Today I learned that it’s really hard to blow yourself up with a algorithm. Here is an unfortunate truth. All materials that last long enough for humans to perceive them without augmentation have had all of their properties thoroughly cataloged and their usefulness recorded. Now why, may you ask, is that a bad thing. What it has done is effectively kill the mad scientist industry. Now to play with any type of material that could possibly give you any new and interesting inventions requires a lab with large amount of equipment. This requires a large amount of money, and for most people the money comes from someone who wants results. Not some type of smoking crater. The mad scientist, crackpot inventor, or just person fiddling in their garage are not going to find out some new property that can pave the way for us flying regular cars in two years. Staring down this straight and narrow road makes us yearn for a way for people to create things that go Bang! Squelch! Splut! or POP, and do things that we never imagined. In Girl Genius the thing that allows people to perform transformations of strange and wonderful things into machines or mechanical men is called the spark. The spark is that special something that all mad scientist’s have that allows them to see beyond the normal and into what might be. If you haven’t read the comic, I urge you to go and find out exactly what a young girl with too much power and an anthropomorphic cat can do.
Mad Inventors are Dead
Is This Science
Today I learned that with the invention of the Internet there is a website about anything for anyone. Take of for example Cooking, often people who are not skilled in the culinary arts can be intimidated by the terminology and measures that are used.The also if they are like me really hate the large amount of verbiage that is written with any recipe. If you have made the dish more than Twice you already know how it goes, What you need is order, quantity and technique. Enter Cooking for Engineers. This site not only has the recipe but a really good striped down card that makes it easy to prepare the dish with little wasted communication. I make the Biscuits and they come out perfect. On little tip if you do decide to follow my lead. For easy combination of the flour and butter, freeze the butter and grate it into the flour.
Brass Goggles
Today I learned that Steampunk is a subculture. Steampunk is a off shoot of Speculative fiction that involves the creation of current inventions using the technologies of the past. One of the best places to find info about this is Brass Goggles. If you have a chance take a look.
Pen Paper and People are Fun
So Teusday is our usual gaming night. Now some out there know what that means. Others will need an explanation. Once a week a bunch of people get together with way too much Coke and snacks, dig out pens, pencils, polyhedral dice, and way too many books and participate in a group storytelling exercise. Some may notice I have not invoked the name of The GAME (you know the one it rhymes with “Trunchons and Flagons”) this is because the particular rules are really not that important. RPG’s (Role Playing Games) are an exercise in social interaction the rules are a framework to hang a story on, a place to hang you hat if you wil. Unfortunatly sometimes you need a well documented and accessable framework. Enter the D20 Rules. Based on the D&D 3rd Ed rules the D20 Source document contains all the rules you need to keep peoples imaginations moving. Check it a Web version here, find some frends and dice and get away from you computer for a while.
The News can be Fun
News. It used to be that something that just happend to other people. There might be a war going on but other than the ocasional refugee, or a small note in the back pages of the local paper no one was the wiser. Now we are bombarded with information. A good way to relax is to consume some news that is , well , wrong. Wrong information can lead you to question, to laugh, even to get mad but mostly they just give you a break from what we do everyday. Places like The Watley Review or the Uncyclopedia are full of useless but fun facts. Try them, give your mind a break.
All video games are really just one
Today I learned that all video games are really just one.
I played my last “new” video game about two years ago, it was called Katamari Damacy. Before that it had been a good 7 years since I had played a game witch I didn’t immediately think its xxxx with added yyyy. Thinking about that in video game terms can be pretty disheartening but for humor its comedy gold!
Enter Concerned a comic based on the video game Half Life 2 is an irreverent look at the first person shooter (FPS) genre. Concerned takes its storyline from the game but substitutes the swashbuckling hero with a bumbling clerk that really kind of likes what the evil aliens are doing to the world.
This comic is prime nerd territory, but anyone who has played a FPS recognise all those little things that just didn’t make sense. So if you have played Half Life 2 you have to read Concerned. If you have played any FPS you probably should read Concerned. and if not…… Well you should probably read a book.
It takes time to get married
Today I learned it takes time to get married. As some people may have noticed I have been absent for almost 2 weeks this is because I went and got Married on June third! It was amazing and wonderful but has taken a lot of time. So now as I get back to the daily grind of work I will get back to blogging. Hopefully there will be lots more interesting stuff this week so stay tuned.
Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D
If you have never seen Mystery Science Theater 3000 you are in for a treat.
Started on a cable access channel by a prop comic called Joel Hodgson MST3K was based on a simple premise, watching the worst movie in the world with your buddies is way better than watching the best movie alone. Each Saturday night at midnight Joel and his robots would join you in watching and making fun of the worst movies they could possibly find. Almost every joke in MST3K is what you might consider and "inside joke" you have to have seen the show with these buddies for it to be remotely funny, but since your "buddies" were prerecorded the entire fan-base felt that it was part of a single move 
experience. Sadly as peoples tastes change so does TV and MST3K eventually went off the air. Now the only place you can find it is on DVD and bootleg copies on VHS or the internet. But if you can find it MST3K is still one of the best ways to spend two hours.
BTW: the title of this post is a real movie title, look it up on IMDB
Second Life
Today I learned that Second Life is more than a giant shopping mall.
Second Life, is a virtual online world inspired by the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. If you haven't read this book go read it now. The metaverse as envisioned in Snow Crash was a virtual place where people could create music and Art, do business, hang out, and access most of the worlds knowledge. Linden Labs the makers of second life read this book and thought to themselves "hey we can do that" released to the public in 2002 Second Life is a giant interactive world that gives the users not only the tools to create whatever there hearts desire but also lets them retain the rights to whatever they create.
That having been said I am there for only two reasons right now, exploration and working on avatars. The shear size of second life means that you could, all day, every day wander the world in search of new and interesting sites. Within a 3 hour period last night I managed to find two full sized eva's (01 and 02 if I remember correctly, the purple and red ones anyway), a land of rolling hills and grazing sheep, a squid devour a pirate ship, the beach landing at Normandy, and one of the city's from the matrix. I plan on heading back to the Eva's there was a poster up next to them that there is a bot building seminar coming up. I want to build a giant transformer, Starscream here I come.
The other reason I am still bumming around second life is the avatar creation system. Since they don't want to force anyone to any particular roles (in game) Linden Labs has left the sex up to the users( he he he sex) and 
switching is as easy as changing your clothes. Now it must be said that my inner-child is a 16teen year old goth, and one of the few places I can indulge this is in second life. My female avatar gets at least as much screen time as my male one. This allows me to shop no matter where I go without having to worry about what people think about me. It is interesting to note that I am not alone in this. I heard a recent statistic that up to 20% of the women in MMPORPG's are played by males. Never going to look at that female character in WOW again are you. As well as the ability to change sex, height, weigh, hair colour, features, everything about your characters, basic clothing with all of it's options ( and boy are there a lot of them) are also free, you can spend hours ( and I have) designing just the right t-shirt or skirt or jeans. Anybody who knows me will tell you I have never been one to chase my significant other (or her friends) out of a clothing store. In here I can do the shopping.
I also have experimented with the creation tools. Now I am not a fan of primitive modeling. ( witch is creating objects of spheres, cubes, toroids etc) I have always like to create meshes, this gives more freedom for less polygons. That being said I am really impressed with what people have created with the system, just about anything you can think of has been built and scripted to work. I have created my own pet, well I scripted him, programed him to follow me around. He looks like a plank of wood, but he is the most devoted piece of wood you could ever want.
Unfortunately there are a few downsides of Second Life. The graphics are about 4 years behind the time. The interface is large and confusing for new players, and with a world as big as Second Life's it is hard to find any one thing. Even with these negatives I would encourage anyone to try it out, its free just sign up and start playing.
The Earth is infected
Toady I learned that The Earth has Humans.
Most people would call this a good thing but often humans can lead to more nasty diseases and we don't want the whole universe to be infected do we. So do your part eradicate Humans whenever you get a chance.
