A Catalog of Disappointments

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that combined limits on the spending of individuals regarding political donations was not constitutional.

The ruling stated that the current limits - Approximately $40,000 - on campaigns were in violation of the first amendment. Of course, the court did not touch limits on individual races, or political action committees. Therefor, you are limited in how much you can spend per race - But you can purchase into as many races as possible.

So, in theory, this sort of makes sense. It does seem arbitrary to try and limit how many races someone can contribute to, doesn't it?

But let's not kid ourselves - What portion of the population can actually, personally, spare twice the amount of money that a family of four at the poverty line makes, in a year, to donate to political candidates and organizations?

Honestly? Very few.

The role of money in politics in the united states is, frankly, abhorrent. Our supreme court, over the last few years, has consistently expressed the opinion that monetary donations, and the use of money to purchase media to espouse  a viewpoint, is in fact, constitutionally protected speech.

An Example of StackEdit in Action

And now for something completely different

Editing and Blogging directly with StackEdit

This is going to be my trial case for using Stackedit.

First thing, you need to turn off ABP and other tracker blockers to get the Synchronization with Google Drive to work. StackEdit can't create folders in Google Drive, so make sure one exists where you are trying to synch. Unfortunately, since the files are synched as Markdown, you can't apparently access the files as text documents using the Google Drive viewer. This is kind of game breaking... In theory, you can always fire up StackEdit, but it would be frankly amazebalkls if you could actually move between the Google appearance editor and Markup seamlessly. But that is, admittedly, a pipe dream.

The strength here is obviously, obviously, going to be utilizing Markdown as an expedient formatting system. you can make a number of statements about the strengths of Markdown, and make comparisons to the way that LaTeX works, although there isn't quite the same level of compilation.

Two things of note: StackEdit offers a particularly useful tool, in that there's a button in the upper right which pops open a quick reference for markdown tags. So, yey for that.

So, Yeah. Also, recall that you need to double up on your underscores or asterisks in order to produce bold text as opposed to emphasized test with only one of those markings.

---

I foresee markdown as being a fast way to include formatting while typing in real time, and also to properly format and name links without the need for a pass at a WYSIWYG editor to muck around with buttons. For Example is a link to Google Plus, which I typed inline without pausing in order to use any kind of buttons - Just a line or so of pure text with a simple way of marking what the link should look like. Images can be added in the same way, provided you have a particular spot in mind and know the URl off the top of your head.

Another fantastic feature

The ability of the ToC to manage itself, much like Google Docs, is quite welcome, although I suspect there is some way to embed these links into the document itself at the top. I would not be surprised with all of the other magic which Markdown seems capable of performing.

It would be nice if I could keep the Statistic window open, or otherwise force it to display the current wordcount somewhere visible. Then again, maybe that isn't the worst idea - Making me type to the completion of my ideas instead of agaisnt a solid wordcount target.

• Another nearly constant formatting headache
  • Nobody ever
    • Manages to
  • Get Lists
    • to Indent
    • exactly like
    • we want
      • but maybe this one will work right
    • or at least
  • be closer to
• what we imagine

• Actually, that is pretty close, once you get the finickiness of it down.

  ---

• For our next trick...

  We turn towards a common issue when dealing with E-mail, and other types of systems

  Where we expect responses to be nested

  Or at least to have the quotes managed in some reasonable way And sometimes, it needs to be tolerant Of unreasonable inline additions to a long string of E-mails

Unfortunately, it won't show anything that gets out of nested order, so we lose some information here. Ohwell!

If (this_works == true) {
    //We know that the built-in editor for code works
    return true;
    }
//So, apparently it does.

So, what other features does StackEdit let us play with, aside from simply using MarkDown in our documents adn storing them in Google Drive?

Well, I don't have Dropbox on this PC, so I can't test that.

How about publishing directly to Blogger? Because, that sounds kind of cool.

Okay, that's pretty cool, but Blogger doesn't seem to like Markdown, absed on my test. Is that a problem? Well, apparently we can synch or republish things to Blogger once we've worked on them.

As it turns out, we can also delete them after we upload them in the wrong format. Okay, so this is actually pretty cool. Let's see what it takes to force an update to keep both copies aligned...

Written with StackEdit.

An Example of StackEdit in Action

#And now for something completely different ### Editing and Blogging directly with StackEdit This is going to be my trial case for using Stackedit. First thing, you need to turn off ABP and other tracker blockers to get the Synchronization with Google Drive to work. StackEdit can't create folders in Google Drive, so make sure one exists where you are trying to synch. Unfortunately, since the files are synched as Markdown, you can't apparently access the files as text documents using the Google Drive viewer. This is kind of game breaking... In theory, you can always fire up StackEdit, but it would be frankly amazebalkls if you could actually move between the Google appearance editor and Markup seamlessly. But that is, admittedly, a pipe dream. The strength here is obviously, _obviously_, going to be utilizing Markdown as an expedient formatting system. you can make *a number of* statements about the strengths of Markdown, and make comparisons to the way that LaTeX works, although there isn't quite the same level of compilation. > Two things of note: StackEdit offers a particularly useful tool, in that there's a button in the upper right which pops open a quick reference for markdown tags. So, yey for that. So, Yeah. Also, recall that you need to double up on your underscores or asterisks in order to **produce bold text** as opposed to *emphasized test* with only one of those markings. * * * I foresee markdown as being a fast way to include formatting while typing in real time, and also to properly format and name links without the need for a pass at a WYSIWYG editor to muck around with buttons. [For Example](http://plus.google.com) is a link to Google Plus, which I typed inline without pausing in order to use any kind of buttons - Just a line or so of pure text with a simple way of marking what the link should look like. Images can be added in the same way, provided you have a particular spot in mind and know the URl off the top of your head. ### Another fantastic feature The ability of the ToC to manage itself, much like Google Docs, is quite welcome, although I suspect there is some way to embed these links into the document itself at the top. I would not be surprised with all of the other magic which Markdown seems capable of performing. It would be nice if I could keep the Statistic window open, or otherwise force it to display the current wordcount somewhere visible. Then again, maybe that isn't the worst idea - Making me type to the completion of my ideas instead of agaisnt a solid wordcount target. * Another nearly constant formatting headache * Nobody ever * Manages to * Get Lists * to Indent * exactly like * we want * but maybe this one will work right * or at least * be _closer_ to * what we imagine * Actually, that is pretty close, once you get the finickiness of it down. * * * * ### For our next trick... > We turn towards a common issue when dealing with E-mail, and other types of systems >> Where we expect responses to be nested >>> Or at least to have the quotes managed in some reasonable way >> And sometimes, it needs > to be tolerant >> Of unreasonable >> inline > additions to a long string of E-mails Unfortunately, it won't show anything that gets out of nested order, so we lose some information here. Ohwell! If (this_works == true) { //We know that the built-in editor for code works return true; } //So, apparently it does. So, what other features does StackEdit let us play with, aside from simply using MarkDown in our documents adn storing them in Google Drive? Well, I don't have Dropbox on this PC, so I can't test that. > Written with [StackEdit](http://benweet.github.io/stackedit/).

A Political Project, and Zeroing In on What Matters

I've been meaning to embark on a project of a political nature for awhile now. Specifically, in the pursuit of narrowing down exactly what it is I care about, and what I believe in, I want to create a sort of composite dump of all of the things I read, and the way i feel. I want to create a repository for the evidence which influences my views on issues, and be able to look back at where the facts I use to convince, debate, and promote come from.

To that end, the first matter is locating the issues that matter to me. Because it is the component that constantly makes me evaluate my positions, and constantly drives me to anger about the fallibility of it, I'm going to start with a list of the things I will, inappropriately, generalize across the Republican Party.

I'm going to talk about the modern Republican party leadership. I have a slew of issues with Conservatives - But in general, I respect their ideas. Conservatives and Progressives are moderating forces on the pace of progress in a society, and their interaction is important in the way that civilization involves. But I do not see the kind of people I merely disagree with on the other side of the aisle these days. I see radicalization, anti-intellectualism, personal greed, and basically, people who claim in their own words they want the government to fail being elected to government positions, and then people wondering why things don't work right.

I became politically aware during the Bush years. I watched and fumed at the things that happened. The policy mistakes, the embarrassment of America abroad, the crony capitalism. We let our guard down nationally to the threats we had created in previous decades. We fought wars with no goal in sight that drained our economy. We de-regulated our industries and laid the groundwork for bigger bubbles and the economic troubles of the late oughties.

Me and my family talked about it, and we saw it as obvious: Republicans would lose in '08, and whoever replaced them would be blamed for the economic catastrophe. Then when the effects of the Democratic policies came into effect, they would be in place to claim the benefit. I think the only thing that ruined this narrative was the outrage of the tea party and their ilk, who were reactive conservatives, who finally had someone point out how Bush, who they voted for, did almost nothing for them.

Now, we have a radicalized, reactionary Republican base which wealthy pro-business, selfish individuals who support an economy which works to make the rich richer at the cost of overall American prosperity are willing to use for their own goals. This isn't about government contracts or oil subsidies anymore - it is about restructuring America towards benefiting the wealthiest Americans while throwing just enough bones to the single issue voters and the unsettled conservative base to let them believe they will have things better.

We face real issues. Stagnant wages. Retiring Baby Boomers. Hard questions about American Security in a new century, about personal freedom, about the power and role of government in Health Care. We as a country cannot solve these problems if we are not even allowed to discuss them by a machine which deliberately promotes anti-intellectualism, poo-poohs factual information and scientific studies as 'liberally biased' and a media which only rarely calls either side on their factual inaccuracies, and often portrays cut-and-dry issues in technical and scientific communities as true debates.

We can't actually step away and talk about the responses to world issues, or even domestic issues, because we are distracted and polarized. it is no accident that Republicans foster the idea that both parties are corrupt and voting doesn't matter, that they seek to disenfranchise voters, and muddy the waters. For the modern incarnation of the Republican Party, there is a pure power advantage to disassociating reasonable people from the process. Romney found out the hard way in Massachusetts that trying to take on moderate Democrats with real working ideas about the role of government in making people's lives better is a losing proposition.

That is why, with nearly unlimited campaign funds from the wealthiest, most financially powerful Americans in the country, Republicans are waging a war on facts, deliberately and consistently dealing in bad information, disenfranchising voters in very key, very non-Republican districts, and generally making efforts at debate, analysis, and discussion take a back seat to dog-whistle single-issue politics, and a bizarre worship of a free market that does not exist when corporations can dump unlimited funds into lobbying and manipulating the electorate with their 'speech', or targeted campaign ads.

So, I am going to go on and try to figure out what it is about this modern political party that really rustles my jimmies - and seek Justification myself, in the hopes that I can stand solidly in my positions, and believe that I've considered the angles. I know that I have biases, and I will try to entertain other possibilities. There are palces where I feel there is honest intellectual debate to be had in going forward in America... But, I'm going to focus my efforts more or less on figuring out where, precisely, those talks begin, and where the bullshit we can safely talk about getting rid of are.

To that end, here is the beginning of the list:

Anti-Intellectualism,
Anti-Science agendas,
Climate Change Skepticism,
Fossil Fuel reliance and Subsidies, Energy Policy General
Anti-Choice movements
Creationism and Intelligent Design / Anti-Evolution Doctrine
cultural imperialism
(lack of) Women's rights
The Role of Government in Health Care
The role of Governments in Entitlements
Lobbying and buying legislation
Copyright and Patent Reform
Information Freedom
Marriage Equality
Firearms Rights and Responsibilities
Poverty and Welfare

Death in the Digital Age

There were no miracles the day that my uncle passed away. If anything, they had been the previous 15 years, two decades or so when he'd been given 5 to live. Cancer drugs sucked, but they'd offered years more for me to get to know my uncle.

He loved science fiction, he wrote an as yet unpublished children's novel, he loved antiques. He collected Minox cameras and 8mm Disney films. He was a chemist, who produced kits to excite kids, like me and my brother, about Science. I think a big part of why my brother is getting his degree in the field is because of my uncle.

I only realized as I walked into the hospital that, when I feared that I had not used the years with him very well, that my uncle Randy, and my aunt, had known how to value time spent together all along, after making it through those first 5 years.

To Boldly Go...

I'm not entirely sure where one goes to find interesting Open Source projects to contribute to, but more and more it's becoming where I think, perhaps fear, I must go to pick up some Software Dev chops.

On some level, I have the time - I'm an official CS major now, as of December. Most days are spent sending out job apps until I hit cover-letter-writing fatigue, then delving into time-wasters and creative projects like Roleplaying Games.

But I've also had time to try a little bit of Rails, Spring, Android and Python, learning new things and trying to come up with killer apps I could actually program. I keep bumping noses with problems that seem daunting, but I realize would be trivial with actual talented folks around to ask simple questions of.

So, while I wait for information and callbacks, I'm struggling to find full blown user groups or projects I can tinker with, just to keep me designing, developing, and learning in the pre-hiring doldrums.

Pop Culture Confession: The Game.

So, my subconscious has developed a new memetic game, tentatively called 'Pop Culture Confessional'. Here's how it works, and it works best EYE ARR ELL:

Approach your friend or significant other, and make a heartfelt confession that you have been lying to them all along, and you are actually some random/your favorite pop culture icon, first in the vaguest term possible, then hit them with the name. Express why you couldn't trust them with your secret, and then ensure them that some defining character trait will keep you together.

Again, that's...

"[Friend], I'm sorry to have lied to you, But the truth is I'm [as vague but accurate description as possible]"

"That's right, I'm [pop culture icon]"

"I couldn't tell you because [reason you could not tell them your identity]"

"But I'm sure that [myriad of ironic talents and characteristics of character] will keep us together."

And now the Canon example:

"Susan, I'm sorry to have lied to you, but the truth is I'm a sociopathic orphan genius who inadvertantly creates all his own problems and, in my denial, plays at being a captain of industry...

That's right, I'm Batman.

I couldn't tell you because I didn't want you wrapped up in the nightly crime-fighting of Gotham, nor did I want to have to lie to you as I've lied to the rest of the world, and subject you to the worst of my delusions...

... But I'm sure my square chin, keen intellect, and Billions and Billions of Dollars, will keep us together.

Supreme Commander 2 - Hardcore Games and the Downward Spiral of Mass Appeal.

The Supreme Commander 2 demo hit steam a week ahead of the actual game's release, and now people have had time to take a look.

You can go and search "Supreme Commander 2 Reactions" on Google and see the things I have, but I'll defer to my personal experience here:

Supcom 2, taken solely based on the Demo's scenarios, feels very, very wrong. There's a tantalizing edge that hints at a solid, unique gameplay experience, but it just constantly feels wrong, wrong, wrong... And, most of the concessions that I'm alienated by seem to be the sort made for those outside the devoted SupCom 1/Forged Alliances demographic.

This is mostly accomplished by a few things:

1. The Resources.
TA and Supreme Commander both utilized a realtime +/- system for their two resource types, mass and energy. You have a pol that fills up, can be expanded with certain buildings, and the costs of units is centered in a constant drain on those resources, meaning you have to balance the flow of energy and mass into your economy and then into solid units or structures.

SupCom2 has done away with this; Structures that produce resources over time remain, but they simply produce x value per so many seconds, and units have been reduced to a single cost per building order. And, these queued units price is deducted -Immediately- instead of each building project taking a rate from your economy.

To make things worse, you now have to build 'Research Facilities' which produce a third type of resource - Research Points. Which leads to the next problem.

2. The Tech Trees.



Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander both worked on a unit-based tech tree. Each level of builing unit could produce a factory, and that factory produced the next tier of builder unit, which could produce the next factory and so on. No longer is this necessary; A new panel keeps track of your resource points, and splits every tech advancement you might want into five trees (Land, Sea, Air, buildings, and ACU), each tree containing tiered benefits ranging from unlocking new units to faster veterancy gain (IE, units level up faster). So, in other words - You have to manage an abstract 'research' resource, then click through a 'talent tree' for your army, instead of the structures you build determining which forces you can deploy.

Now, speaking of structures...

3. Integrated Upgrades / No More Adjacency bonuses.
Much like the process of tech building has been stuffed into one abstract mechanic, there's no need for the sprawling, well designed spaces of a Supreme Commander base. instead of having to put point defenses in rings outside your base, turrets can be slapped onto your factories. Instead of Shield Generators popping up strategically to cover swaths of your construction, each factory must be upgraded with their own. Oh, these structures exist independently, but the game's tutorial makes it clear that the attached versions are inherently more powerful.

In addition, one of the innovations of SupCom1, Adjacency bonuses, seem to be gone. Adjacency bonuses meant that if you placed factories buttressed up against power plants or metal extractors, those structures used less metal or energy. Shield Generators against power plants, same thing. This lead to a unique sort of 'feng-shui' requirement to make efficient bases by taking advantage of adjacency. Now, the most tactical advice offered in the demo? Space your buildings out so that your units can move around in your base. And while, sure, this makes a mini game out of keeping firing lines open from your turrets to your base in three dimensions, I would rather have capable turrets ringing my perimeter than worrying about such simplicities.

4. Lastly - Experimental Units.
This was the part that made me think, What The Hell. In SupCom, Experimental units are titanic, overwhelmingly powerful military units. Titanic walkers that suck tanks into their crushing claws, or UFO-like flying aircraft carriers with main beam weapons reminiscent of ID4. But now, instead of something on the scale of Wild Wild West's spider walker, only with more Lasers, we have so-called experimentals more in like with Star Wars' AT-ATs - Big, sure, but not exactly the same sort of monolithic, world-wide theater changing units. When three of the Cybran experimentals popped out of a warp gate, and my line of battleships evaporated them in seconds, I was honestly disappointed. A single flight of Tech-1 bombers and a few salvos from basic cruisers bested the Kraken-like submarine before that without much fuss. And indeed, the amazing Tech-2 Destroyers I recall fondly from SupCom 1 who sprouted legs and walked onto the beach, were strangely weak sauce in the sequel.

In general, not to get into the graphical issues or the insanely cheesy storyline (The stockified terran empire, the UEF which was formerly morally conflicted and blinded by poor intel and vision) makes their Face-heel-turn to be bad guys in *Mission 1* for Chrissakes) SupCom2 does not feel like a proper sequel. This is another game, toying with a new sort of strategy element, that's simply looted some of the mechanics that SupCom pioneered, like the lack of a minimap and zooming out to the theatre-wide conflict. (I also found that the tiny warzones in the first few missions had arbitrarily limiting camera angles that felt more frustrating than the simply ever expanding field of battle in the original game.)

I don't see why this game had to be simplified and toned down in so many ways, for the benefit of those not familiar with the nuances of the original heritage. It's a disservice to the returning fans who would like to have more of the deep RTS experience SupCom1 originally offered.

My First Assembly Code.

Woot. Finally done, and all commented up. It's all:

# assembly commentary // Java commentary.

The java isn't quite good enough to work if you pulled it out of the comments, but, C'est la vie.

Hawai'i!!one!!eleven!

So, the first ful day of vacation. I at least have a reliable spot to hop online, although I only plan on making the pilgrimage once per day. I was expecting some people from various online spots to send some E-mails to alt accounts I created, but neither SL'ers or FA users (the few who've prolly seen my site) have sent me much. But I don't mind.

I also managed to keep up on my gaming forums. Being on vacation has shown me that really, I don't need to check these constantly. Unlike my Email they don't really build up as much. I only check them so I can respond quickly, which doesn't matter while I'm on vacation. The only think that sucks about Kona, on the Big Island... is that my arm keeps *pry!* Sticking to the table because of the humidity. Blegh!

http://islandlavajavakona.com/ <- the people I have to thank for my connection