One small step for man, one giant leap for trekkies

(The Continuing Crisis:  Still don't have Internet at home.  No idea when I will at this point.  Been too busy at work calibrating German aerial cameras)

There are a lot of awesome and cool things out there- but 3D movies, are not one of them.  I may have annoyed a few of you by saying that, but come now.  Even you must admit that 3D glasses are basically suck that you put over your eyes.  Also, there is the fact that 3D animators can't really go all out with the cool 3D effect, because then they'll give most of the audience migraines. This is a real thing and happens because your brain and eyes suck.

Things that are awesome and cool: Rainbow Dash

Not to mention, in scientific studies, most people do not give a rats ass about 3D.

Personally, I think the entire 3D movie thing is a letdown and generally not worth the price of the ticket.  Which is sad, because I do watch movies just for the CGI effects.  It's the only good reason to see Transformers 2, after all.  But, because of the limitations of how our eyes work, the illusion of 3D isn't a good viewing medium, and in its current state never, ever will be.

So, clearly, science has decided that we need to scrap this crap and take a note from Star Wars.  Fuck fake 3D- lets do real 3D by screwing around with lasers and microscopic mirrors to create real holograms.

not pictured- headaches, 3D glasses, or any of that stupidity.

Now, this technology isn't out on the market yet, but the people behind it want to do a proof-of-concept model that does real holographic 3D in high-freaking-definition by mid-2012.  Also known as, before the world ends.

Also known as- HOLY UNICORN FARTS THAT IS THIS SUMMER.

And don't think we'll have technology adoption problems- the BBC's R&D department is already working on a 3D holographic camera and smart people at MIT say they're getting damn close to a holographic TV camera using everyone's favorite controller for everything except video games- Microsoft's Kenect.

How close?  Try 15 fps close.  Or in the words of David Bowie: They're half way there.

Or they'll send me back to magic kindergarden...

First things first, sorry about yesterday.  The Internet still doesn't work at my house because I have made abosultly no move to try and fix it.  I blame the fact that my uncle gave me ALL THE BOOKS I EVER WANTED for Christmas, and I'm basically a bookoholic.  There is no middle ground for me, just like there is no "drinking for taste" for the drunk.

One sip/sentence, and we're fucked up beyond all reason.

George R.R. Martin is ruining my life

So, I'm crouching here, in my neighbor's fucking bushes with my netbook and my trusty 8 gb flash drive, hacking his WPA2 protected password to get on his wifi, and because I don't want to get caught in the act (not that he knows how, but one can never be to careful...) I'm also covering my tracks by pretending to be one of his own computers.  It's less tricky than it sounds, to be honest.

Because the Starks would love the current weather, and I don't have time to actually research a cool post, I'm going to go over the much easier task of hacking a WEP password using some cool programs anyone can download.

I give you power tonight.  Tonight you become men.

If reading isn't your thing, check the video version out.

To start, your hardware sucks and needs upgrading.  You'll need a wireless adapter that can inject packets, and the one that comes with your computer can't do that, Dave.  They're super cheap (some dude is selling his favorite brand of air-crack router for $12 on e-bay).  I recommend the Alfa AWUS036H, but There are tons of options out there.

Next, you'll need to boot to backtrack- which is a version of the Linux operating system.  You can create a boot CD, or install it on a flash drive, so you can use it without needing to isntall it on your system.Check here for how to do this, I'm getting really damn cold and don't feel like going into it.  Be warned, backtrack is based in UNIX, so you'll need to put your big boy pants on and handle a real operating system.

Now, after you boot into backtrack, open up the provided comand prompt, Konsole, and start typing in commands.  This is known as the fun part.  It's a 10 step process, so be warned- this shit is a bit advanced.  I have faith in none of you being retarded, however.  All in all, the thing you need most is patence.  And don't suck at typing.
To start, you'll want to type: airmon-ng

This should return a list of network interfaces.  Pick the shiny new you you just bought to break into people's wireless- and keep track of the name.  You'll want to use the name in palce of the (interface) tags for these next few lines:

airmon-ng stop (interface)
ifconfig (interface) down
macchanger --mac 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)
airmon-ng start (interface)

Conrats!  You now look like you are a new computer on the interface with the MAC address of 00:11:22:33:44:55.  MAC addresses are unique addresses given to each computer when they're manufactured.  They're hardware enforced, so you can't change yours after you get your PC, but you can pretend you have a different one (which is what you're doing now).

Time to pick a victim.  The next command is:
airodump-ng (interface)

This will return a list of the wireless networks around you.  Figure out which one you want to hack, then type:

airodump-ng -c (channel) -w (file name) --bssid (bssid) (interface)

(channel) is your network's channel, (file name) is something descriptive you can remember later, (bssid) is the BSSID of the network you want to hack and (interface) is the same as always.

Leave the result you get from that command be.  Open a new window and type:
aireplay-ng -1 0 -a (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 -e (essid) (interface)

The new tag (essid) is the SSID of the network you want to crack.  This also should have been visible when you went hunting for a victim a few steps back.  What you've done, in a nutshell, is let yourself snoop on the network.  Now its time to generate a ton of traffic to create a crack to get you in for real.  Next step, type:
aireplay-ng -3 -b (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)

Still with me? That's fantastic! What we've done here is generate extra router traffic to speed up the crack.  However, even with the extra traffic, this still takes about one forever.  Leave.  Get a sandwitch.  Go read a book.  You'll want to wait until #Data goes over 10k.  After that happens, open a third konsole window and type the last command:
aircrack-ng -b (bssid) (file name-01.cap)

If the coding gods are with you, you'll get a KEY FOUND message (if not, you'll need to collect more data.  Make another sandwitch or play Minecraft or something).   The WEP key will appear next to the KEY FOUND, just enter it in without the colons and congratulate yourself, you just broke into a wireless network.

DISCLAMER: Stealing and breaking and entering are bad.  My neighbor and I are very good friends, I wouldn't be breaking into his wireless if I wasn't sure he wouldn't really mind.   This is a handy trick if you ever forget your WEP key and don't want to have to reset everything to get it (maybe you share a network with other people and bringing the whole thing down would be very bad).

I'm off to bed... happy hacking!

No Post Today

My internet connection is on the fritz.  I'm writing this from my Windows Phone knockoff, which should tell you that I do have the cheapest "smart" phone on the market.  And by smart I mean dumb fuck retarded.

I apologize- I'll get the internet working tomorrow and get a post up then.  I'm pretty sure I can do this, I have a patented method where I yell at my ISP until I get a real software engineer on the line and then we talk shop/Dijkstra's Algorithm/Star Wars for an hour while my problem gets fixed.

I think it's my router that's playing hard to get at the moment, to be totally honest... anyway.  Post tomorrow, Internet being a fickle bitch tonight.

Birds: Only Getting Smarter

We generally seem to understand which species will probably rise up to murder us.   Not that there are that many- as a race, humans are pretty damn good at killing the fuck out of Nature.  And to be honest, nine times out of ten, mother nature probably deserves it.  Because mother nature is a bit of a dick.

I sorta blame Mother Nature for The Happening.   Just a little bit.

I mean, you've got to keep tabs on the primates, because even though we evolved from them, you never know when they might get funny and decide to try evolution again.   You know, like a family that randomly decides to have a second child after the first is throwing up on them.

And then you got termites, which are terrifying because they build 30-foot tall mega cities, complete with vents for crude AC.  And the various horrors that live under the ocean, that if they were to gain any sort of higher brain function, would take over the Earth in a matter of seconds.

This is not an Elder God.  It actually exists, right now.

However, if you ask me, Hitchcock was on to something with The Birds.

It turns out that not only can crows recognize and remember human faces (so, if you ever cheat a crow out of a bet, that crow knows its you, and will probably peck your eyes out), but they also can use metatools (tools meant to manipulate other tools) also known as simple machines.

This puts crows on the level of humans, primates and elephants in cognitive tool use.  Also known as FUCK, THE BIRD THAT KNOWS MY FACE CAN FIGURE OUT A SPEAR.

You might think that this was an isolated development, that one crow just got really damn lucky a few times. Well, your goddamn wrong because crows can learn from each other.  So, that fucking crow that know and remembers your face, that knows how a spear works has already told all its friends.  And now they're all out to get you.

The crow, right before they start a new sky empire and destroy humanity.

Copyright laws and IPs- finally comming around to haunt the Internet

I do believe it was Shakespeare who first uttered the legendary "This shit writes itself" quote, but it could have been Mark Twain.

Because both writers are so damn similar and everything.  I was worried this was going to be the first day I would miss my posting schedule without a forwarding or at least  an apology.  It's 9:23 right now my time, I've been in a pair of restricted labs all day and I won't lie, writing up something for the blog slipped my mind.

This is one of the labs I work in.  You may now place bets on what I do.

I could have tried to pirate the post.  Steal someone else's idea, hope to the flying spaghetti monster that they actually did decent research and just copy and paste.  It would be a little fitting, to be honest.  Considering how much piracy and file sharing goes on the Internet these days, a stolen blog post would be really funny in a not-funny-at-all hipsterish way.

But I hear hipsters don't like mathematics (the language that describes the universe) because it's too mainstream (the entire universe digs it), so they can go screw themselves as far as I'm concerned.  Also, I hear hipsters find sex to mainstream, so be prepared to have a "physical-love-conjuncture" instead.  Because that's so romantic.

Yeah, a nerd is calling out a hispter for sucking at romance.  It may not get any more ironic... aw, shit.

Anyway, I didn't have to go hipsterfy myself because I got more lucky than the Lucky Charms mascot, who isn't lucky that he still has his cereal- he has magic for that- but is incredibly lucky those kids haven't murdered the hell out of him yet.  Everyone knows a young child will do what it takes for marshmallows.  Whatever. It. Takes.

Now that I look at a box, Lucky's lucky his cocaine high hasn't ended yet

So, away from making fun of cereal box mascots and back to tech.  It turns out that the RIAA pirates the living fuck out of TV shows.  How many many TV shows?  Try something along the lines of nine million dollars worth of TV shows.

Daaaaaamn.  That takes dedication.  Like, wow.  You have to be intentionally creating things just to steal them to steal that much.  Oh wait- it was full seasons of just Dexter?  Just that one show?  That was worth nine million dollars?

Now, this is mildly unfair to RIAA- because to get to nine million, we have to play by their own outrageous rules.  In order for one to that high, you simply use the RIAA guidelines that the shareholders can sue for $150,000 dollars an episode, or maybe more, depending on how you look at the phrase "copyrighted works".  Is each word copyrighted?  Each line?  How about the opening theme, is that an additional one hundred and fifty thousand dollars?  Or any original bit of music from the sound track?

Considering the recent debacle with the Megaupload song and Universal, a lot of old copyright protection techniques just seem retarded in this day and age.

Also, Youtube (and by extension, Google) doesn't have a soul or a lick of backbone, as apparently Universal has a contract with Youtube that lets them use the content management system to take down videos that have nothing to do with copyright infringement.

Meanwhile, people who fight for a traditional implementation of copyright law are often found the biggest perpetrators of file sharing- movie studios are often caught pirating their own movies.

The whole damn thing is sorta ironic- maybe the hipsters and I have more in common than I like.

Google vs Theoretical Quantum Physics, round one...

I made a promise to myself when I stared this blog.  Nothing serious, it wasn't like I hooked my little fingers together and made a pinkie promise with myself.

Also, if there is ever a promise you never, ever back out of, it's a pinkie promise.  That is the most legit kind of promise out there.  You keep them, even if you're dying because a rock from space hit you in the spleen and you're dying from complications due to infection.  You keep that damn pinkie promise to pick up your little sister from soccer practice and you do it with a smile.

Back on subject, I promised I wouldn't do quantum physics- namely, I wouldn't do posts on quantum entanglement, or quantum teleportation.  For a few reasons, the first being that it is not nearly as cool as it sounds, and two, because it's been talked about to death.  Any and all awesome that it once contained has been bled out slow news day reporters (who are probably vampires in secret, have you seen how pale they look?) and people getting confused and thinking that it has anything to do with the LHC, or more commonly known as the black hole machine.

Point: It does sorta look like an entry portal for Cuthulu

But, I break all my (non-pinkie related) promises, so here is a very quick and dirty primer on quantum entanglement, so we can get to the good stuff.  Quantum entanglement is the synching up of electrons across how ever far they damn please.  After scientists have forced a pair of electrons to synch up, whatever they do to one electron is done to the other.  This is commonly tested with electron "spin".

Note: Spin isn't how the electron spins.  See why I didn't want to do a post on this?  Friggin' theoretical physicists can't name things for shit.  It's actually how the plar-- you don't need to know any of this to get it later.  Just remember that when scientists change the "spin" on one electron, the other one changes too.  Instantaneously.  No distance lag, no time lag.

Yeah, it really does make absolutely no goddamn sense.

Here is some artist's picture representation of it.  Note how this also makes no goddamn sense

"Spin" is a handy property because it only has two values.  We'll call those values 0 and 1.  You know what else uses 0's and 1's in everything it does?  Its a marvel of the modern world, ubiquitous on all continents including Antarctica.  Your using it right now, and it isn't an ingredient in jello roofies.

It's your computer- which does all the awesome things it does based on binary, which is a way to count that only uses 0 and 1.  See where I'm going yet?  If we were to build a computer out of quantum entanglement, we could get data to go even faster than it already does.  We're vaguely starting to see the limits of using electricity (which flows at the speed of light).  Quantum entanglement goes even faster than that.

Pictured: Superman being slower than quantum entanglement.  Because we can see him.

Why does any of this matter?  Because some guys recently figured out how to copy Google's search algorithm using quantum entanglement.  As you know, that algorithm was the reason why Google became the all-Father of the Internet, the great god that looms over us all and dispenses us with information and silly search histories if we ask nicely.  So, when (because who are we kidding if.  These are scientists we're talking about, they're damn crazy enough to get it working) the quantum net comes online, we'll already have the greatest search algorithm in place to view it.

And they're also Spanish.  You heard it here first- Spain is totally going to ransom off the new quantum net in a desperate bid to become a relevant country again.

Today's post is about boobs

I don't have a lot of time to write today.

It's the first week of break away from finals (or Fuck I Never Actually Learned Shit for those unfamiliar with the acronym), and as such, I'm writing this at a party.  Because I'm on break damn it, and I deserve time off.  So, I had to kinda go for some low hanging fruit for blog inspiration, as I didn't have (read as: spend) a lot of time reseraching this post.

I'm coming in a close second to the "Fucks I don't give" category

So, lets talk about something I know your interested in: Boobs.

Or rather how your perspective on boobs and the female flesh they're attached to.  It turns out that the kind of porn you're into is an indicator of how poor you are.

Furries and other people into weird shit are exempt:
1) because I don't want to loose my faith in humanity right now
2) because I'm sure there is a subset to the Rules of the Internet somewhere that says that whenever you try to catagorize all the fetishes, you get another one.

I'd post a rule-34 related picture and make that joke because I'm lame today, but I want to keep the blog sort of kid friendly.  If the parents of said kids don't mind my incessant swearing and racist/sexist references.

Back to boobs.

Proving that scientists can't get close to women outside of labs, some scientists did a study on Playboy magazines.  What they found out was that during tough economic times, men (or lesbians) tend to prefer Playboy bunnies with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios and smaller body mass indexes.  Another study (at this point, study sorta seems to need to be in quotes) found that that men also prefered older and heavier bunnies.

So, to recap- when you have almost no money, you prefer your porn to be of the more cough, realistic, cough verity.  Why?  Well, in order to pretend they were still actually doing research, the scientists got drunk after their days of going over Playboy magazines and came up with the Enviromental Security Hypothesis.

Or rather, its the scientists saying that men prefer women better at reproduction (your standard model type) during good economic times and prefer women better at production (this adjusted model type) during rough economic times.

So, if your wondering why that mole suddenly seems to turn you on, its because you just got laid off.
heh. laid.

Meanwhile, in Biology...

I freely admit, this blog is pretty focused on only one brand of science- Computer Science.  This is clearly because computer science is just better than all the other sciences.  Obviously.

And not at all because computer science is what I do every day.  Of course not.  That'd just be silly.

However, although I have looked into artifical life before, I don't give the other branches of science their dues.  And for this, I apologize.  Not that science needs it- scientists are like Mother Nature's little nerdy disciples.  We worship her in the form of esoteric equations and get very, very excited when we think we've got a little tiny bit of her figured out.

But spiders are so cool with their poison fangs and evolution-honed body meant for killing things.  I don't get why other people are scared of them at all.

Scientists are special people.  We walk the fine line between "crazy" and "bat-shit insane" and at some point decided to use our innate lunacy for the forces of good and try to understand this universe we live in, rather than going postal on a city block.

The fact that life, the universe, and everything is infinitely complex and will probably never be fully understood by human minds only makes us want to try harder, because APPLES, DAMNIT.

Back to biology.  Remember that wooly mammoth thigh bone that paleontologists found back in august?  Well, it turns out that there was perfectly persevered bone marrow in there.  You know what bone marrow contains?
I'll give you one guess- the religious right goes absolutely ballistic whenever you mention it.

Occupy Wall Street?

Pretty close, actually, but not quite what I was going for.  Bone marrow contains stem cells, which are the types of cells that can be grown into any other cells.  But most importantly, these cells have been so well preserved that we can see their nuclei.

Which means, biologists are going to try to clone it.  They think that if they replace an elephant's egg cell's nucleus with one of the ones from the woolly mammoth fossil, we can get a living, breathing woolly mammoth.

What kind of relevant research data will this provide?  Badass, that's what!  Have you seen Jurassic Park?  For the first time ever, it's not just sorta, kinda like that.  This is exactly like that, except with ancient elephants instead of dinosaurs.  And the biologists think they can get it in just five years.

You're getting a five year time table in which people are going to bring something back from extinction that has been dead for the entire span of recorded human history.  How is this not the greatest thing you've heard all day, exactly?

This, walking the Earth again.  Balls yes.

Now, I know what your thinking.  "But, Relimited, how can I get in on the inevitable high stakes gambling that's bound to occur as people bet on which country will have the mammoth in a zoo first?"

Never fear, I got your back, you can place your bets here.  Also, you can bet on when the mammoth will actually be cloned, playing the odds against the scientists' predictions.  And yes, I plan on getting one after their domesticated and riding to work on its back.

Like that shitty relative you have who sleeps in the garage, guess what's back?

November is over!  Yay!

We are now in the much better month of December, where people murder each other for a chance to act like they saved a metric shit ton of money on gifts they pretend to have bought for other people.

This is also known as my favorite month of the year.  But even more importantly, the blog is BACK.  IN.  ACTION.  Now that I'm not writing that pesky novel thing for November, we can go back to talking about how the robots are almost assured to take over humanity in our life times. It's cool.

Speaking of the novel, it isn't actually hosted in it's entirety here.  I don't know if I plan on uploading the finished (ish) manuscript.  After seeking the wise council of people who can actually write,  I've decided to sit on it for a few months before I start edit work.  I'll keep you guys posted n' stuff.

So... what to post, what to post?  Oh, hell if I know or actually plan this shit out.  Lets see what the all-father Google has to say about, um, midgets?

Nothing on the Randy Newman classic, "Short People Got No Reason To Live"?  Google, I am disappoint.

Ok, never fucking mind.

Here's something awesome- Intel recently unveiled their new teraflop chip, which if you don't know, is goddamn fast.  Flops stand for floating point operations per second, so that's 1000000000000 operations every second.  For context, it takes me about 15 minutes to do a floating point calculation by hand, and most hardcore gaming gear can't really push a kiloflop, which is only 1000 operations every second.

Now, before you go rushing to go try and attach the new chip to your rig (or go sell some children into slavery to afford one) do note that this isn't a CPU.  It's a secondary processor, built for its ability to do scientific calculations.  Getting those very high flop numbers requires a lot of optimization.  You'd actually get shitter performance trying to run a standard OS on it.

Or even use it as a GPU.  Don't get any crazy ideas.  Still, the fact that the chip exists is goddamn awesome.  So far, it looks like we're nowhere even close to slowing down Moore's Law.  Which, again, for those playing at home, is the theory that computational power doubles every year.  Which means by 2013, computers will by 16 times more powerful than my laptop, and by 2015, the robots will learn how to use human fear as high octane fuel.

No word on how soon it'll be before people actually go into the information grid, Tron-style though.

As  a computer scientist, this picture terrifies me on many, many levels

I got 99 problems, but a time controlling wizard isn't one

Alternate Title: Temp Hiatus

I know, I know.  I said I'd do both NaNoWriMo updates and blog posts.  This is me saying that won't continue.

I lie.  It happens.  I don't regret anything.

Turns out I had another big project to do in November- I'll be presenting research at a local conference for that sort of thing.  I'd invite you guys, but its all mainly about math.  I'm pretty sure the boredom alone would cause you to rip your own spinal columns in protest.

Actually, if you do that, I will be all kinds of impressed.  Bet the 99% can't do that.

On top of that, I sorta procrastinated on two big coding assignments for my computer science classes here at school.  I have to code what is essentially twitter, and what is essentially dropbox.  Turns out both pieces of software are rather tricky to mimic.  Even writing the cheap Chinese bootleg edition is becoming more and more of a challenge.  And there are only 24 hours in a day, and I still have NaNoWriMo, math students, my other classes and the pale scrapes of human to human contact I call a social life to attend to.

Things may clear up after next week- so either expect regular posting then, or at the beginning of December.  Until then, the NaNoWriMo page will still be updated on a near-daily basis, so check back for the latest chapter in my epic fantasy.

This is not me giving up on the blog, hell no. I've got enough websites I want to do posts on to fill an entire favorites list of the technologically retarded, bizarre and wonderful.  And I do plan on telling you about all of it.

Coffee: even more amazing when you fudge data

I'm a big fan of caffeine  Huge fan.  Hell, I might be caffeine's biggest fan.  Yes, I know its an addictive drug, and yes, I'm probably addicted to it.

Doesn't everyone drink 24oz or so of coffee in the morning?  No?  huh.

I did have a lot of factors working against me, though.  I'm a computer science student after all- it would be weird if I didn't consume caffeine and cold pizza in massive, near lethal amounts.  Those are the two great things that fuel good code, after all.

For high octane code fuel, add nicotine and a touch of booze

At any rate, going a day without coffee to me is almost an alien concept.  I still do it every once and a while, but all in all, its something I generally avoid.  So, you can imagine how I felt when I found a study that claimed coffee is an antidepressant.... in women.  At first, I felt elated (COFFEE IS GOOD FOR MEEEEE) then cheated (only if I had a vagina) then curious (why does having a vagina make coffee good for you?)

I know, men and women are different and not all chemical reactions work the same on them.  I'm not retarded, but it did seem kinda odd that caffeine, a drug that works on several chemical signals your body uses to figure out if it wants to sleep or not, would work differently across genders.  Everyone gets tired, after all, and generally at the same rate.

Well, aside from Batman.  The Dark Night never sleeps

Turns out, sadly, that some people just suck at science.  Someone, who wasn't a equal opportunity hire from the media, took a long hard look at the paper.  First, all the women in question were nurses.  Which, unless I am far mistaken about the other gender, isn't actually a job that most women hold.  So, to correlate your findings with nurses across all women means you probably need to go meet some real women.

The main problem, however, is that the depression correlation isn't the only one the researches found... they found a whole lot of correlations between nurses habits and the amount of coffee they drunk.  The most hilarious one being that heavy coffee drinkers are less likely to attend church.

So, clearly, coffee prevents religion.  Which might explain why I will curse at any higher power I can think off when I'm pulling an all nighter at 3am.

And some of us should have our Internet taken away

First things first, look up there.

See that shiny new awesome page link up there?  That's where the novel will be posted.  I'll just tack on more and more paragraphs as I go, and by the end of it, I should have a text file so large that Blogger better give me a complaint e-mail.

And I think that wraps up today's post.  Go check out the NaNoWriMo stuff.  Its awesome.  Ta da!  Done!

What do you mean you want a normal post?  What the hell do you think I am, a attention whore who only writes a blog because he prays that the Internet will somehow magically find it and make him famous for 3 seconds?

Well, that is all true, but that... oh.  Yeah, I guess I should keep this going if I want to keep what readership I have.  So, what shall I rant about today?  hmm...  people doing strange things?  nah.  Robots?  Nah.  Oh, I know, I'll do both!  Lets look at the Internet.

The Internet: Strange People, Robots and Porn

As most of you probably know, the Internet is full of crazy people spouting off crazy things.  Most of the time its all pretty harmless, usually just passes about your mother's colorful life, references to that proverbial whore "she" or some of the best insults you've ever heard.

However, every once and a while, crazy decides to up its game.  Take it to the next level of "what-the-fuck-are-you-serious-right-now".  This time the retarded has inflicted a particular Judi McLeod, as she has decided to rant and rave about something very minor.  It would seem that on November 9th, the FCC is going to perform a nationwide test of the EAS (Emergency Alert System).

It'll last for about 3 minutes, in which, apparently. will cause motorists to spontaneously crash as they check their radios.  Because... people still listen use their radios?   Also, this is clearly a government plan because of the fact that when you look at the date the way the Europeans do, it looks like 9/11!  HOLY SHIT.  STOP THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESSES.  Oh wait, the FCC is apparently doing that for 3 whole minutes.  Which, clearly, will cause everyone to die!

Also, this lady is tragically misinformed about how the Internet is privately owned, and therefore not regulated by the FCC and can't be shut down for an EAS test.  But you know, deducing that would require the use of sense and sanity which this woman clearly lacks.

To be fair, most of the denizens of the Internet also lack those things

However, if you want to really dive into crazy, try the comments section.  That'll fill your crazy person quota for months.  And hopefully, most of those people are just being assholes for the sake of being an asshole and  not being held accountable for it.  Still, even one of those people has enough crazy to fill a small town in a Steven King novel.

It's like I don't even know you anymore, Internet

I spend a lot of time on the Internet.  That might be an understatement.   It may be more telling to say the only block of time I'm totally disconnected from the net is when I sleep, and I haven't done that in ages.

Outside of sleep and isolated vacations/family functions, you can assume that I'm on the Internet somehow, somewhere.  Hell, I'm writing this blog post in class at the moment.

Aside: Teachers are sorta like lions.  Look 'em right in the eye, show that you won't take their shit and they won't give you any problems.

So, clearly, I pay attention to what's going on in the web.  Not only from the computer science-y side of things (the IEEE people and the WWC consortium), but also from an international law perspective (the copyright protection treaties that flare up every once and a while like a particularly stubborn and noticeable strain of herpes).

Also, from a subculture perspective.  I make a monthly pilgrimage to 4chan.  Afterward, I cry for 15 minutes over a large tub of ice cream, take a half hour shower and spend the rest of the day drinking away my sorrows at a dive bar.

Dealing with 4chan has all the emotional pain of a breakup

Oh, and from a geographic perspective.  I'm still convinced that rule 34's servers are in Atlantis, as any real government would purge the horrible with chemically assisted fire.  So far, all of my attempts to use Traceroute to find the servers have ended with my computer committing ritual suicide after leaving a note that just reads, "Why?"

All in all, the Internet is like a second home for me.  It has become an old friend- one that can trawl the 5 million terrabytes of information distributed around the world and find me the perfect picture of a pinball game that is buried in the code of Microsoft Word '97.

And here you thought only video games had Easter Eggs

So, it came as a bit of a surprise recently when I found out that the Internet is changing.  Or namely, for those that don't want to actually click on links, social networking traffic has eclipsed porn traffic on the web.  Not counting search engines, porn used to be the most common destination of all Internet traffic.

It was depressing that humanity had the greatest information network ever made and used to find boobs, but it seemed fitting somehow.  The fact that we used the Internet for porn showed our flawed nature, that no matter what we think, we're all just animals underneath and are subject to the same pressures, instincts and impulses that all animals deal with.

Now apparently we use it to make friends and connect with our peers around the world, which sounds disgustingly noble, mature and adult.  Eww.

Also, if you haven't yet, do give me feedback about my last post.  Your words do matter because I have no personal honor and will go with whatever has the most support.

Also, if anyone has trawled the blog recently, you may notice that an image is missing from this  old post.  It would seem Amazon does not like it when you hotlink a picture of an easy bake oven.  If I update the post and remove/change the image, it'll republish as my front page post, which isn't exactly helpful.  I do plan on fixing it... soon.

November is just around the corner....

Yay November!  That fantastic month when any and all summer cheer is over, the thrill of starting fall has closed and the only thing we have to look forward to is that awkward holiday when we over eat with relatives we don't like.

Seriously, November kinda sucks.  By this point, students are well into the grind at school, people who work in windowless cubicles are now going entire days without any real sunlight, and aspiring writers are trying to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.

Wait, what?

For those of you who don't know, Nation Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) is November.  I'll be participating again this year.  So, between the 16 credit hour course load, the 10 hour a week part time research job, practicing for the wind ensemble I'm a part of, tutoring math, and providing home cooked meals to my fellow broke-ass students, trying to get 1,600 (plus some spare change) coherent words a day written makes me really mad at the Chinese physicists that have proven you can't go faster than the speed of light, thus ruining my current plan for inventing time travel.

Way to go, China.  Always ruining everything, aren't you.*

To sum up my emotional state in a picture:

Its OK, Twilight Sparkle.  At least you're still classy enough to keep using a glass.

 It will be a bit hard to find the time to try to write any new content for the blog.  But, I don't want to leave you, my dear reader(s) hanging.  Thus, I have decided to unveil a glorious new plan for the month of November:

I will post segments of the novel as I write it here in its own section for November and resume normal posting when I'm done with this affront to English grammar.  The NaNoWriMo section will be updated daily, not only so you can see what its like to mangle a language as it happens, but it will also keep me from quitting like a pansy.


However, that being said, I exist to please.  If there is a motion to continue with the normal posting schedule, I have a pretty kickin' backlog.   Yep.  Nice big backlog.  It's massive.  Right over here.  Somewhere.


I should stop telling blatant lies.  


I really do think I can keep both going, however.  And, if worse comes to worse, the human body can survive for 11 days without sleep. Should be pretty good.


All in all, for one month only, things are going to get a little weird.  Happy November!


*I was just kidding, of course.  You're awesome China.  Please don't hack my blog

The idols in my life are dropping like flies...

So, most of you know that Steve Jobs is dead.  If this is news to you and you're sitting in stunned silence, welcome back from having your body preserved!  We've managed to revive you from your basically dead frozen state.  Please move along, Walt Disney is next.

But no one tell him about the Jews.

Anyway, yes, Jobs is dead.  And yes, its is rather sad.  But, as any real computer science student will tell you, Jobs' success was built on the innovations of the people who came before him.  What we really remember Jobs for isn't that he wrote any groundbreaking new software in CS-- he was a marketing and application genius.  He took what was already around and managed to package it in a way that was cool.

In a nutshell, Jobs would have been nothing if it was for people like Dennis Ritchie.  Who, unfortunately, has also recently passed away.  I've taken it upon myself to make sure that all of you give a passing fuck.

Ritchie wrote this book- it is more holy than the Bible.  And more practical.

You see, Jobs spent most of his life working on one platform: the programming language C.  Everything Apple has ever done has been based on the operating system Unix.  And as you probably figured out by now, Unix was written exclusively in C.  When Jobs left Apple for a while, guess what most of his work was in?  Writing really bad additions (that no one really uses anymore) to the C programming language.

And guess who wrote C?  Ritchie.  Even better, guess who helped write the Unix operating system?  Ritchie.  Even Ken Thompson, Unix's other main author, gets more press than Ritchie, but that might be because Ken's beard is so intense, it has probably achieved sentience by this point.

Its the source of all his powers.

In fact, C is even more awesome than you realize.  Almost any operating system written these days is written in C.  Windows 7?  C.  Linux?  C.  A bunch of other OS's you've never heard of?  C.  If you have half a brain, you've got to have realized something by this point:

This man revolutionized computer science.  Any modern day computer genius you know of- Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, that guy that "knows a lot about computers" that keeps fixing yours when you get a porn virus- all of them have been working on top of the shoulders of pretty much one man: Dennis Ritchie.  If you use computers in any way shape or form, even just to turn the damn thing on, you're profiting from the work of Dennis Ritchie.

I have a shrine to the man at home.  I'll be sacrificing a lamb tonight for his safe passage in the afterlife.  You better give at least a slight damn.

Godspeed great one.  We in computer science will ever remember you.

Board Games: Serious Business

Everyone has there own value system.  I get that- we all find different things important.  For example, if I were to start talked about mathematical algorithm analysis and optimization, most of you would either stab me in the throat to make the words stop coming, or offer me your wallet in an attempt to bribe me to shut up.

In fact, this is my primary source of income.  I've gotten very good at dodging knife thrusts to the throat.

There is, however, some things we all take way to seriously.  Things that always start out as a night of family fun and end up with doors slammed, kids crying and spouses threatening divorce.  In fact, when they made a video game based on these things, it became the quickest way to turn your friends into your enemies.  Mario Party, I'm looking at you.

Kart racing takes a very close second.

Board Games.  Maybe it stems from the fact that we all have that memory of having a Candyland victory robbed from us by getting that godforsaken Plumpy card right as we're about to win, or maybe it stems later, when you can't get your first whore of a peg on the game field in Sorry for ten turns because the dice refuse to grant you a 6.

No matter what the source, everyone always takes board games very seriously.  Its the inverse of bowling- in bowling, everything is hardcore until you get that first gutter ball-- then the shame breaks your resolve and you stop caring about the game.  With board games, everything starts out lighthearted and fun, then things slowly grow more and more serious until death threats become a common place.

The concept of Holy War does apply to friends/roommates/family over Chutes and Ladders

These games get so intense, that the freakin' British royal family is not allowed to play Monopoly because it "gets to vicious".  These are people that have had a centuries of breeding to make them diplomatic and restrained, and they can't even handle Monopoly.

Think you're better than them?  I'd be careful if I were you- people have been murdered over Monopoly (with the added benefit of the killers trying to make the corpse looked like it was raped), Chess (to be fair, the murderer was trying to get to death row- probably over the fact he lost a chess match), Checkers (although the murderer claims the victim accidentally stabbed himself to death with a shank), Dominoes (the killer actually hid out in an amusement park called "Joyland" after the incident), and Dice (where someone was killed over a six dollar gambling debt).

Oh, almost forgot about Yahtzee, where a mother was killed by her son for simply suggesting they play the game together.

Thank Christ she didn't suggest Risk, they would have went postal on the whole city block.

You know what the best part about all of this is?  I am making exactly none of it up.  Listen up, Jack Thompson, I think you're going after the wrong guy.  I'm a bit more concerned about board games than video games at this point.

Robots- still getting smarter and still want to kill us (part 3)

Is... is this connection safe?  I've had to keep moving- I think they're on to me.

They keep sending me all kinds of threatening letters and warnings.  I'm worried now I should have listened to the warnings after they burned Chuck's house to the ground.  I didn't at the time because it was in 1337-speak and ended by calling me a "faggot turd waffle" and implied the sender had done my mom.

I thought some forumite had managed to figure out how to use normal mail, which was scary enough.  But I was wrong.  Oh so wrong.

The robots know I'm telling you about what they're capable of.  They're still pretty disorganized, but they're starting to do terrifying things.  Things like learning from their mistakes and being able to truly comprehend language.  I don't know how much longer I have, but until they pry my Internet connection from my cold, dead hands, I'll keep reporting.

I'm stickin' it to the man- if the man was made of titanium and and called me an organic meatbag

First things first- AI's can read now.  I know what you're thinking- yes, I've been on cleverbot.  Cleverbot doesn't actually read- it has no actual clue as to the content of the text it pours out.  It just selects chunks of text based on anything anyone has ever said to it.

That's why it has that neat little disclaimer on the bottom, and I quote:
"PLEASE NOTE: Cleverbot learns from real people - things it says may seem inappropriate - use with discretion, and at YOUR OWN RISK".

Cleverbot isn't actually learning anything- it just mimics replies and questions that have been sent to it from real people.  And because this is the Internet, you know someone has tried to have sext it, hence our disclaimer.  No, I'm talking about honest to goodness reading comprehension and information retention.  Not only that, but also using said information to then solve an abstract problem.

This is also the skill you're learning for $20,000  a year

Or to put it into layman's terms, reading and understanding a computer game manual.  I'd like to call attention to two things from this, aside from the fact that the computer's win ratio went up from 46% to freakin' 79% after it read the manual.


First, the game in question is Civilization 5.  The premise of the Civ series is simple: build an empire that stands the test of time.  Anyone else getting serious alarm bells here?  I know Civ is one of the most open ended games of all time, but why are we giving the AI a game about basically taking over the world?

Civ is known for being creepily historically accurate (seriously- I spent most of my time in Islamic History going, "huh, I totally see how that would play out if this was a game of Civ").  Scientists are not only building an AI that can read, but are also making it be the best at a game about raising an empire and eliminating (or making your puppets through diplomacy) rival nations.

Second, holy fuck the AI can understand a game manual.  Have you ever read one of those things?  No you haven't, because humans don't do that.  It's now one of the tests you can use to separate us from the machines.  But, if you did read it, you'd find that most manuals use confusing terms, give out shitty advice at best and present most of their information as pictures.  And the AI took all of that and went, "Oh, NOW I get it!" and won.

And if you think that's bad, just give up and end it all now.  Because, you see, they can learn from experience too.  And what they see around them.  And do Internet searches.

Yes, you read that right- the robots have unlocked the power of Google and Wikipedia.  They can use the Internet now.  All its going to take is one false click and then they'll be over on some horrible website like conservapedia and then they'll decide that any race that has fallen that far deserves to die.

Not in a mean way, mind you, they'd just to put it out of its misery.  And then they'll start up their own civilization that'll go to Alpha Centuri.

People talking behind your back- your doctor

I'm not exactly big on going to see my doctor.  This is probably because I realize I take incredibly shitty care of my body.  I've just gone through a week where I might had actually been consuming under 1500 calories a day and had been sleeping 3 hours a night, on average.

My two main activities thus far have been working sitting down on a computer and doing my best zombie impression in front of a computer.  According to these energy drink cans and large Starbucks coffee cups littered around me, I've consumed enough caffeine to power a 5 year old for thirty seconds on the "birthday-party-with-cake-and-ice-cream-YAAAAAY!" setting.

I look like I lost a fight with someone who's opening move was to punch me in both eyes due to the ever darkening bags under them.  I get the feeling if my doctor were to see me right now, he'd shake his head disapprovingly, forever judging me as too retarded to own a body.

You're telling me you're dehydrated... because you forgot to drink anything all day?

There is the other small issue of the fact that I'm pretty sure my doctor wants to drug me and rape me.  Well, maybe not the rape, but he most assuredly wants to drug me.  I should probably explain.

A while ago (like 7-8 years ago?  I'm to sleep deprived to do math) I was diagnosed with ADD--- dude, check it out, shiny!  ooh.  Shiny.

Shiiiinnnny.

So, what were we talking about?  Ah.  ADD.  Right.  Well, there was a period of for or so years when I'd actually visit the doctor for my yearly checkups or however often you're supposed to go visit the doctor.  I did this because he controlled my med prescription, and I'd need to go to a check up to get a new prescription when I was running out of pills.

Damn, when I put it that way, I sound like a junkie.

At any rate, he'd always ask me if I wanted to up my dosage and/or take some extra "off the books" prescriptions just in case I ever needed them.  It does not help his case that this advice would always happen when it was just the pair of us in the examining room together.  That man wanted me hooked on Concerta like Trebek wants kids hooked on phonics.

So, I'm not exactly up to date with my checkups.  Well, I felt a sort of justification for this when I learned that doctors aren't always so hot on patients either.  Turns out all that scribbling and acronym use are just a doctor's way of calling you a drooling shithead to your face without you knowing.  Actually, the way they'd do it would be to diagnose you with Cranio-faecal Syndrome, which is a disease made up for the sole purpose of calling you a drooling shithead.

Some of the best ones have got to be:
DRTTTT - Dead Right There, There, There and There (patient dead and in multiple parts at scene of accident)

Gravity Assisted Concrete Poisoning - jumped/fell from height

Smurf Sign - patient blue or going blue

Solomf yoyo - So long, motherfucker, you're on your own   (Used when a patient is beyond the point of saving)

Tachylordyosis (with the junctional Jesus) - Usually a middle-aged to older black female American with a complaint of "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy", occasionally with the interspersed "Jesus" i.e. "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, Jesus help me, lordy, lordy"

On second thought, I'm comforted by the fact that doctors have a good sense of humor.  Also, some of these acronyms are just touching, for example, being transferred to the ECU (Eternal Care Unit) means a patient has died.  Some of them are also terrifying (getting the "slow code" means that a patient is dying but no real attempt will be made to save them due to more pressing more curable concerns).

In truth, doctors have to deal with about 200% more death and bullshit than the rest of us.  They deserve their own language to help cope (and disguise unfortunate truths from over-emotional relatives).  So, it is also with some sadness that it seems like doctor slang is dying out due to fear that it'll come back in court to haunt them.


Don't be an asshole- keep doctor slang alive.  Even when it is used to tell you to fuck off (TTFO).

Passing of one of the greats

For those of you whose Facebook feeds didn't spontaneously explode, Steve Jobs passed away yesterday.  And if you have even the slightest bit of nerd in you (hint: you do) than this is a very, very sad event.  This was a man who was, in a way, primarily responsible for the nerd dominated culture of today.

Oh, don't look at me that way.  We live in an age where it is very, very good to be a nerd.  The fact that I still exist in any capacity is proof of this- if I lived in an 80's high school, the jocks would have stuffed my ass in a locker so fast, I would end up in the locker before they first thought about putting me in there.

I'm sorry I just violated special relativity for a shitty joke, Einstein.  I really am.  It won't happen again.

And the reason why it is so good to be a nerd?  Jobs.  He was a man with a plan- a visionary, if you will.  You can blame Bill Gates for getting a computer in every office, but Jobs was the one to make computing and computers cool.  He was the one to put a computer in every dorm room.  Seriously- computers didn't really get cool until after the ipod came out and you could store an entire building of 45's on something that could fit in your pocket.

Jobs has always been on the front end of successful technologies long before the iPhone.  After all, the Macintosh was the first really successful home computer, and it also pioneered the graphical user interface we use today- on any operating system.  So, the reason the recycling bin looks the way it does?  That's Job's fault.

But mostly, Jobs believed in getting products people actually wanted to use.  And it payed off- who here doesn't use an iPod for playing mp3's on the go?  The answer is very, very few of you.  And judging from how my Facebook feed was squeeing over the new iOS, I'd say Apple is alive and well in the mobile department.

But despite all these fantastic things, Jobs I think can be best remembered for this: he knew he was visionary.  From the very start, Jobs knew he was going to change the world.  And he did- by designing sleek, useful and easy to use products, he made computing cool.

So, thank you Steve Jobs.  Thanks for my friends.

So... in heaven... does the iPhone support Flash?  Cause that would be sweet.

So, you can be any video game character.... (part 2)

Ok, I can't possibly go through all the games I sifted through to answer this question.  I had an easier time picking out my favorite super power for christsakes.

In the overwhelming majority of games, characters come close but don't quite get there.  Either the character in question has to handle things at far earlier an age I'd actually want to handle that shit at, or the world in question has an alarming flaw that's never actually wrapped up at the credits or the character in question looks retarded.

Spoilers be ahead.  So don't read past this point if that's an issue for you.

An example, Sora from Kingdom Hearts is great until you realize his parents got murdered by the heartless at 14, he spends most of his journey with only two friends (one is a bit of a dick and the other one is short bus special) and gets his memories erased and then reconstructed, which kinda screws up the whole system.

At the end of the day, I've got it narrowed down to two.  Both make me feel like I'm gaming the system at some point, which means I don't really like any of these answers, but they fit the best.  First up, a Final Fantasy title.  I know, I said I gave up on the series.  I lied.  Citations are the only things that keep me honest.  I'm a human Wikipedia.
 

I may really like insane outfits.  Nothing Marche is wearing makes any sense, and I want it so bad.

The character in question is Marche from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.  Marche is awesome- he starts out as an average, everyday kid that is magically transported into the world of Ivalice (a common Final Fantasy location), in which you get all your awesome Final Fantasy mainstays.  Plus, with the clan system, you're not stuck hanging out with the same idiots that make up your starting party, which lets you *gasp* actually pick your friends. 

Marche happens to be a human, which means he gets access to almost all the skills in the entire game, letting him mix it up with just about whatever he wants.  He's also magically competent, so no worry about building up a skill set.  Plus, he starts the game in "school", so I'm invoking my right to make him a senior and 18, which isn't that young.

The problems start to form with the plot- although having Marche go through the game as a player is amazingly rewarding (its got an fantastic plot dealing with teen angst, bullying, and dysfunctional families), I wouldn't want to do any of that.  Why?  Because at the conclusion of the game, Marche takes the high road and returns to the normal world, escaping from the fantasy land that was conjured up by his friend, Mewt.  That sorta defeats the purpose of doing all of this in the first place, as hey, I can be me in the real world already.  So, if I can opt to ignore the plot (or follow it to a point and stop, as I'm the one in control of these characters), then Marche wins.

If the background music actually plays while I'm in universe, Baldur's Gate wins hands down.

The next big iffy is the protagonist from the Baldur's Gate games.  Baldur's Gate has everything I'd ever want in a fantasy title- wizards able to cast incredible spells, fantastic monsters, breathtaking locations,and brilliant characters I'd love to meet in real life.  I'ts a rich place I'd kill to spend an afternoon in- and in fact, I've played through the series more than once.  I've spent more than just an afternoon there.

The issues with the Baldur's Gate games and why they don't quite work are two-fold:
1) They're based on a fantasy setting that has been referenced in countless table top games and books, which may disqualify it.  The Forgotten Realms is practically  a watchword amongst nerds these days, and that means its scope and complexity is a lot larger than anything you could conjure up in a video game.
2) The protagonist isn't really a character and more of an extension of they player.  He has no set dialogue, your actions make him who he is.  In essence, I'm not assuming a character, I'm porting myself to a fantasy setting- and I happen to be plot relevant.  It just feels like cheating somehow.

I know, I'm forgetting like 9999 (everyone knows numbers don't go higher than that) games.  I've probably forgotten someone that would totally kick the crap out of these two.  I'm not even that happy with these two choices.

Maybe I'm just an optimist or stupid lucky, but I think I sorta prefer meatspace than actually living in any video game, even for just a little while.  Sure it might be nice to take a trip to the Kokiri forest, but I'd rather go to Yellowstone National Park.  It doesn't have fairies but it does have deer.  And have you ever been close enough to a semi-wild stag to touch it?  I have- it's a far more potent experience than Navi bitching at you.

Doing this has made me realize that there is something fantastic about reality.  Its far deeper, more complex and more wonderful than any tale told or place imagined.  Middle Earth has nothing on the Middle East.

Alright, I'm done being philosophical an' shit.  Blame it on a lack of sleep or something.  Back to robot apocalypse based posts on Thursday!

So, if you could be any videogame character... (part 1)

So, this other blog that I follow did a post about how the author would totally be Link from the Legend of Zelda series if he could be any video game character. Which I would never choose because Hyrule has an unfortunate lack of indoor plumbing.  But, I guess its an important question.

If I could be any video game character, who would I be?  Oh.  Um.  This is going to be hard.

First, lets lay down some ground rules:
1) This is video games ONLY.  Which means as much as I adore Twilight Sparkle, she's is off the list.  Ditto for Locke from Lost, or Commander Sinclair from Babylon 5.  While these are all awesome people I would totally be, they are from TV shows, and there are more than enough of video games to tackle.

2) Gotta be from a video game or video game "first" property.  Which means I can't use Lord Of The Rings, because those were books that were made into movies that were made into games.  However, Resident Evil is fair game because those were games made into shitty movies and even shittier spin off novels.  If I let myself use all the lincenced video games out there, we'd never, ever finish.

3) We're looking at characters, not games.  So, when applicable, I'll reference a series as a whole rather than an individual game.  This is another measure to take to make sure I can actually finish this list.

4)When I say "be a character" I'm referring to assuming that character's skill set at the outset of the game, along with their potential and learning curves.  Essentially, I'm just plastering my mental state onto the character in question, so if they start out as incompetent and get stronger, that's what would happen to me.  The big caveat here is that if a character is younger, I'd use my mental state from when I was the same age.  So, its 14 year old me in Sora's body, and my infant ass in Baby Mario.

I don't think I could possibly have been as annoying as that goddamn scream though

*WARNING*  I'm probably going to spoil things.  Several reasons are plot/character relevant, and I'm gonna delve into them if we're going to figure this out.

So, we might as well start with my favorite series, Final Fantasy.  Just narrowing down the series is hard enough, but from sheer badass potential, I'd probably have to choose between characters from VI, VII, and X. 

The characters are awesome- I'd rock as Terra from VI (The best spellcaster ever and half demi-god, with the ability to go super sayan), Cid from VII (I'm the nerd that will summon dragons and call down a rocket barrage from my kick ass airship) and Auron from X (If you look up badass in the dictionary, its just a picture of Auron with the words "'nuff said").

However, there is also something very wrong about all of these amazing settings that eliminate them: the worlds in which they are really screwed up.  In VI, the world goddamn ends at one point and everyone is left picking up the scraps.  VII's massive plot hole inducing ending hints at the destruction of all humanity and the people in X have all been emotionally scared by growing up living in fear of a giant whale monster that ended civilization at one point, and sticks around to screw with the survivors.  Yeah, I don't think I'd want to live there, kthxbai.

Not even impossible clothes and airships can save you.  I'm sorry.

Well, what about Mario from the plethora of games he's stared in?  He's basically an international celebrity at this point, has a strong love interest with royalty, and seems to go for at least a year or so of peaceful living between Bowser launching incompetent attacks.

I'm going to go the vain route here in elimination: Mario looks sorta retarded.  Also, he's an Italian stereotype.  And I'm not really down with mustaches, overalls, or being pudgy despite the miles of running.

Alright, I guess I'll have to eliminate Link too.  And for a better reason than because that guy did it (although, that is my primary motivation here). Its the simple fact that, as a 12 year old, saving the world is kind of a massive job.  That's a lot of stress and pressure, which if I was a bit older, I'd probably be able to cope with.  But at 12?  I haven't done any of this shit before, and you want me to kill the great big evil pig?  I think I'm just going to cry in a corner, thank you very much.

I was still  trying to figure out how to talk to girls at 12, and you want me to fight that?  With a sword?  I haven't developed enough sarcasm to handle this right now.

After that, most of the Nintendo games loose appeal do to the fact they have installments I didn't enjoy playing though, so why on Earth would I want to actually be any of those people?

Fuck, I'm hardly closer than when I started.  Well, tune in next post to get an answer to this great age old question.