I can find no rational reason for aliens to invade the Earth.

If they need energy, water, metals or radioactives there are plenty in space to mined or harvested without dealing with pesky natives. If some super-civilization needed all the metals, silicates and carbon from our asteroid belt, they could just haul it all away without ever visiting the Earth and, we could do nothing to stop it. If they needed to enclose the Sun within a dyson sphere to harvest all the energy from it, they could do so and our technology would so primitive in comparison that we could do nothing to stop it. If they wanted to mine all the silicates and iron from the Earth, they'd just pulverize it into manageable pieces by slamming a few other planets or moons into it.

In any case they'd never have to set foot on the Earth at all.

The key thing to keep in mind here is the enormous differences technology. Science fiction is often wildly inaccurate on this score because they only posit differences of a few decades or centuries. It would not be like British maxim guns versus Zulu infantry.

When I was in college back in the middle Eighties, I had a Casio calculator watch. This was the expensive apotheosis of nerdery back then. In the Eighties Japan was kicking everyone's ass in consumer electronics. At the time microchips had become so cheap that towards the end of the decade, they were giving away cheap watches in cereal boxes. Smart people in the wristwatch industry--that is to say, nobody in Switzerland or the US--realized that the only way to keep the prices up was to jam more functions in the box, thus the Casio C 80 calculator watch. Walking around with this thing strapped to my wrist made me feel like Mr. Spock or Dr. Who.

Anyway, fast forward to the beginning of the Twenty-first Century.

My Xonix wristwatch, which served me very well for more than four years partially broke several months ago. Actually it would have served even longer. It's just that I broke the stem for the analog watch when trying to replace its battery. I now have no way of setting the watch but, everything else still works--the digital recorder, the thumb drive, the ear buds, everything. In our diminished expectations of product quality in these modern times, I consider that pretty good endurance. But if the analog watch doesn't work, I just can't stand to wear it on my wrist. I'm keeping it as spare parts for a friend's Xonix watch of the same model.

It's the digital equivalent of the horror of the blank page that all authors must face at some point. Sometimes something comes, sometimes it seems like it's all been said and said by people smarter than you.

One of the ways I think I can get around this problem is to talk about my hobbies. I have a game session coming up and that will give me a write up then. My gaming pals love my summaries of game sessions. But I could broaden this by talking about table-top role-playing games in general. (Sigh. I remember when just saying role-playing games was sufficient. But software has changed all this now.):

• I did start a couple of entries on the history of my role-playing campaign: Udra. I really should finish this up.
• I could make these histories very detailed or at least as detailed as my memory and 29 year old paper can allow for.
• I could talk about table-top RPGs in general. Commentaries of rules and variations. I've done a little of this already. For example I could talk about how to use computers to aid in bookkeeping and note-taking in game sessions. It would great to have a computerized miniatures map that would help everyone keep track of the physics. As a game master, I'd love to have this so I could concentrate on the descriptive stuff and mood.

Anyway, maybe some other subjects will come to me. I've been thinking about ways to force people to use encrypted mail and whether I want to sign up for EVDO service for example. Something will come.

So I've following developments in medical imaging technology closely for many years now.

Nearly a month ago, my friend Victor bought and downloaded Portal, a first person action game that involves puzzles, the legacies of faceless defense corporations and bizarre physics. He invited me to try my hand at it.

The game very strongly reminded me of Paranoia, right down to the jumpsuits and manipulative, deranged robots. For me, this game was rather refreshing in that it wasn't your typical paintball session in software where those with the fastest hardware, the most practice, the least RSI and the fastest connections usually pulverize everyone else.

In games like that, I quickly degenerate into kamikaze mode simply because I can't stack up the patience to do them well. I'd have the wrists of an 80 year old if I did anyway. (On the other hand, people like to play me in first person shooters and melee combat games because they get a kick out of how I transform into this insanely giggling manic--ahem--I can be quite childish for a 44 year old guy.)

In Portal, sort of like Thief or Metal Gear (Although Metal Gear did have some incredibly frustrating button mash events that I almost gave up on.), you're given some tools and then you got to figure your way out the predicament you're in. Dangerous events are immediately fatal, thus more realistic, but at least no one is immediately trying to eat your brains or blow you to bits.

It turns out there are some other ways this game is subversive to the usual shoot 'em ups. I guess Joe McNeilly, the guy I just linked to, might be over-analysing things too much but I'm pretty sure the folks over at Valve Software did seriously consider at least some of these issues while designing the game. With Half-Life, Valve became known for trying to depart from cliche and keep the escapism on a vaguely cerebral level. Nice to see they are still doing that.

[Victor, Greg and Ralph in attendance on 11-18-2007 between 3:30PM until about 9:30PM. Greg was running Thalin and Chingara. Victor was running Mandark and Stirge. Ralph was running Dwalor and Telwyn. Hilda and Helga started off in Greg and Ralph's hands but when combat started, Victor was mostly calling the tactics. The Circus is currently in the City of Boha-Boha which is in the western end of the Twin Kingdoms of Taumau-Boha at the head of the Kalimara River.]

When we left the Circus they were making plans to capture, or at least defeat, Lord Alif.

Alif was an important man within the mysterious Leopard Cult. As the result of Thalin's scrying, Hilda's questioning of the two spies the Circus had captured and several other related facts, they learned that this mysterious cult of criminals, assassins and shapechangers was now after the Circus and was somehow in alliance with at least two of their old foes, Chebo and Marvek. Although the pattern of connections wasn't entirely clear yet, these cultists also were involved with the ancient evils of the Kosan and expunged history of the mysterious King in Yellow.

More importantly, as Thalin had long ago expected and had taken precautions against, the Circus was now being scryed on and their movements and activities followed.

What is Thanksgiving for? Really?

If it's supposed to celebrate national identity, we've already got a zillion holidays for that, Veteran's Day and Independence Day for starts--and some that some of you out there wouldn't consider as days of national pride like MLK Day and Labor Day.

Is it really for gratitude?

As an atheist, I don't quite see what the problem is. Isn't that what C.S. Lewis did with for Christianity with his Narnia series? If His Dark Materials becomes the atheist's Narnia, fair is fair.

A long parenthetical comment follows:

Some things changed. GAIM became Pidgin and Nvu became KompoZer, hopefully with some improvements that I'll care about. There is now a bluetooth connection management tool as well. I currently don't have any other devices that use bluetooth but I guess its got to have it there so I don't have to edit configuration files or open a command prompt.

Some of the administrative tools got changed a little, mostly small improvements that I've found helpful--no complaints there. Many icons got changed a bit but I really don't care about that.

Victor, Greg, Ralph and Ian in attendence. 9-23-2007 around 5PM until about 9:30PM. However what follows is really a summary of two sessions:

To recap briefly:

The Circus is in Darth Lom, driven there primarily by Thalin's vague but powerful paranoia and his obssessive curiosity for the histories and cultures of this ancient land. But specifically they are there to find the Great Udamalore, a ceremonial weapon and badge of office for the clerical caste of Basharka. Due to several divine visions, received at the Temple of Montintera, the Circus has reason to believe that finding this weapon will stop Lady Tyrathect's plot to revive an ancient evil force only known as the King in Yellow.

In early August my cat, Lola, was diagnosed with failing kidneys. The vet put her on a special diet, subcutaneous hydration and prescribe various medicines but the prognosis wasn't good. It was mostly wait and see. She was old, over 16 years old.

Years ago when I set up this site, I promised myself I'd never put lame stories and pictures about the antics of my cat. I guess this entry is a violation of that promise.

My cat, Lola, was declawed. She had spent most of her life without claws on her front feet. This was not something I chose for her; it was the decision of her previous owners. I've sometimes daydreamed about regrowing her claws. To me, claws are a defining aspect of being a cat. Without claws, Lola was just a cute, furry pillow that purred a lot. She couldn't express her displeasure any other way aside from, hissing, hiding or urinating on things.

She continued to loose weight, eating less and less, voiding less and less.

Veterinary medicine is not as closely regulated as human medicine. You only have to look at how animals are treated in factory farms to know that. I think that this is where all the controversy surrounding human stem cell therapy can be bypassed. Some people do care if animals are mistreated but there isn't really a vocal group that objects to fetal stem cell use in animals. This removes a lot of ideological barriers that slow the advance of medicine.

Actually, that's not strictly accurate. I don't want to throw a keyboard out of a window. I want to remove the Microsoft branding from my Linux laptop keyboard. I don't think it's really spite. Microsoft makes a decent enough set of operating systems and applications. It's just that it reduces my cognitive dissonance to have commodity hardware be as platform neutral as possible.

For example, what do we call it? Mostly I've heard it called "windows key," "win key" or, in combination with other keystrokes, "window." I've read that some call it the "flag key" or "flag" but, I've never heard it called that way with the technicians I hang around. I've read that it sometimes can be referred to as "meta" but, again, never in shops that I've talked.

A very small warning for strangers out there considering buying a System76 machine. They don't exactly ship out-of-crate-ready. I did have to consult the documentation and their support site briefly to figure out how to turn on the wireless transceiver and webcamera and to learn that there are no drivers yet for the fingerprint reader. But these are very minor and easily figured out things. To be fair, many Microsoft machines don't ship out-of-crate-ready either. On the whole I'm very happy with this gadget!

• Bohemian Drive: In a post-human future, two obsolete robots go on a road trip through the Solar System. Hijinx and soul searching ensue.
• The Spiders: In an alternate history, President Gore's Department of Defense wages war in Afghanistan. Mind control weapons and utterly ubiquitous servaillence drones are everywhere. Weird things begin to happen. Trust me, this comic depicts a world only seconds away from our future. It's terribly sad that this comic has been dormant for four years. I gave him money, because Patrick S. Farley, whether he knows it or not, is a kick-ass science fiction writer.
• Gone with the Blastwave: Think of life after Doctor Strangelove, think of Catch 22, think of Red versus Blue, in a bleak, ruined cityscape after a nuclear war, surviving soldiers get progressively more detached and absurd.
• Node: What psychotherapy will probably be like in the near future.

So it's been a while since I had a rant about Web standards. I think this is for a few reasons:

• It looked to me that we standardistas had won and this obsession of mine was getting boring. For a while , new things weren't happening fast enough in the field to keep my interest.
• I was getting demoralized with my webmaster business. For all kinds of stupid and not so stupid reasons, it wasn't making me money. I lost over 40,000 dollars over the last seven years trying to learn how to work for myself.
• Since October 2006, I've been mostly focused on my new part-time job with NGT. I've been very busy as of late.