There be some fairly big news, but I feel it is only right and fair to send you to see this post before I go into it.
Scarvo, now in 3D!
•January 30, 2009 • 6 CommentsCheck it out: there’s a site that let’s WoW players view their model in 3D. Of course, you could do it in WoW itself, but if you have a middlin’ video card like myself, it might not look as sexy as it does here.
Check out Scarvo, for instance.
That’s all. :)
2009 will be a year of panic
•January 30, 2009 • 2 Commentshttp://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2009/01/2009_will_be_a_year_of_panic.php
I find this article by Bruce Sterling very interesting. Here’s the preamble:
I’m always impressed by people’s behavior during massive panics. They rarely believe or admit that they are panicked. Instead they assure one another that at last the wool has been lifted from their eyes. They are seeing the clear daylight of rationality after years of delusion.
But a delusion that lasts for decades is not a delusion. It’s an institution. And these, our institutions, are what now fail us. People no longer know what they value. They don’t know what to believe. And unfortunately, it’s part of the human condition to believe and invest in things that are demonstrably not true.
As 2009 opens, our financial institutions are deep in massive, irrational panic. That’s bad, but it gets worse: Many other respected institutions have rational underpinnings at least as frail as derivatives or bundled real-estate loans. Like finance, these institutions are social constructions. They are games of confidence, underpinned by people’s solemn willingness to believe, to conform, to contribute. So why not panic over them, too?
Let’s consider seven other massive reservoirs of potential popular dread. Any one of these could erupt, shattering the fragile social compact we maintain with one another in order to believe things contrary to fact.
The rest is in the article.
What do you think?
Awesomeness
•January 30, 2009 • 8 CommentsSo, in the past week, lots of awesome things have happened.
First, there was ConFusion, which was ridiculously great this year. I had the opportunity to meet and briefly chat with Cory Doctorow in between his panels. I hot-tubbed with a bunch of half-nekkid people. We got huge applause for our costume at the masquerade contest. And we whipped up a really great post-convention dinner that worked out perfectly.
Then, my birthday – nothing explosive, but fourteen of my friends and my mom came together for dinner with me, and there was laughter and craziness and the PARTY BUTTON, and whipped cream up the nose.
And now, this weekend, myself and six of my favoritest people are taking a train ride to Chicago for what I call SkennCon II: Eclectic Boogaloo. Okay, no, SkennCon 2009 it is! We’re also celebrating jadesfire55‘s 30th birthday, which is awesome.
While we’re in Chicago this weekend, we’re going to the science museum and to see Too Much Light (Makes the Baby Go Blind). Yay! I’m not sure what we’re doing for food, but in such a small group, we’ll figure it out.
Chicago People: Let me know if you want to meet us on Saturday (or early Sunday for breakfast)! We are awesome, and you can be awesome with us.
PS I hope random girl with the fun camera is back at Yolk. It’s highly unlikely, but dammit, the odds should be in my favor!
Protected: Get off my lawn!
•January 27, 2009 • Enter your password to view comments.Heeeee
•January 27, 2009 • 2 CommentsI’m watching the Zero Punctuation Awards for video games, and his first award is the “Indiana Jones In a Fridge Award for Franchise Murder”.
Whee!
Protected: My girlfriend is hot
•January 26, 2009 • Enter your password to view comments.Random 10
•January 26, 2009 • 7 CommentsSomeone on the ol’ Facebook posted a random 25 things about themselves, and I’m in the mood, so here you are. ‘cept I’m a bit gabby and no one would sit through the resulting 25 pages, so you get 10. Don’t complain, or I’ll only give you 5!
I won’t be calling anyone out, so if you were looking for an excuse to get chatty, this is it.
1. My bedroom is generally a mess of clothes, technology and random bits of furniture, but I will go a teensy bit apeshit if my video camera case doesn’t have everything in exactly the right place. Maybe it’s because no one at home says, “Find that funky USB dongle you thought was useless in the next 30 seconds, or the shot is ruined!”
2. I usually draw some letters and numbers starting from the bottom. O’s, E’s, 3’s – I’ve been working over the past few years to correct it, because I think it makes my handwriting look even worse. I sometimes wonder if I might have been left-handed before retraining.
3. When it comes to being creative, I am really open-minded about the medium. Photography, poetry, graphic design, videography, editing, drawing, and music are a few of the things I’ve spent some time with, and most of those (except for the latter two) have been important enough to me to win high grades and contests.
4. I still have my christmas tree up (it’s half-size). ‘Nuff said.
5. I spent this past weekend liasoning (liasing?) at a Sci-Fi convention I go to (nearly) every year. The author, in gratitude for my good job, gave me a copy of a manuscript for a book not published yet. Yeah, I’m braggin’!
6. When I was in fencing class, the teacher said I had an incredible lunge. Also, when I used to go to the gym two or three times a week, I would frequently max out the weight on the interior and exterior thigh machines. As a kid, I could ride my bike for the entire day, and I think they’re related.
7. I can, and do, associate everything with everything else. I get a kick out of telling people about these crazy associations. I’ve done it since before I can remember (and received very strange stares for as long). I hear that using your recall that way helps to keep it strong like bull.
8. I love experimenting with different foods, but I can also be very particular. I like cooking with curry, but I dislike honey ham, for instance. I have been known to try out strange combinations just to see what’s up – the strangest off-hand was putting chocolate on chunks of summer sausage after grilling them on a campfire.
9. When I’m in bed alone and I’m late for getting out of bed, I’ll often do a maneuver that you may have seen Chun-li emulate in Street Fighter II. It’s goofy as hell, but prevents the dizzy stumbles. Most of the time.
10. I love semantics and etymology. I love knowing where words come from, how they used to be used, where they’re headed, and how our language is growing and adapting every day. I like verbing nouns and saying silly things just to hear them aloud.
Anyone going to ConFusion have a power supply/computer fan I can borrow?
•January 23, 2009 • 5 CommentsI’m looking for the type with a 4-pin plug (vs SATA plugs or something. If I -am- going to wear my costume at ConFusion, I need a fan to survive.
Thanks in advance!
Or is it just me?
•January 22, 2009 • 4 CommentsSo when you hear these lines:
The Union of the Snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline
… do you think about some hybrid Mad Max / Conan The Barbarian situation with an evil insane cult?