Thursday, June 30, 2005

10:11 PM// Tomlinson: Using the worst yardstick ever

Like most hardcore listeners of NPR, I've been inundated with various accounts and discussions of CPB Chairman Tomlinson's clandestine study of bias in public broadcasting. Using for his yardstick, the personal ideals or party status of those associated with NPR, PBS, etc., Tomlinson hopes to demonstrate a left-leaning bias towards reporting. Now hold it right there. What no one seems to be questioning is this: if a supposedly objective journalist's personal views affect his/her reporting of objective fact, we've got much bigger problems, folks.

You might be able to show that most NPR journalists are registered democrats while most Fox News correspondents are registered republicans, but that shouldn't be the basis for determining the bias of that news gathering organization. A true journalist is supposed to completely disconnect his/her personal opinions of the way things should be, or what is right and wrong, and report the news. In order to show a bias in the show, you're going to have to do much more than simply show NPR affiliates are liberal, Mr. Tomlinson.

Now, I know that the study looked at much more than that. It categorized the political stance of the guests or callers on the show as well. Still, to even suggest that PBS is left-leaning because the host happens to be a liberal, or believe this or that (providing he/she doesn't announce it on the show or tout it around like fact), should have nothing to do with any supposed bias of the show. If it does, then that is a completely separate issue, and one of a much more serious nature.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

12:27 PM// I want to be a soggy headless midsection

In my on going quest for fame and/or fortune, I think my best chance for sequeing into the former would be to appear in one of those news reports on fat people depicting a bunch of dangerously obese persons milling about on a public street with their heads cut off so their identities are "protected." I could wear an identifiably loud tee-shirt, get really fat, and parade around in public areas hoping to be picked up on the nightly news. Then, when the talk is of who the headless, loud tee-shirt wearing, soggied midsection, gross-out fest is...that's when I make my move. My business model looks something like this:

  1. Get really fat
  2. ?
  3. Profit!

Then, to further capitalize on this great scheme, all I need to do is lose all that weight faster than is reasonable or safe, and claim I owe it all to the currently vogue diet.

For example, the Detroit 2% fast-food tax diet. Because a $10/year increase in my daily fast food habit will really cause me to lose weight.

11:09 AM// Advertising at its best: can you guess the product?

Hello, do you want to speFrance the most coveted possession in the West Indies. Thend Iess on your meddications?
Our new great offwithout orders? He raved on furiously, his officers supportinger -
VlAGRdaughter trembled. Mr. Blood reassured them.A ClALlcompatriot, never wavered in loyalty to Captain Blood. The FrenchS VAhe agrees to them.LlUM LThe Governor would never allow it. He has the gout, and his ladyEVlTRA and many other.
With each purrcBlood were both guilty of treason, the first for having harbouredhase you get:
  • Twho, too late, strove desperately to cut her adrift.op quaIity
  • Best pwait. For some moments they groped there on hands and knees,rices
  • Total confidenNo, no! she panted.tiaIity
  • Home deIiver75 deg. 30' W. Long. by 17 deg. 45' N. Lat., so that they had Jamaicay
  • P.S. Try us and you will not be disappointeand disposed for his own pride's sake to treat the buccaneer'sd!

    Right, so, um, I'll be sure to help Captain Blood whenever I can then.

    12:40 AM// What would ya say ya do here?

    I can now answer this quesiton reasonably well. In RTI's training simulation modules designed to teach military personnel how to maintain and/or operate hardware in the field (i.e. a radio), each interactable device must respond appropriately. That is, when you flip the power switch and the power cable is connected in the virtual world, the appropriate lights must flash. If cable X is defective, the alarm must sound, etc. Hence my title of Simulation Behaviors Engineer. I (and otheres) control the behaviors of the simulated devices.

    Saturday, June 25, 2005

    12:01 AM// Google rekindles nostalgia for HKIS

    Thanks to Google Maps, which recently added high resolution satellite images of several non-US cities, I've managed to reconnect with my childhood. Behold:

    HKIS

    The white blob is Hong Kong International School which I attended about 15 years ago when I was 9-10. The rectangle immediately northeast of that is the apartment my family and I lived in during our stay. This was in an area of Hong Kong known as Repulse Bay:

    Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

    And just for continuity's sake, here's Hong Kong Island:

    Also of interest, the image on HKIS's homepage of the people forming a giant HKIS logo, reproduced here without permission:

    HKIS people logo

    I'm in that photo. I know because they took it to commemorate HKIS's 25th year when I was there. And there's no possibility they've ever recreated that formation. Ever.

    Monday, June 20, 2005

    6:40 PM// They call me "Doogie"

    Today my collar is white. Officially. Yes, that's right, ardent fans, I'm an official RTI employee. Behold:

    The drive to the office was unfortunately eventful, despite having made a test-run yesterday. It turns out that all those construction signs that don't mean anything on Sundays do mean things on Mondays. And then at the orientation, I followed signs leading to a building whose entrance was blocked off by...yes, pedestrian walkway construction. Awesome. But getting-there-type snags aside, it was a productive day. One of the more productive I've had. And behold, I'm making money!

    All my coworkers were very receptive to the new blood received today; I came on board with a half dozen others today. And I've already got a nick-name. Apparently, I've had it since my first interview last December. Yep, it's "Doogie", as in Doogie Howser, the very young, but very bright TV MD from the 80's. Like myself, the "real" Doogie had blonde, curly hair, a 15-year-old face, and medical creditentials from an accredited institution. Wait, I might not have all those features. Anyway, please don't ask what I'll be doing because I still don't really have much idea. More on that Wednesday.

    [Added @ 7:12] Yeah, so the whole growing facial hair to make everyone think I'm at least 20 didn't work so well. The damage has been done; might as well shave it off.

    Sunday, June 19, 2005

    8:59 PM// star wars propaganda poster of bush

    search.msn.com with the query "star wars propaganda poster of bush" lists our very own www.mekin.net super happy number 1! Awesome. I spread propaganda.

    8:29 PM// What the Deuce?

    Thanks to Fox's bizarre ordering of episodes, I was completely unaware that last Sunday Family Guy aired a new episode, the intended 8th of the season when there have only been 4 before it. What the deuce, I ask. I went to tvtome.com to learn when the next episode, presumably ep 5, would air, and discovered it hadn't yet. Well, luckily I was able to download and finish watching it just now so as to prepare myself for the upcoming episode in about 20 minutes. Which will it be? 6? 12? Who knows?

    Well, it's been a quiet week in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, my hometown. Mike drove to Durham to hang out Tuesday night. Hilarity ensued. We then left simultaneously for Oak Ridge on Thursday night after spending much time poolside. The trip home took a bit longer than anticipated due to a very necessary stop at an Asheville pub, and a trip to the Smokies for our firefly viewing pleasure. All in all, quite an adventure. A quick father's day celebration, some hellos/huzzahs to some new fathers, and off to Durham I went!

    And I'm back. I made a practice run to RTI this afternoon, testing multiple routes for swiftness and adventure factor. Just 13 hours until my first day of work, real benefits kick in, actually do something productive, etc. day. It's been a fun six months. I've been to Paris, Madrid, & the beach, and spent some quality time with Beija.

    Ready to jump in...

    + Read on...

    Tuesday, June 14, 2005

    3:20 PM// ... and Introducing John Aiden

    Look what John & Andrea made!


    He looks so responsible. Makes me think I should do something with my life...no, no -- posting blogs all day is certainly a worthy enterprise.

    But seriously, huzzahs all around! HUZZAH!

    3:13 PM// Baba Ghanouj

    I made baba ghanouj for the first time yesterday, yet another culinary triumph attributable to my new food processor. It was surprisingly easy, and even more surprisingly tastey. I think it may even rival Neomonde's (hah!), previously voted best in the Triangle.

    Getting into: < < < pinback > > >

    Monday, June 13, 2005

    9:32 PM// Eureka!

    I had a brilliant thought. The video game industry is a multi-billion dollar a year giant. However, video games have changed in only one way over the last seven years: graphics. Graphical tricks, effects, processing power have made some great leaps and bounds. Right now there is a huge push towards more realistic physics, especially with the recent announcement of the first physics processing card. But all these areas of concentration to not lead to greater enjoyment, only a greater "wow" factor. Good looking games will only interest players as far as level one unless the gameplay itself holds some merit.

    Consider the movie industry. Very similar things have happened in the special effects arena. There are some eye-poppingly amazing movies out there, graphically speaking, which were basically a huge flop at the box office. (Think Final Fantasy, a movie that assigned one processor to each strand of hair on the main character, but didn't do so well, story wise. Don't get me wrong; I liked it very much, the story and the graphics. And then there's Finding Nemo, a story which was not only graphically stunning, but had a terrific, heart pulling story. And this is what made the movie: the story. They can talk on and on about the quantum leaps made in the graphics department at Pixar, but in the end it was the story that people went to see.

    Back to video games -- you've got your first person shooters, your real-time strategy warfare, & your fantasy role playing games. But there haven't been any new genres in recent years, only eye candy. There's a difference between Pac-Man & Asteroids and Doom & Warcraft. But not between Doom & Halo, two games separated by nearly a decade. What we need, is not a new piece of hardware, but a new style of game entirely.

    In order to move forward, games must have an incredible multiplayer aspect. I understand Halo 2 has a 64 multiplayer capability. 64 players in the same battle. An amazing infrastructure, but the problem is that if you throw yourself into a 64 person game, it becomes mayhem. What we really need, is a command structure. A team of 32 players with a rigid command structure, that practices together on a regular basis. Now that would be fun. For the first time, it would be a chance to use real strategy, instead of simply overwhelming force or superior marksmanship.

    One of my favorite games is about six years old, called Total Annihilation. It's a real-time strategy warfare game involving air, ground, & sea mechs & terrain. You've got your typical resource harvesting aspect (energy/metal) and the goal is to...totally annihilate your enemy. Now there are a number of prospective strategies, such as building cheap scout units, using them to draw the enemy into a bottleneck or valley, then reigning fire from heavy guns on ridges. But alas, the units are too numerous, too cumbersome, and too stupid to control effectively during battle. All attempts at real strategies fall completely apart, leaving the only viable solution: amass a single enourmous army faster than your enemy. And the only way to do that is through effective resource managment. So the game becomes all about efficiency and resource handling. Now this can be fun too, but real cunning, military tactics, etc. go out the window.

    But don't redesign the game. Simply allow other human teammates to take control of smaller armies, call them "toons". So your army consists of several toons of computer units, each controlled by a human toon leader. Each toon leader can only control the units in his/her own toon. A single commander gives orders to his/her toon leaders. The same for first person shooters. In order to establish such a system, we would need regular teams, like soccer or volleyball teams. Intermural sports like. Except the people can be anywhere. Kind of like today's clans, but, ya know, not stupid.

    If any of this sounds familiar, it's because I came up with this while trying to decide how best to turn Ender's Game into a fun video game. Then I realized what makes it fun is not the game, but the strategy of it. Today's games don't allow for any real strategy. It's really mostly skill/force, i.e. I can snipe you better than you can snipe me. My driver is better at evading rockets than yours. All important aspects, but strategy should at least enter into it. It doesn't.

    + Read on...

    6:02 PM// Jackson is...nobody cares!

    So I made the unrecoverable error of turning on the local news this evening around 5ish, just in time to catch the Michael Jackson verdict. Hey, great, so he's not guilty. Does anyone care? I mean, I know the hundreds of protestors/supporters gathered outside the courthouse (dont't these people have jobs, or other famial responsibilites?) care, but fanatics aside, why did every major network on the air have to interrupt normal programming to bring me the Jackson verdict? And then do an "around the world in 30 seconds" news bit. Devoting ten minutes to the reading of the verdict and 15 minutes for discussion of implications afterward was certainly a dignified use of the powerful pulpit from which news corporations bellow.

    Sunday, June 12, 2005

    9:39 PM// Behold! My new reign of terror begins!

    Right, so I'm all moved in then. This was a weekend of many joys, the start of great things. Let's see, Friday, John+Andrea created an entirely new entity call John Aiden, which is pretty amazing when you don't stop to think about it. And uber-stupefying when you do. Life seems to be, by quite a large margin, the least likely thing that has ever happened. Yet here we are.

    Secondly, Ken+Amna embarked on a great journey, in a way, into marriage. But in a much more realistic way, they actually did. Which is not quite so improbable, but still pretty cool. As executive vice president of the bachelors, I selected a park to camp in, then dragged several unmarried men and one soon-to-be married male hugh-mon there after it closed. My car, not equipped with turbo boost (as usual), did not make it over the locked gates. Thus, it was determined that we park at Mr. Raper's discount delivery something-or-other and hike into the park-and-camp grounds.

    The hiking was adventursome, the grilling was yummy, and the sleeping was as much fun as 5 guys and a dog in a 2 man tent with booze could be. Then we left at sunrise to avoid the rangers, of which there was one, which we evaded. Arriving back at my new home around 7am, we promptly fell to the floor, unconcious. Meanwhile, the sun continued its terrible blaze across our side of the planet. Eventually, I awoke to find everyone else still encapsulated in the terrible stream of unconciousness, however, mostly alive. All was well until we realized that parasites live in forests. So we spent the afternoon feasting off ticks pulled from each other. Mmmm...a delicious day that was!

    But then we managed to get back on track with the whole "wedding" thing, boxing Amna into the lilly pad, thus sealing her fate. Which she thoroughly enjoyed.

    What crazy antics will I reveal next? My parents have been married for 34 years today. They were high school sweethearts. What a weekend.

    Yep, that's what spending the whole day watching Futurama will do to your speech patterns.

    The unbelievers! The time has come to convert them...into radioactive dust!

    Insane theories: 1, Regular theories: 1,000,000,000.

    + Read on...

    Tuesday, June 07, 2005

    12:16 PM// Whoa.


    Grass on the beach from my latest trip to Emerald Isle.

    Of the results of this trip, I'd say the above photo represents the highlight. Katie and I have broken up after 2 years, 9 months. So the bad news is I need to find a new place to live, but the good news is I'm no longer considered a fonicator by the state of North Carolina.

    I moved into a new apartment in Durham last Friday called Alexan Place. It's not too shabby if I do say so myself. Fireplace, 9 foot ceilings, washer/dryer in each flat, 828 sq ft. I'll make photos available as soon as my furniture is fully operational, hopefully Thursday.