media has agreed to depict police work and the crime system in an identical idealized picture. The Wire annihilates many of the clichès that plague our American view of the world of crime.

It appears that the creator of The Wire is on the same boat as Jon Stewart in blaming the media for ignoring stories of any complexity or controversy.

Re-Tales: Zombie Customers

2011-01-14T22:43:00.000-06:00

It's funny working retail, you see people you probably wouldn't encounter in the rest of your life. I think of the oddest people as Zombie Customers, or maybe Customers from Another World. Their understanding of the entire employee/customer relationship is completely foreign to the rest of the world.

The one I'm thinking of at the moment is the customer that doesn't take "no" for an answer when they're looking for a product. Even when you give a little lecture as to why the product isn't there, they just look on, uncomprehendingly, until you resort to extreme measures. The next line of their programming only accepts the input "ah, here it is", then the customer executes Purchase_Item.exe

Brief Thoughts

2011-01-14T09:50:00.000-06:00

Just a few quick snippets:

I'm against editing Mark Twain, America's greatest author. The worst part of the current edit is that it changes meaning. The N-Word is not synonymous with "slave". If you insisted on changing the word, I'd have changed it to "Negro".
There are so many extra crates in TF2, Valve must be aware. They cut down with the entire free Xmas keys, but there's still many more crates than anyone wants. I suspect that Valve will have a brief Key sale.
I got a Kindle. They're pretty amazing. Anyone know how to get currently copyrighted books for free?

TF2 Tips: Scout

2011-01-13T01:40:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd write some simple tips for people that still have stuff to learn about TF2. My initial plan of attack is to write some thoughts about each class, in order.

The Scout
The Scout is not actually a scout. If you use him to find out what's going on ahead of the team, you will probably die pretty fast (Unless you're using Bonk). With only 125 HP, the Scout is only two good shots of most weapons away from death.

Like most classes, the Scout's actual role is to do a lot of damage very rapidly. The Scout's Scattergun can do more than 100 damage in a single shot, which means he can kill almost every class in two shots. The important thing to remember is that this damage is only possible at extreme close-range.

Damage Falloff is a poorly understood concept in TF2. Almost every weapon in the game does less damage the farther away you are from the target. This is obvious with the Scattergun, since fewer of the pellets hit the target, but many people don't realize that the individual pellets do less damage at a distance too. For the Scout, the Scattergun is pretty useless once you get out of close range. If you know the target is near death, then it may be worth it to stick with the Scattergun, but it's generally a good idea to use your secondary gun if the target leaves close range. The pistol also has damage falloff, but it's going to do more damage than a Scattergun at a distance.

Every class's primary target is the Medic. Scouts can be excellent at targeting Medics since they can come from unusual directions thanks to double jumping, and they can move quickly in and out of combat. The perfect Scout suddenly arrives, kills the Medic with two close-range shots, then jumps out of sight. If there's no Medic to kill, then a Scout is best used as a cleanup force. While enemies at low health attempt to flee the scene of combat, the Scout pursues or blocks their exit.

Writing this makes me think there's a lot more basic things to talk about before getting to individual class tactics. I don't know what I'll write about next. Coordination with the rest of the team is the most subtle and important of skills in most FPS's, but it's even more important in TF2. That'll probably be my next subject.

The Best Candy

2011-01-09T08:31:00.000-06:00

We live in a divided world. Much of the division isn't real, but foisted on us by people who make money from conflict.

There is something we can all agree on: Reece's Peanut Butter Cups is the best kind of "ordinary" candy. The best high-end candy is Turtles. This is really beyond debate.

TF2 Beta: Double Health

2011-01-07T08:37:00.000-06:00

The TF2 Beta now has doubled health for every class, along with (effectively) extra health for Engineer buildings and Spy Sappers.

The primary effect of this change is longer fight duration. Basically any two classes can stand out in the open shooting at each other freely without either being in too much danger. Since fights last longer, you can afford to make more stupid mistakes. If you get into a fight you can't win, you can always just run away; even a Spy can take three mid-range rockets and survive.

Speaking of Spies, this mode makes them vastly more powerful. Only the Spy has the ability to instantly kill any class and instantly nullify any building. With double health, a Spy can loiter under enemy fire until he sees a backstab opportunity. In fact, a Spy can run up to a level two Sentry while it shoots him in the face, Sap it, and walk away with a decent amount of health remaining.

Spy is King of Team!

An Open Letter To Fictional Characters

2010-12-30T15:18:00.000-06:00

Dear everyone in a Rom-Com or Sit-Com,

Many doors, especially doors to bathrooms or the front doors of houses, have locks. If you're doing something embarrassing, or just expecting privacy, lock the door.

Also, if you hear people laughing when you're not with a crowd, that means you're in a show with a laugh track. Just kill yourself now.

Thanks,
Carsonist

700th Post - Coen Brothers

2010-12-23T10:13:00.000-06:00

It's my 700th post! Woo!

When it comes to the Coen Brothers, I think we can all agree that their movies are good. They're entertaining, and they have such confidence in their skills, they can do things with much more subtlety than most directors.

My issue about Coen Brothers movies is that I don't know how to think about them. Are they smarter than me, hopelessly pretentious, or both? It often seems there's an underlying metaphor, but I never can put them together. Example: What's the ending of No Country For Old Men about? Or the ending of True Grit? (Which I just saw and enjoyed. Jeff Bridges is great.)

I've read a few analyses of their movies, but they're generally a sort of crazy-person interpretation, where everything is a metaphor, every name is a weird code, and there's always someone that is standing in for God. While I know there are symbolic movies, I'm reluctant to accept such an elaborate metaphor based only on people's names, for example. I generally don't buy people's "elaborate metaphor" interpretation of stories.

TF2 Australian Xmas Update

2010-12-19T09:34:00.001-06:00

The new TF2 update is great. I'm going to have to re-rank all the hats, with the new hats added into the list. But first, the new items!

Scout:
Boston Basher seems like an interesting idea. Slightly more damage with the bleed effect, balanced by bleeding yourself if you miss a swing.

Candy Cane is a good example of something Valve has been trying to encourage: using melee attacks as a means of finishing a fight. I think the theory is that both fighters will run out of ammo, get close, then go to melee. I don't think Candy Cane is worth it, 25% increased explosion damage is crazy bananas. Basically any explosion will bring you down so low that any more damage will kill you.

Pyro
Back Scratcher would be good under two conditions: You have a bad team/bad medic, and you don't use the Axetinguisher. Generally, I think Axetinguisher is way to go, but health packs are really good.

Demo Set seems pretty legit, but the fire resistance seems like an unnecessary insult to the Pyro, especially since the Demo can already have fire resistance with the Shield

Loch-n-Load seems to be basically a Rocket Launcher that fires faster, does more damage, and has a smaller clip. I'd use it with the Demoknight build, since it'd be a way to Rocket Jump easily. Other than that, it seems Overpowered, but that's because everything the Demo has is OP.

Ullapool Caber is as awesome as it is ridiculous, which is to say, very. Massive damage in exchange for basically dying automatically. TF2 wiki says it does about 150 damage to enemies with the explosion, then does 100 to you, which sends you flying into the air, causing fall damage too. Just another way for the demoman to kill a whole team all by himself: stickyjump in with grenade in hand.

Claidhaemohmor just seems irrelevant. The sword for people who can't go the whole way. Decent, but uninteresting.

Heavy Set is just nuts. It completely changes the way Heavy is played. The critical resistance is just odd. Does that affect Sniper Rifle headshots? Being able to survive a fully charged Sniper would be pretty cool. (Although you probably wouldn't survive, even with the resistance you'd be down to ~22 health.)

EDIT: The Warrior's Pride gives -20 health, which should mean that the Sniper Rifle can still one-shot the Heavy.

Brass Beast has a really cool model and sound, but the ludicrously slow speed of movement probably makes it too impractical for serious play.

Buffalo Steak Sandvich is crazy good right now, you can drop it like a normal Sandvich and it still heals for half HP. That's the way I generally use the Sandvich anyway, so it's like having both sandviches at once. The actual effect is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. The Heavy running across the map chasing people down with fists is something I didn't think could be that funny. It increases speed to 311, which makes heavy second fastest class in the game; you still don't have much of a chance of catching a Scout.

It's only really practical when you are in an ambush situation, since you take minicrits. This makes it almost irrelevant since I'd rather use a Minigun for 99% of ambush situations. Regardless, it's tons of fun.

Warrior's Spirit may as well say "Increases Steak Sandvich damage to ~118."

Fists of Steel would be great if they hadn't already released the GRU. As it is, they're certainly better than the other melee weapons, but the GRU's extra speed is far superior.

Engineer
Jag is my new default Engie wrench, replacing the Southern Hospitality. Increased build rate is exactly what I need as a ninja-neer. The reduced damage will be a pain against Spies, but as El_Dawg points out, the 146 Crit damage is still enough to kill a spy, and Engie has roughly a 100% crit rate with Wrench.

Medic Set
The Medic Set is exactly what I've been asking for. The extra health regeneration is just gravy.

Crusader's Crossbow is still a question to me. You're basically trading extra healing ability in exchange for losing any real chance of defending yourself. The healing function does two cool things: It's a ranged heal, and it gives you a small "spike" of healing, since you can quickly switch to it, shoot it for 75 healing minimum, then switch back to Medigun without reloading.

The Reload is the primary weakness of the Crossbow, since it takes about 5 years. It makes the gamble of using it from extreme distances too risky, if you ask me. Unless you're targeting a heavy, (on either team), you're probably going to miss, and you can't just fire again really quickly like with the Huntsman. Also, you should be using that time to build uber, not reloading a stupid Crossbow. I think the Crossbow would actually be a more practical gun if you couldn't reload it.

Amputator is fantastic. The Medigun heals 24 HP a second to one person at a time, while the Amputator heals 75 HP a second for everyone around you. With only two people around you, it heals more than five times as fast as the Medigun. I'm not going to say it's a perfect weapon; it doesn't build Uber, and you're incredibly vulnerable while you're taunting. Despite those faults, this is my pick for Medic Melee slot now.

Some Movie Thoughts

2010-12-15T10:09:00.000-06:00

First of all, Inception may not be a bad movie. The real measure of a movie is whether people like it, whether they feel like their 10$ is well spent. With that measure, it wasn't a good movie to me. I do maintain, however, that Inception is a bad story. Stories are about character, and the characters in Inception suck.

To be fair, Inception is nowhere near the worst movie of the year. One of the largest injustices of all time is that the turd of Alice In Wonderland is one of the 7 movies to make a billion dollars. Hereafter is so tedious, I only stayed in the theater because I assumed that it was building up to something.

Spoiler: Hereafter is like a Ayn Rand book. Reality doesn't support Objectivism or Hereafter's belief in the afterlife, so the author simply creates their own reality, where it's obvious that their belief is correct. This fictional "proof" takes precedence over character, plot, etc. Hence, the "climax" of Hereafter isn't an event of narrative importance, it's an event that shows that the afterlife is real.

Speaking of the afterlife, the reason people see a light when they have a near death experience is just because there's no oxygen going to their brain. It's a repeatable medical condition, not some magical connection to another world. All of these "glimpses of the afterlife" imply that god created a pretty crappy way of separating the alive from the dead.

Obama's Hostages, Redux

2010-12-11T09:38:00.000-06:00

I know I've already rephrased this two or three times already, but one more time.

Imagine Obama was a real Hostage Negotiator. He refuses to deal with the hostage takers, until the hostage takers harm one of the hostages, which makes Obama cave immediately. What do you think will happen in the next hostage crisis? The next hostage takers will know exactly what to do to make Obama give in, and just skip to harming the hostages for no reason.

Obama didn't just lose this crisis, he created a whole range of new artificial crises.

Negotiating With Terrorists

2010-12-09T15:02:00.001-06:00

Game Theory gives us a simple lesson about negotiating with Terrorists: DON'T DO IT. Even if the Terrorist is demanding $2.50 and a coke in exchange for not annihilating Europe, you CANNOT give them anything.

The incentive to negotiate is simple; you can forestall deaths or destruction for some smaller sacrifice. So why not negotiate, under any circumstances? Because of the next threat. If someone has to kill some hostages to get some concessions in negotiations, then those concessions have killed untold number of future hostages. You can save some people in the room, but you've encouraged future attacks for the rest of time.

This is why Obama's reasoning on the tax cuts is wrong. He directly invoked the hostage argument, then did the exact wrong thing. Obama said that you don't negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage may get hurt. This says that any time the Republicans want anything at all, they only need to tie the bill to some looming disaster. Instead of putting the hostages at risk this time, Obama has put two years of future bills under the same terrorist threat.

EDIT: Let me make this clear: by appeasing the Republicans, Obama has ensured that Republicans will sabotage every necessary bill until the last moment. Once a bill's passage becomes an emergency measure, the Republicans will present a series of new demands. Obama will presumably surrender to whatever the Republicans want at that time. The Republicans will still pass the bill, so they will receive no political backlash.

Orwellian Republicans

2010-12-07T10:30:00.000-06:00

One of the things that Slacktivist likes to talk about is Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists (PMD). Personally, I find Bible interpretation to be quite interesting, but I'll skip the details of their Theology for the moment.

Specifically, I'm addressing the attitude of PMD members towards talking about Peace. In their system, the Antichrist, (a character never actually in the Bible) will come with promises of Peace, but will leverage his power into Violence, War, and Tyranny. Therefore, anyone who praises Peace is seen as a wolf in sheep's clothing, only addressing Peace for the purposes of gaining power. This paradoxically has led to people who theoretically support Peace only supporting politicians who praise War.

Republicans have a similar attitude toward a lot of things. It's possible that this is not a coincidence, since PMD members are generally Republicans. In particular, Republicans have completely reversed the meaning of Freedom. Democrats (theoretically) still celebrate the Four Freedoms of FDR,

Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

(Thanks, Wikipedia!)

And Republicans turn all of these Freedoms into a covert attempt to eliminate Freedom. Freedom of Worship has been transformed into "Banning Prayer in School". Freedom From Want has been turned into Socialism leading to Fascism. And Freedom from Fear has been Surrender to Terror.

Republicans, on the other hand, want to compel children to pray on Republican terms, want the poor to be free to freeze to death under a bridge, and want everyone on earth to be continuously in paroxysms of fear from formless Terror. Naturally, the President who frankly said "there ought to be limits to freedom" is celebrated as a freedom loving President. The one who thinks that arresting people without cause is wrong is a freedom hating President.

Why Obama Disappoints Me

2010-12-04T08:58:00.000-06:00

Everyone has decided to pile on Obama lately, so I thought I'd join in. To me, Obama has two main problems:

He's unwilling or incapable to sell or enunciate a left-wing philosophy. Instead of this, he simply fights for his positions, but lets the Republicans argue against them with no counter-argument. This leads to an image of someone passing laws that no one supports. What we need is a Barry Goldwater of the Democratic Party, someone who can sell the message.
Obama doesn't know how to negotiate on the legislative front. In a traditional negotiation, both sides make some concessions until they both find a position that they are able to swallow. With Obama, Democrats just make concessions over and over again, then pass their bills without any Republican support anyway. It seems like Obama genuinely believes in his message of bipartisanship, and he just can't believe that Republicans would be so determined to undermine his agenda, even if it wrecks the country.

Let me make it clear, I do support Obama, and he's passed some good bills, but we really need a truly left-wing president some day. Ever since Reagan, we've shifted hard to the Right. I'd say that we haven't seen a truly Democratic President since Carter.

Nicolas Cage Mystery

2010-11-30T21:40:00.000-06:00

I have a profound question about Nicolas Cage. Why do I like him, even though all his movies are, at best, schlock? The best you can say about Con Air and The Rock, unarguably his best movies, is that you can have fun while watching them sometimes. He has been in so many terrible movies, he's essentially a B movie actor with a bigger paycheck.

Inception #5 on IMDB

2010-11-25T13:31:00.000-06:00

I know this happens every time a new pretentious movie comes out, but this is particularly revolting. Inception is #5 on the IMDB list of the best movies ever made.I'm sure in a year it'll be much lower, but this is absurd.

Toy Story 3 is a much better film, and it's only at #20. LA Confidential is better than either of those, and it's only 65. I think we can all agree that the IMDB list is flawed, at best.

Megamind Review

2010-11-24T07:43:00.000-06:00

Megamind is a surprisingly thoughtful film. Much more slowly paced than I would have expected. It reminds me of The Nightmare Before Christmas, in the sense that the driving force of the protagonist is ennui, something rare for a movie theoretically aimed at children.

I give it heaps of extra credit for the way they've controlled the trailers. They did a great job not spoiling anything. Everything you've seen in the trailers only covers the first twenty minutes or so.

I saw the AV Club gave a B+ to Tangled, so maybe it's not terrible? Rapunzel has a spunky animal friend, so it seems like it has to be bad, I dunno.

Megamind:
.8 Ron Perlmans out of a possible 5.

Home Rule For Football

2010-11-22T20:56:00.000-06:00

I had a great idea for a home rule for American Football. When a team is ahead in points, any additional points it earns should be cut in half. This will make for closer games, and will enrage serious fans. It's perfect.

A Retail Worker's Manifesto

2010-11-15T09:29:00.000-06:00

I've been working retail for a few weeks now. Oftentimes, a co-worker will sigh and complain about how the customers have left the store a mess. In response, I always ask them, "would you rather be unemployed?"

When your job is to clean up a mess, if there's no mess, then you have no job. If customers all cleaned up after themselves, we'd be out of a job. Also, having customers clean the store would be terribly inefficient, since they have no training or interest in doing it properly. Essentially, they're paying a tiny fraction more in cost to reimburse someone else to clean up their mess. This is not wrong, and it is not a problem.

When you go shopping, if you want to do the regular workers a favour, don't tidy up after yourself. If you want to help the management/corporate overlords, feel free to clean up the place.

Winter Is Here

2010-11-13T09:33:00.000-06:00

We've been lucky with the weather up to now; it's been unseasonably warm until today. Now it looks like Winter has officially arrived. Sometimes I wonder why people settle in such crappy places. (In case you were actually curious why people settle in terrible places, the answer is simple: the better spots were already taken.)

Market Analysts

2010-11-11T09:57:00.001-06:00

I wish I were a "market analyst". You get to announce things with no justification other than your own preconceived notions, and people report it as news.

Every time I see a video game "news" article that is simply repeating whatever a "market analyst" said, I want to get rid of the internet. I'd feel better about the whole thing if they replaced the words "market analyst" with "some guy".

Example: "Some guy says that new Call of Duty will break sales records".

Rock Band 3 Thoughts

2010-11-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

Rock Band 3 is everything I'd want from a new Rock Band. The Key-tar is very good, and all the visuals, menus, and general functionality is improved. Being able to jump in or out of a song, change difficulty, and even change instrument, all while the song is playing, is really cool.

I really enjoy the visuals. The lip syncing is amazingly good, the characters really look like they're singing. My one complaint is the audience members; you'll often see two identical models doing the exact same animation at the same time. It seems like it would have been easy to at least change the colours of their clothing, if nothing else.

Reporters Are Stupid

2010-11-06T07:08:00.000-05:00

Why do people keep saying that Obama will have to Veto all these Republican measures? I think it's because it's easier to have a "Republicans Vs Obama" story line. The problem is, we have a bicameral legislature, and the Senate is run (just barely) by Democrats.

If any bills get to Obama, it'll be a victory for bipartisanship.

Ultra-Summary: Hereafter

2010-11-03T13:14:00.001-05:00

English Boy: Moi Bruvver doied. (My brother died)

Matt Damon: Get over it.

~The End~

Second Medic Update, Please

2010-11-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

I think the next thing Valve needs to do, after making this mysterious new game mode, is a new Medic update of some kind. If you compare the Medic of today to the Medic of the release, he's almost the same. Sure, he has access to the Kritzkrieg, but that's it.

No wonder people get bored playing the medic, it's been the same thing for over two years now.

I also find it frustrating because it's so reliant on others' abilities. If your team is bad at fragging, the best healing in the world isn't going to win the game.

The Most Beautiful Thing

2010-10-31T08:53:00.000-05:00

I assume you've seen American Beauty. It's a good movie. One question: when that guy shows the video of the plastic bag, describing it as the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, are we supposed to think that it's actually beautiful? I always thought it was just another example of how completely devoid of beauty their world is.

TF2 Halloween Update

2010-10-29T10:12:00.000-05:00

The TF2 Halloween update is pretty cool. The Horseless Headless Horseman is a great new game idea. Running in terror from a giant killer ghost isn't something I had expected to see in TF2, but it's lots of fun.

What I've really been enjoying is the new Art Pass Map. It is great for Engineers. Since the spawn doesn't move for either team, teleporters win the game. I don't like when the final control point is inches from RED team's spawn, it makes it far to easy for Demomen to hide in their spawn while maintaining stickies on the point.

I've never even seen the randomly spawning gift. The rewards aren't that great, so I don't really mind. There's no way I'd be able to summon up the 4 refined metal to craft any of the new Halloween items, so I'm not bothering to get any Haunted Metal.