If You Want To Understand Space Travel

Meditate on these.

Visualization of the Linux Kernel

The Kernel is the part of an operating system that interfaces with the hardware, handling all of the most commonly used and tedious tasks such as writing to disks and actually sending signals on a network.

This is a video showing a 3-d print out of all of the pages of code in the linux kernel, as of 2006 of course.

It may not be news, but I still want to put up a link to it because it is a great example of what documentation can do.

New Recommendations

Couchsurfing.org

A great traveling site and a real community, with ideals like generosity and trustworthiness.  This is the type of social web that I can get with.  Try asking your myspace friends if you can stay with them for a few days.

Abbotmanagment.com

Three years ago, if you wrote a screenplay but you didn’t have the luxury of everyone in Hollywood already knowing you, you had to pay people a lot of money and wait a long time to hear what anybody thought about it.

Enter Abbott Management, a website that will take any screenplay from anybody and get them a review and rating, for free, in a couple months.  If they like what you write, they represent you and try to sell your work.

I just completed an internship with these guys and I have to say, their site works and everybody gets reviewed.  I would have to go through the sale of a script with them to know with certainty that it’s a way to get paid and enter the screenwriting industry, but at this point I am confident that it is a major step forward for the writing community.

Not only is it free and functional, but they offer their software to other companies for internal use, to save paper and coordinate among many reviewers.  For a price, of course.

Their collection of industry sites is also quite helpful.

Help Wanted: Tier II Tech Support

Tier II Tech Support

We [sic] a fast paced importer/exporter seeking a qualified candidate to increase the efficiency of our operations and provide tier II phone support to our sales staff of menopausal christian women and financially desperate managers.

Candidate must have

-college degree from someplace not laughable
-5-7 years experience with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Turbopascal
-CCNA, MCSE, MSCA, A+
-long fingers
-be willing to travel up to 18%
-expert knowledge of HEPAA, BRNI, LPRR, and Kll regulations.

We are looking for a self-motivated, self-starter who is willing to go the extra mile.  You will be on call weekends.  Must have reliable phone and car.   Excellent health insurance and ten vacation days available after a number of years.

Qualified applicants will be invited to a 3-4 day interview in Pittsburg.    Older candidates need not apply.  Younger candidates must have 5-7 years experience.

Send cover letter, resume, and detailed salary history to Yishda Cemanagi at yishda.cemanagi@GOTECH.biz

Conan vs. Leno: Weighing In

The Abstract Exponent endorses Conan O’brien without equivocation.

Jay Leno was an apologist for idiotic and atrocious Bush policies for the duration of their administration, now he plays the victim.

I watched his Monday night show and it was terrible.  Eating barbecue with Sandra Bullock, with a chef waiting on them hand and foot.  A list of ten questions with Anderson Cooper, which was awkward.  Then something else I couldn’t bear to watch.

I will say what I, and the AE, have been saying for ten years and that is that Jay Leno is out of touch with everyone but Republicans over 50.   He needs to take a break and reconnect, like Seinfeld did.  He hasn’t made me laugh for over a decade and I have found him politically wrong.   He’s grasping for recognition and it’s screwing up the career of a brilliant person.

So Conan, if they move you, leave NBC and go back to the people.  Go back to standup and they will be begging for you next year.

Remember, your humor is all inclusive and NBC is GE.  GE makes weapons.

AE

Screenplays and Stories For All

After putting it off for what seems like a decade, I have screenwriting and short story samples up online in pdf form, just check the menu on the right=>

It is a great day,

Michael

Microsoft Points - MS Fail #412898028408912

I always have to qualify my disappointments, my many, many disappointments with Microsoft, with certain compliments, like Xbox LIVE is still better than PC or playstation online gaming, once you’re in it just works.

But it’s still as if they make it as hard as possible.   You can’t just have an xbox live card, you must put your card on file, and when you put your card on file, Microsoft is very vague about what they are going to use it for and they charge you when they say they are not going to charge you.   This happened, I had to go to my bank and get a new card with my bank.

Then I wanted to cancel so my card wouldn’t be charged, a dozen different pages at microsoft support said all I had to do was click there and it would tell me how, but none of them did.  Finally I learned from yahoo answers that I have to call a number and talk about waiting on hold!

I was at walmart buying a cheap microwave and thought I would pick up a three month card, but I got a ‘microsoft points’ card instead by accident.  Fine I think, it says ‘Unlimited Gaming Possibilities’ on the card and I know that every time I use a gold membership one month card it says I get and spend points, so I go to upgrade my membership and it only gives me the option to pay with a card.

Can’t pay with microsoft points.

Unlimited, eh?   Why exactly can’t you buy xbox live gold membership with the points?  It’s the whole point of the points!!!  So that you don’t have to be charging your card for gaming!!!!

Well I have a blog and I’m going to blog about it.

Holiday Recommendations - AE Seal of Encouraged Entertainment

Pandorum, District 9 and Stargate Universe - We got serious, hardcore science fiction this year and I’m thankful.

Dexter, Californication, Party Down and True Blood - These shows have been excellent this year.  We got mythic serial characters this year and I’m thankful.

Redbelt - This is a very serious movie whose ideals I seek to live up to, there’s no other movie that I’ve ever seen that explains these things.  I’m thankful.  (not to be ignorant, this is a 2008 movie, but I first saw it in 2009 so I’m calling it close enough)

Capitalism: A Love Story, The Age of Stupid and Collapse - There are people out there telling the truth, I’m thankful for Michael Moore, Spanner Films, and Michael Ruppert.  AE thinks Michael Ruppert is one of the greatest men who have ever lived.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 - Despite being a sequel within a sequel, this game is a megalith of alternate reality.  No other recent event in the virtual world compares to it.  Cities could be built around it.

COD4 Modern Warfare 2 - Further Thoughts

By the counter in the game, I’ve played two solid days of MW2 and that’s hardly any at all compared to some.   I thought I would put up a few more reasons why this game is the new standard.

Re-playability - every time I play through the spec op scenarios, they go a different way.  You get to kill sometimes more than a hundred enemy soldiers and use a wide variety of tactics and weapons.

Visual - This game just looks beautiful from every direction, where the previous version definitely had a few rought edges.  Everywhere you look, there are precisely constructed details.  The floating debris is one of my favorite new additions, it prevents you from being able to look for pixel motion to spot enemy players.   Well you still can, but there’s that extra step now where you have to rule out a floating piece of plastic.

Weapons - the variety of weapons and attachments is just awesome.  Want to carry two .357 magnums with full metal jacket rounds as your backup?  Want a fully automatic shotgun with a silencer and motion detector?  Want a heavy machine gun with a thermal sight and a silencer?  The world is your oyster.

Tall grass - I know this was one of my main requests for the second version, more places where Ghillie suits are useful, and although I still wish there were more, there are certainly enough.  One map has poppy fields and another is just a huge field of tall grass.  The ghillie suits really work in this game.

Killstreaks - The ability to get killstreak rewards dropped as resupply is brilliant.  This makes sentry guns and various airstrikes more random.  The AC-130 attack is a great addition to the multiplayer genre.

Awards - finally I’m getting credit for having the highest kill to death ratio and the world is happy.

Here’s the strange thing though, even with all the new weapons and maps, my kill to death ratio is the same as it was in the first version, down to the second decimal.  Go figure.

Grading Infinity Ward on Fulfilling My Demands for 2.0: 80%

Bonus Number 11!  Please open up more buildings in the city maps.  If you have a machine gun, you can open doors to residential homes.

-Check.  There are many more interiors to explore.  They compromised on busting down doors by putting in many, many windows to break.

10. Good camouflage for all teams, no red on Islamacist’s uniforms

-Check.  Although the islamicist uniform remains, the red is much more subtle.

9. Maps where ghillie suits are useful, big maps with lots of tall grass.

-Check.

8.  Complete controller layout customization options so I’m not accidentally punching all the time when I want to turn quickly.  Am I the only one who has this problem?

-Denied.  Although this problem seems to be lessened by the size of the maps, there are much fewer occasions to be startled like that.

7. Multiple and/or adjustable Zoom settings on scopes

-Denied.  Although the thermal scope is a very nice compromise.

6. Hand signals and/or general audible commands

-Denied.  Really aren’t enough buttons on the controller for this.

5. Ability to lean around corners, if SOF can do it so should COD

-Denied.  Although the crawling is improved.

4. More morphable terrain, airstrikes should actually be able to bring down a crumbling stone wall

-Denied.  If I hadn’t already counted the windows, I might have here also.

3.  Bodies should remain on the ground so it gives the sense that there is an actual war going on.

-Denied.  Bodies and dropped weapons still disappear after about a minute.

2. No healing in hardcore mode, hardcore means realistic

-I might have to remove this one from the listing, you don’t heal in hardcore, the damage accumulates, the pulsing red just goes away.

1. Scoring system that reflects kill/death ratio more than kills only and being able to survive an entire round should be the ultimate victory.

-Check.  Although the scoring system still rewards kills no matter how many deaths you get, there is still a nice accolades system, where although everyone wins an award, the kill/death ration award is the most coveted.

4/10.  But the things they included that I didn’t think of are numerous.  The expanded list of killstreak awards, the Bling perk that allows multiple weapons attachments, and the larger size of the maps in general take us up to 7/10.

I’m also going to give them another point for the Spec Ops section which is really barrels of fun, some of my favorite bot gaming since perfect dark.

So for fulfilling my imaginations, I give Infinity Ward an 80%.

And I’m not even going to hold that twenty percent against them, because I know they could have done the morphable terrain and pileable bodies if it weren’t for America’s laggy network.