Indignant Desert Birds

It’s Sunday morning. Sundays are for reading in bed. Killing orcs, because Orcs Must Die!™ Sundays are for grading papers. Sundays are for prepping character sheets. Sundays are for playing games, visiting friends in the hospital, and being Occupied. Sundays are for having a chocolate hangover. Sundays are for having a day of(f from the) rest.

This week, police got violent against various Occupy movements- most notably across a small bridge from where I live. This week European leaders saved the world economy by decreeing that bankers who made bad loans to Greece would take a loss on the deal- rather than a profit. Also this week, global warming was disproved when snow hit the East Coast of the US. Also also: Saint Louis became the best Baseball team in the world.

Speaking of Baseball: the penultimate game of the World Series was possibly the best of all time. The eventually winner… here’s a graph.

When I stopped owning a car, I relaxed in places my wallet didn’t know I had. No more car insurance. No more stockpiling cash for inevitable breakdowns. No more exorbitant and ever-rising gas prices. I know that not everyone is able to live somewhere where a car is optional. I fully understand that- in most of North America- people live in places designed for cars. I want people to understand that this is a problem to be solved, rather than a public good which must be embraced.

Please, no one explain this to me.

I am a huge classical music fan, but I’ve never been to the symphony. Now that I think about it, this is bizarre. The article I’ve just linked to is an ad for a book that is an ad for the author’s company. Nevertheless, I am intrigued that parking is the single biggest factor keeping potential symphony-goers from enjoying a nice evening. That’s right. Available parking is a bigger factor than quality of music. Given that very few of us live in places where symphonies have to compete with one another, this makes a great deal of sense. It does, however, tend to support my belief that Americans need the freedom that comes with good mass transit.

The world economy sucks because Europeans seem to have gotten here most recently. All things considered, they’re probably going to be the ones to have had the most lasting impact on these continents. I’d love to believe that the Chinese hit San Francisco at some point before Columbus got to the Bahamas, but it doesn’t seem to be true. Were it true, it doesn’t seem to have mattered.

I will sell your children.

Occupy [city name] has struck a major chord. Or maybe 3 major chords- that’s all you need for punk rock. What they’ve been extremely good at is opening the Overton Window enough to begin a discussion about wealth inequality. When your uncle someone or other explains that the rich are just like you and me, you can explain why they’re not.

One of the most depressing studies I read in college was an examination of ethnic and sectarian conflict. The short version: those sorts of conflicts almost invariably end with either mass displacement or genocide. The idea that an American might have been involved with perpetuating such a conflict is sad. The idea that such a person could find themselves gainfully employed by a major US politician is terrible.

Sunday Morning Comics!

Back in the days before digital, companies had to guess at the impact of prices and promotions on their bottom line. A company might have no idea if a temporary discount on a durable good would lead to lower overall revenue. VALVe is very good at running market tests and understanding the data they gather. It actually seems to spring from their strengths as game programmers.

What we are afraid of– by state!

Earlier today (I am writing this on Saturday), a potential customer called my restaurant and asked for something I was pretty sure we couldn’t do. I asked them if I could place them on hold, (which is the way my company demands I treat potential customers) and got a manager. The manager said “can’t be done”, and looked at me expectantly. I shook my head at him and he sighed and grabbed the phone. They don’t payme enough to say “no” to customers. Turning down money is something that you only ever want to entrust to the very top levels of your organization. I’ve never been sure why companies don’t understand that every interaction with a customer- or potential customer- will have monetary repercussions. Of course, good customer service is something Americans seem unwilling to send a market signal in favor of.

The myth is that if they work hard and play by the rules, anyone can get ahead in America. this is false. For as long as I’ve been alive, only the top 10% of income earners have been getting ahead. The American dream died a long time ago. We simply cannot call fair a system in which only 10% of people see their hard work rewarded. And we must call out the implied lie which calls 90% of the country lazy.

One of the reasons that I like Google is that they’re upfront about this kind of data. Also: I’m scared to live in a world where police think they have the right to hide their bad behavior.

If you click just one link:

A recurring theme on this blog over the past year and a half has been the need for more labor solidarity. Those longshore workers are fighting for us all. I hope they win.

DUCK!

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I’m not the sort of gamer who cares overly about graphics. I do like the shiny, don’t get me wrong. But when I hear people talk about PC vs console as if it were purely a matter of graphical horsepower, I want to tear my hair out. the power of the PC isn’t the video card. Graphics alone cannot add much to gameplay.

A game like Crysis, for instance, is incredibly pretty. The game is lush with foliage to hide behind, and has rich vistas full of areas to explore. Those are the key points: the foliage isn’t merely decorative- it serves a gameplay function. A player is allowed to scan the ground and find their own cover. A game like Gears of War compensates for the lack of console power by hand-crafting pop-in, pop-out cover. The PC’s allows designers to create an organic play experience for gamers.

Or take a game like Arkham City. I’m glad that when the game is released next month I’ll have more awesome textures than if I buy it for my girlfriend’s PS3. But had it been built ground-up as a PC game, some of the design decisions might have been very different.

The PC is a less controlled, more anarchic platform. Rocksteady might have decided to take a traditionally PC-centric approach and allow for- encourage!- modding. For instance, when I saw the trailer at the above link, all I could about was a MOBA set in the Batman universe built on the Arkham City engine. Remember that MOBAs exist because Blizzard is a developer who thinks about the PC first, and only occasionally nods towards consoles.

I understand why most (large) developers create games primarily aimed at console players. Developing for a pair of fixed platforms must be orders of magnitudes easier than trying to support all the various hardware configurations that a PC can come with. Let us not, however, pretend that graphics are the only thing being compromised away.

Tags: Games by Punning Pundit
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So adorable you’ll forget they’re deadly.

It’s Sunday Morning. Sundays are for frantically looking for razors and panties before a date. Or Sundays might be for working and hiding hickeys from your boss. Sundays might be for recovering from a very 1$ wedding. Then again, if you’ve been running from Earthquakes all week, Sunday mornings might be for getting as much sleep as you possibly can. Further north, Sundays might also for sleeping- because you’ve been working 40 hours in a row. Maybe, just maybe, Sundays are for LoLing about while your girlfriend reads Mother Jones.

This week: The US managed to check another monster off the hit list. Also: the Heir apparent to the Saudi throne died. Also also? A major flood hit Bangkok. And, of course, this week the Occupy Wall Street movement continued.

Occupy Wall Street is, frankly, inchoate. I’m not sure what they can accomplish other than their own existence. And yet. What they’re offering is not really a solution, but a lens through which to see that America has a problem. With so many people being so spectacularly unable to get by, it can’t be all the individual fault of each individual American. Occupy Wall Street is making it polite to say the thing which has been whispering in the back of the American psyche for years: the game is rigged. How are we going to fix it?

In countries where unions have power, different unions will often times strike together. Factory workers might be treated so badly that truck drivers will refuse to move product created under those conditions. Being called out on their bad behavior hurts the precious fe-fes of the American capitalist , and so Congress banned the sympathy strike. By shear coincidence, this took away the most portent weapon in Labor’s arsenal.

Police are a State’s way of enforcing it’s laws and displaying that it has a monopoly on the use of force within its territory. When a State’s use of force is auctioned off, it becomes delegitimizatized. Mercenaries are now prowling American streets, answerable to no one but their own paymasters. I’m sure I didn’t vote for this.

This week’s installment of “Vaccines: they work!”: it seems we’re one step closer to a malaria vaccine. Malaria affects roughly 1/4 Africans every year. With luck, that will soon become a distant memory.

Another thing that works? Science. It turns out that when every climate scientist in the world says something, they’re probably not wrong.

Put the fucking phone down and drive.

When I say that the game was rigged by Wall Street, people often think that I’m somehow saying something obviously wrong, or obviously radical. I’m not. It’s cold, documented, fact. The difference between myself and a Libertarian is that “Cavet Emptor”- to them- is the greatest freedom. To me, the greatest freedom is to destroy the noxious malady of constant wariness.

It is, of course, a logical fallacy to say that you must be correct because Ahmed Maher agrees with you. Even if it is not an argument, it is certainly a signpost on the road to righteousness. Protip: don’t be the group that this guy thinks is worth protesting.

Republicans have some very bad ideas about the economy. For instance: they are convinced that the reason people aren’t buying things today is that they’re scared tax rates will go up tomorrow. Republicans have released economic plans that economic experts have laughed at. We are not being told that the experts are laughing at those plans. Instead, we’re being told that the Republicans have a plan, and that Democrats oppose it. Well gosh. I feel all informed and stuff.

I went all of 2009 and most of 2010 without working. It was so taxing on my psyche that I have been seeing a shrink to get past many of the effects. When I did find a job, it was at literally 1/3 what my pay had been. I am not alone. 10 million people not earning money. 10 million people not making things. And millions upon millions more making less than ever. Want to know why companies are sitting on huge piles of cash instead of building things? No one can afford to buy.

“Anything to declare?” Yeah, I just got back from the freaking moon!

If you click just one link:

Check out this Atlantic piece on College sports.

Mr Pink!

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No, 1% do please go Gault.

It’s Sunday Morning. Sundays are for retracing the steps of the Beatles career, from the comfort of your couch. Sundays are for installing games on your new windows partition. Sundays are for walking with vigorous strides– or at least remembering to send out a copy. Sundays might be for rediscovering your love of music festivals. Or Sundays might just be for furiously tapping out a post so that people can snuggle in bed and read.

This week, protesters continued to Occupy [a park near] Wall Street. Scientists are still vigorously trying to prove that faster than light travel is still impossible. Also this week: Slovenia’s government fell when it failed a confidence vote. Also also: The Italian government failed to fall. Depressingly this week: debt-easing inflation failed to occur.

One of the more interesting reactions to the death of Steve Jobs has been high lighting the deaths of other people. I will not play the a game where I try and explain who’s life was more worthy of celebration. I will point out that humanity has been blessed with some truly fine specimens.

I pay very little attention to the media. It has much less to do with my own ideological biases (which, granted, are far to the left of what the media is comfortable talking about), and more to do with the fact that the media is incompetent. I honestly do believe that many of the problems the US finds itself in would be solvable if we had a media capable of reporting a fact in the most relevant way possible. Since they cannot, American democracy is asked to exist within an information vacuum. Lacking information with which to make good decisions, we make very bad ones indeed.

Despite bizarre insistence to the contrary, vaccines are a useful tool for making humanity better off. As an interesting side note to the story: Windows users can know that their money was reinvested in helping eliminate polio from India. Win/Win? Indeed.

Apparently the US government has decided to arbitrarily shut down certain websites. I say “apparently” because this is the first I’ve heard of it. And I say “arbitrarily” because the accused are not allowed to defend themselves.

Imagine if you had a phone. And imagine if that phone could be used to track your physical location and every place you visit on the internet. Now imagine if someone wanted to collect and sell that information without so much as giving you any of the money. It is this sort of thing, I think- more than the banking system itself- which so inflames the Occupy Wall Street folk. It’s the basic sense that corporate life has seeped into every corner of America, and left democracy a pale, sickly, shadow of what it had been.

I remember the way the press hounded President Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. The press was literally jumping out of bushes in hopes of startling Gary Condit into admitting that he murdered his lover. Imagine for a moment that the media treated the presidential assassination scandal with the same level of intensity. What if President Obama were unable to do walk his dog without being asked the circumstances under which he were able to murder Americans at will? The press does not care. And so America slumbers on.

The government does good and useful work. Anyone who says otherwise is objectively pro-domestic abuse.

Let’s fix the tax code. Let’s restore the inflation rate to the historic average. Let’s never again bail out a company and keep its management team afloat. Let’s stop pretending that everything in America is just fine. It isn’t fine. It hasn’t been fine for 10 years.

Matthew 6 is one of the most interesting chapters of the Christian Bible. In it, the Christian Messiah attacks the very foundations of his society by telling his followers not to be douchebags. Seriously. I’m going to quote a bit: “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Oh, he goes on for a while. He also tells people-his followers- not to pray in public. In this middle of this epic anti-douchebag PSA, the Christian Messiah delivers what has come to be called “the lord’s prayer”.

Sunday Comics!!

When someone buys stock in a company, they’re buying a small piece of that company. People do this because they expect to make money from owing a piece of that company. That company is legally required to provide an accurate accounting of its activities. It seems that there is some interesting and strange evidence that they aren’t. Who the fuck do Wall Street tycoons think they are? They lie to the American public, they lie to the American government, and they seem to be lying to the people who own their companies.

Two of the most pretentious things in the world: cheese and fonts.

One of the best things that Occupy Wall street has done is point out the contradictions at the heart of American society. One one side, you have a dream of democracy. On the other side, you’ve got the simple fact that the parasitic 1% of America looks down on the rest of us, knowing they can buy and sell us at their whim. This is what the revolution was fought against. Never let it be said, however, that it’s no laughing matter.

Victor: You bought two dead animals – killing each other – because renting them is a bad investment?

The American political system is deeply, deeply flawed. Of the two major parties, one has a variety of solutions to America’s various ills. Some of these are right, and some wrong. The other party’s most credible attempt at fixing the economy is to fire more people.

If you read just one link:

The failure of Digital Rights Management.

This week’s theme has been the death of the American dream. In the comments section, let me know whether you prefer cheesy pretense, or pretentious cheese.

D’oh!

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Microsoft has seen the hand-scrawled cliche on the wall, and has decided to make their next operating system work with tablets as well as desktops. Their goal is to give users the ability to buy a program once, and run it on whichever hardware they happen to find themselves logged into.

If I understand this correctly, this means that I’ll be able to buy a copy of (say) Arkham City, install it onto my tablet, and- assuming that tablet has an HDMI port and a USB port- plug into my TV and play the game with a controller.

Assuming I’m right, where does a dedicated gaming machine like the Xbox fit in? And what does Sony do to compete?

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It’s Sunday Morning. Sundays are for getting up and going to work because someone has to make a living around here. Sundays are for celebrating the birthdays of you and your partner. Sundays are for celebrating the life of your parents. Sundays are for wrestling Photoshop into a semblance of normalcy. Or Sundays might be for making friends with your kitties once more.

This week the Occupy Wall Street movement continued to strengthen– Mea Culpa: I thought it would die. This week the world mourned as visionary technologist Steve Jobs passed on. Also this week: California signed a version of the Dream Act- a bill which would allow children born to undocumented workers some of the same rights granted to any child who grew up in California. Also also: the EU has been declining to fix their economic woes as the world tumbles ever closer to economic devastation.

Saturn is so much bigger than Earth that my mind literally cannot wrap around the concept. It is quite literally not operating at human scale. Nevertheless, artifacts of the human mind have traveled to Saturn and sent us back pictures.

Speaking of artifacts of the human mind…

Earlier this week, my shrink casually mentioned that I had been (until quite recently) clinically depressed. Well obviously. In retrospect, this makes my lifelong commitment to not drinking look really fucking prescient. I’m fortunate that I spotted the tenancy toward alcoholism early enough in my life that never had to stop myself. I can only imagine the difficulty someone would have trying to quit. For the record: I don’t mind if other people drink around me, either.

My two earliest memories involve Lego. I am something of a Lego maniac. I can’t even imagine the skill it would take to build the sort of Gothic Victorian masterpiece linked to above.

Most women in the public eye would like to wear the “Feminist” label. The Feminist tent is fairly broad, capable of being worn by people of sharply contrasting views. It might be possible that the label would stretch far enough to include people who would like to return women to a subservient place in society. At the very least, we should be aware of who those self-proclaimed feminists are.

An awful lot of software asks if it may collect “anonymous usage statistics”. I almost always allow companies to do so- it makes products better. I’m amazed the Microsoft saw such a fundamental shift in the way users were interacting with the Operating system.

It has been standard practice for a long while for companies to declare that all their employees are of above average ability, and thus merit above average pay. This has lead to a situation in which the pay of line workers has been spiraling out of control, threatening to flood the economy with too much money. Wait. Sorry. It seems that only CEOs are thought to be of above-average ability for their responsibilities. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the people who hire CEOs can’t contemplate the idea that they, themselves would make a merely mediocre hiring decision. And so the 1% get richer. The rest of us have to make do with crumbs.

In lieu of flowers, those who desire may make memorial gifts to the charity of their choice.

Members of the various police forces are more concerned with keeping order than protecting the legal integrity of a society. This means that, yes, they will absolutely break the law in an attempt to get their own way. One of the reasons they get away with that (other than being armed) is that people don’t often know that their rights are being violated. Fix that. And then thank the ACLU.

Protip: don’t teach your cat to use your computer.

On the occasion of the death of Steve Jobs, it’s worth pondering why the Macintosh never made much headway in the desktop world. Those same things do seem to be making it a natural fit for the mobile computing world.

I didn’t know that a “Janus cat” was a real thing when I named my kitty.

For most of us, getting in shape is relatively simple (maybe not easy): exercise more and eat less. The design of a city can help us get more exercise. When walking is easy, and accomplishes something other than exercise, people are more willing to do it. When people walk more, they tend to be healthier. It’s not a panacea, but every bit helps.

I blame Carmen Sandiego.

The Democratic party has problems. The party has severe problems. Nonetheless, I’m a straight-line Democratic party voter. Given the math created by our current institutional structure, we have a two party system. Full stop. Given that math etc, it’s as important to vote against a party as it is to vote for a party. If Occupy Wall Street does anything, I hope they change that math.

People in the PR business have a weird time of things. On the one wrist, people wanting to make friends with them so that PR people will show them cool things. On the other wrist, PR people have to be friends with people in order to convince them to say nice things about their clients. So, you know Epic Fail.

Gr. Arrg.

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When the internet attacks.

It’s Sunday Morning. Sundays are for introducing your Girlfriend to your friends. Sundays are for celebrating a life well lived. Sundays are for plotting revenge. Or Sundays might just be for playing video games and eating good food.

This week, the US president took advantage of his self-declared power to murder Americans without warning or oversight. This week, Facebook rolled out new ways to gather personal data on their users. Also this week: Wall Street was “occupied” to protest greed.

Europe is falling apart. It’s going to take America with it. Here’s everything you need to know.

The US President declared that he had the power to assassinate any American citizen anywhere in the world for no better reason than his own say so. Perhaps the scariest part? He has claimed the right to do this in secret. For all we know, President Obama has ordered the murder of an American citizen for making a pass at his wife. That may sound far fetched– it is far fetched– but the president has asserted that it would be legal for him to do so, and legal for him to not tell us about it. Thus far, Congress has raised no outcry.

I once heard a professor describe Unions as (something like) a method by which labor is rationed. I blanched at that, and he assured me that in economic terms he was correct. Once I gave it a few moments’ thought, I had to agree. How else can a union maintain it’s strength save by limiting the monopoly power of employers.

When individuals form organizations with the purpose of pooling money to own (and derive profit from owning) the means of production, (corporations) those groups are allowed to bargain as one unit. That “collective bargaining unit” derives enormous power from the solidarity of the capitalists. Their ability to speak with a single voice; lobby local, state, and federal lawmakers on their own behalf; etc is uncontroversial. When workers join together looking to band together to enjoy that same power, the law is called out to stop them. And this is why the 1% have it much better than the rest of us.

Occupy Wall Street is a fantastic idea. I would not at all have minded seeing actual barricades thrown up in front of each of the banks and brokerages with revenues of $1 billion or more. It would have kept those people from working, and thus saved untold billions of dollars worth of mischief. The actuality of Occupy Wall Street left much to be desired. I don’t know what the protesters wanted, or what interests they served. I have a vague idea that the protesters were lefties, but the Tea Partiers claim to be speaking for the exact same constituency. This lack of communications skills is why progressive policies have a difficult time passing.

Household incomes are down. Spending is (naturally) therefore: down. And the economy? If people aren’t spending money they haven’t got, the economy is… down. From this it is easy to understand that our economy suffers from a demand-side depression, not a supply side downturn. Good news: we know how to solve demand-side economic disasters. Bad news? In 2010, we elected people who don’t want to raise money to fight for a better economy.

I’m not sure why anyone hates English lawyers this much, but the sign is awesome.

There is only one proof of manhood I, or anyone else, need: our own say-so. Anyone who defines their manhood in terms of branding or outside considerations is holding their manhood cheap. Manhood is much like womanhood: it’s all about having the confidence to be who you are. “Real” men can buy tampons for the ladies in their lives. “Real” men know that- if they want- they can paint their damned toenails bright pink. And “real” men stand up to the bullies who tell them otherwise. “Real” ladies do the same thing.

Most of us, most of the time, are going to fit easily into our socially assigned gender roles. It is 100% ok to fit easily into those roles. The important thing is to remember that those roles are arbitrary. Until 60 years ago, little boys wore pink skirts. Arbitrary distinctions may not be penalized or punished. I think this is the rule that separates the civilized from the uncivilized.

Last week held international coffee week. here are some coffee facts.

I’m pretty sure I don’t want penis coffee.

I grew up deep in the suburbs. In college, I commuted an hour each way to work. When I moved to San Francisco, I gleefully gave up my car. Living in a city where I could get anywhere at any time without needing to drive was a new sort of freedom. Not having to drive means that my commute can be spent reading, playing games, or watching a video. Commuting turns from a chore into a part of my leisure time.

In 1980, the US had a population of 226 million people. In 2011, the population is 308 million. That’s an increase of 36%. Between 1980 and 2011, there has been a zero percent increase in the number of Medical Doctorates awarded each year. Assuming doctors do not have longer careers now than they did 30 years ago, that points to a radically lower doctor/patient ratio. Why does medicine cost so much more now than it did 30 years ago? I’d say a good place to look is supply and demand.

I admit to being something of a dandy. Sunday afternoon, when meeting up with my friends, I plan on wearing a cravat. No real reason. Because I can. So yes. I go to far for fashion. Other nerds can learn how to dress better. I’m a dandy because I enjoy it. Dressing well helps people be taken more seriously.

One of the more disturbing trends in gaming is that graphics have long overshadowed gameplay for AAA productions. That’s what has been so nice about the stagnation of this console generation: the plateau in visual fidelity has turned into easy tools for reaching acceptable levels of graphics. This has led to an explosion of “indie” games, built around novel mechanics and zany ideas.

As I understand what the police are claiming happened here: the police erected mesh barriers to infringe on the rights of the people to peaceably assemble. For the crime of petitioning for a redress of grievances, the officers on hand indiscriminately used a non-lethal chemical weapon. When called to account for these actions, the police described them as “appropriate”. I call bullshit.

I can’t help but note that the movement against “frivolous” lawsuits have the net effect of making it harder for humans to protect ourselves against corporations. The best part? We’re spreading untrue anti-human propaganda ourselves.

It seems DC did a huge redesign of their entire lineup. Refreshing a comic every decade or so would seem to give the creators the chance to keep the books healthy and relevant. unless they pull shit like this. This 7 year old girl can’t articulate the phrase “male gaze”, but she does intuit that the books are not designed for her. I wonder if DC realizes that they are creating for themselves a huge problem.

A shot by shot analysis of what makes the 1978 Superman movie’s opening sequence work.

If you click just one link:

America has long had a policy of Affirmative Action. We only wanted to curtail it once it started helping black folks.

This week’s theme was work, jobs, and gender. In the comments section, tell me about your favorite board game.

Just because the southern Civil Warriors were overwhelmingly the heirs of slave-owners doesn’t mean the rebellion was fought over slavery!

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