Hot Live Video Chat

Hillary Clinton announced her intentions of presidency and will be having live video chat starting Monday. Personally, I have a lot of political reservations about her (wtf?), but I think her approach with the exploratory committee raises the bar for modern political interaction and she's done well with the execution of her concept so far.

Alone in the Dark

I still have that essay I'm writing, but things have been busy for me lately, not to mention mandatory fun time in the snow. Also, I just got started for reals on that music system project some of you have heard me talk about. After a little time googling I found getID3, a php class to extract useful info from a good variety of music and video formats. It even comes with some excellent sample code for using it in ways I specifically intend.

Two days ago, I went with Tim to the nearby goodwill for fun and found something that filled me with a rush of nostalgia:


"A Virtual Adventure Game Inspired by the Work of H.P. Lovecraft"

This game was groundbreaking when it came out 15 years ago, in delicious 256 color vga graphics (mode 13h - 320x200!). As far as I know, it was the first 3d action/adventure game with a fixed camera a la resident evil, and this in combination with the excellent sound and game design made for a highly memorable experience.

For me, this game was a lot more than just 1's and 0's clicking inside a machine (yes, some enjoyable games are exactly like that to me). This was back when games came packaged like large hardbound books, a veritable tome of adventure full of horror and mystery waiting for anyone willing to look inside. It even came with little printed newspaper, "The Mystery Examiner" dated Aug 25, 1924 that headlines events related to the game and even includes ads for items you find and use. To this day, I've only played one other horror game (silent hill) feeling so engaged in the environment and actually caring about the story. Alone in the Dark was better to me for being more focused inside the mansion, not running around on the streets wondering where to go, and having the monsters appear infrequently (and all the more suspenseful!).

I played it during the time I was living in Oregon for the summers, and ended up deciding to stay here for high school. I have all kinds of memories about what I was doing, the people in my life at the time, etc, etc.

A couple sequels came out, but I never played them and didn't hear very any positive press about them. Then in 2005, this asshole made a movie based on the game, which apparently stunk with the same ferocity he uses to unsportingly beat down his critics. Fortunately, he had such a divergent artistic vision that I doubt anyone could think less of the game for his work.

It's Snowing

Even as we speak...



One hour later and it hasn't slowed down.

Sunday Morning Bike Ride

It's a different story entirely as to why, but I have thing where I forget to eat sometimes. My hunger loses attention to other things I have going on, and that's been happening lately as I've been getting serious hours into the various projects I'm doing. Yesterday I ran up to king burrito on bike to pick up a sizable order for the whole house. Since it was freezing and I forgot gloves, I just ran up the hill as fast as I could without really considering my condition. After standing in line for a few minutes and warming up, I quickly went from being fine to feeling completely exhausted like running a distance. King B is a pretty short ride, but I haven't been terribly active lately and I was very much needing some food in me.

So I made a point to get some exercise, and I biked this morning before sunrise after I'd had a chance to absorb some nutrients. It was freezing but not really that cold, and there were hardly any cars out. I brought my camera with me, but a lot of the pictures I got were pretty blurry since my camera doesn't handle low light all that great in my shaky hands.




I tried crossing the Broadway bridge, and I rolled up on it right as a (grain?) transport vessel was coming through. Afterward, they couldn't get the inner gate to retract properly and the bridge stayed closed longer than I was around to notice.



Broadway was still closed by the time I got to the Steel Bridge and dinked around taking pictures (hilarious!). You can see all the blinking lights on it in the background.







Then I got a couple donuts at voodoo, and cruised around downtown before going back over the burnside bridge and into a donut shop by the plaid I had never been in before. I wouldn't have stopped in, but my fingers were cold and I needed something to remind me what good coffee tastes like. The people are very nice, and they have sandwiches and soup too. They even searched the back and produced a ceramic mug for me when I asked.


[Back near home, the sun is rising]


Some other things happened afterward, but I'll let those stories go unwritten. I have something of an essay I want to write out, maybe for tomorrow, that will include links to another essay and a crazy video from the 80's.

It sort of feels like winter

Went out to the goodfoot last night to see uprite dub and had a good time, and the weather is finally starting to freeze a little bit. It wasn't windy, so it didn't feel very cold. Tim pointed out some hilarity when "the news" reported it being unseasonably cold. Sadly, the reporter did not suggest a more appropriate season for freezing temperatures.

Global weather is something I can't avoid thinking about a lot of times. There's been a decline in oil prices due to warm weather in the northeast US, leading to record market closings for the past few days now.

One more reason to pick up a DS: Elite Beat Agents

The State Fails Children

There's a lot I think of writing about, and it's daunting to consider the ramifications of any effort versus total inaction. Anything I say here could be seen later by family, potential employers, marketing robots... Yeah maybe only a handful of people read it in the present, but it has a greater sense of permanence and exposure than say, a silly drawing made on a napkin. That can be intimidating in ways that have me think twice about what material to concentrate instead of coming through with a steady supply of filler.

So I have a story I want to tell, but first the filler:
I just found out about Frets on Fire, a FOSS Guitar Hero like program that's cross-platform. You can even import your GH1+2 songs into it! The forums are active, and people are making all kinds of great songs for it. On a related note, GH2 for the xb360 is supposed to allow downloadable songs, which should be a good thing. Sadly, no wii availability for it (yet?)

I (heart) webcomics:
http://www.wondermark.com/d/262.html
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=01092007
http://scarygoround.com/?date=20070111

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=223 (mature?)

Misc Stuff:

• It snowed! There is still snow on the ground, but not very much yet.


• I got some organic TJ's choco truffles and spare cat litter for fixing the neighbor's laptop. If only other things in life were this easy.


• I've been drinking some really awful foldgers coffee in a can I found tucked away in the kitchen consistently for over a week for the same reason George Mallory wanted to climb everest.


• http://www.nerdcorerising.com/

And now, a story that turns into a rant:

Today I opened the oregonian right down the middle, and pulled out a section with a headline that read like a fortune cookie:
"Study: System still fails kids"

The headline is conveniently vague, but it's a story about child welfare caseworkers being overwhelmed by the amount of troubled families they handle.

This isn't the venue to relate my specific experiences with school, but I'll say that I've given much thought to authoritarian management of children through the bizarre encounters one finds in being a student most of their life. It's the kind of thing I consider when I observe parents or any other form of authority interacting with children in ways that deny recognition of their intellect or dignity.

There's a contradiction in wanting to empower children through education while expecting to keep them contained and restricted, "safe from trouble". Presented as my opinion, a voluntary and self directed approach to education would service society so much better than contorting real people to fit an outdated structure of classes generalized to a one-size-fits-all package, where you have to accommodate those who genuinely don't want to be there. That isn't to say anything against having groups, but rather to facilitate the learning of those who share similar interest and have sufficient capability.

That's not a comprehensive solution by any stretch, just ideas of which there are many. Imagine how well kids would be served to have knowledge in foods, nutrients, and basic cooking instead of rote memorization of arcane history. There are plenty of things that work right with schools and I can relate good experiences I've had, but it's not for everyone and there are plenty of people for whom school cannot provide the opportunities they truly need. I just think more children need the type of empowerment that could be available to them if only there could be recognition of situations where school fails, and provide functional alternatives.

It's an issue of public mindset, I suppose. A lot of people expect academia to have a monopoly on proper education, while teh intarweb is starting to show of a lot of promise in raising education across the globe. Two things along these lines get me very excited:
MIT's open courseware program
The OLPC

I'm surprised the olpc hasn't popped into my dreams yet. I know an awful lot about it for not ever holding one in my hands, and get all kinds of stupid ideas on what I could do with sizable quantities of them. Seriously, I hope that sparks a revolution when it gets out.

TGIM

For spending a lot of time at home lately, I feel a regular sense of excitement. I want to keep it a surprise, but drop the hint that I just made a extravagant frugal purchase on something I've been wanting for a long time. It's something that'll make the house a lot of fun, and give me a reason to invite friends over more often.

I'll be cleaning the kitchen and bathroom today in preparation for dinner night, which should yield a precociously fun evening. Dunno how many people will show up, but I imagine there being at least 6. Maybe one of these days I'll spend some time on making my room nice instead of concerning myself with the rest of the house. For now I got the most crucial elements established while I'm catching up on work.

New project idea: this summer is s'posed to get hot. Very hot. Compared to freezers, I know a way to make ice efficiently and I want to construct an 'ice generator' to keep myself cool with solid ice like in olden times. Bonus points for integrating ice cooling into my car.