Geek-Fu Grip!

Student: Honorable Geek-Fu master.
Master: Yes student, you may speak.
Student: Please tell us of the enlightened Tauren quest again.
Other Students: Yes, please master tell use.
Master: Ok, I’ll tell you again, Gather around the masters feet so that we may become enlightened as a group of the power of the Geek-Fu death grip.

One would expect to hear something like this, but it only gets better. Mur Lafferty’s Lessons From a Geek Fu Master really gets to the convergence of Geeks to a self proclaimed master of the fabled Geek-Fu. And a Master she is with her impressive geek accomplishments. This includes video games, Warcraft RPG, and World of Warcraft credits. Like Damn!

She shows how geeks really are resilient pioneering and enduring people leading the way for the rest of society to follow. How we build the world for other non-geeks to say, hey, that’s cool, and we claim this coolness for ourselves.
Making us geeks to go forth further into social abnormalities to claim our own geekiness so we can say, We geeks are still cooler!
She does audio work for podcasts such as escape pod along with her personal podcast Lessons From A Geek Fu Master

She covers everything geek, and reminds me why I love my wife who occasionally displays hidden geek tendencies. If only I could really get her to come fully to the geek side of the force instead of just dabbling in it, then, as Vader would say, "the circle would become complete."

Yoda would say, “Aaah, enlightened you have become, but master of 360 you are not.”

And of course the ever popular “Some one set us up the bomb!” and “All your base are belong to us!"

If ever one could cause a geekgasium, she could, I think she unknowingly has become a geek goddess, even though she admits she geeks out at cons and conventions over other geek icons, I think she doesn't realize she has risen to the level of a geek icon herself.

Ho! Ho!, Frigge'n Ho!

It seems this is the season of political discontent (I wouldn’t even call it political correctness anymore as this is just sick and wrong.)

It seems that the life long tradition of Santa is now something that is offensive to politicians and word governments at large because Santa is a happy guy. “By God! We aren’t happy unless you aren’t happy!”

It seems A Santa claimed he was sacked from an Australia/New Zealand company from saying "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and said structure banned all other Santa's in Australia and New Zealand from saying “Ho, Ho, Ho”

Sacked Santa

Santa indoctrination,

Santa banned

The grounds for this is, The Aussie's and Kiwis feel that by saying "Ho, Ho, Ho." That individuals, particularly women, as children do not enter into this equation, that the governments and corporations of countries who never seem to have anything nice to say about the U.S, who also claim we (Americans) do nothing right, and other various dispersions cast at us Americans. Has taken a stance that the idea of a slang term "Ho" as in "Ya bee-yitch ho!" started by the seemingly uneducated street gang youth of America, is to dictate how civilized society is to live and speak. (No traditions and no freedom of speech allowed!)

So by saying "Ho, Ho, Ho," which All us (Fracke’d up, war monger, uneducated Americans) use as a “slang Term” Note how they recognize it is a "slang term", can not be used in the possibility of offending non-American women. like "Yo, Yo, Hu?"

So for a tradition that has been around longer then the nations in question, at what point do these places care what under privileged school drop-out’s say?

Why does the gang youth, and often uneducated (not all, mind you, but the majority) school drop out, drug dealing, gang bangers language, in any way relate to how a kid can enjoy a family tradition that has been around longer then the law makers in question.

So it seems frivolous, soulless, hostile and ethic less lawyers, can retroactively change a societies ability to enjoy a season,

by stripping an individuals ability to say words that have no actual meaning or context,

except in the twisted minds of individuals looking for big cash payouts for being struck as imagined as possibly insulted by a being a gang wanna-be from things seen on “fictional” movies and TV shows of how things are in America, that actually has no bearing on actual American lifestyles at large.

But apparently this has a profound effect of people living on the other side of the globe as they now get to sue Santa’s, and stores with Santa’s because he is happy enough to have a gut wiggling laugh.

Perhaps these other nations do not understand that "Ho" was due to broken run down English because they couldn't speak clearly enough to say "Whore" as they don't really know how to spell.

As in..

"Bee-ietch! Yow Fucking Bee-ietch, I is tak’en to ya-all!, Now got yar ass out there and make yowDaddy s’more dead prez-dents, for’n I slap yo monkey mon-ay mak'n ass in da ditch!

Frigge’n Ho’s, I swear yaz got to keep on their ass, or dey jit be wawk'en off-n wit a pipe sucking down all yo mon-ayz wit dat frigge’n crack!"

I, guess I can honestly see how non-Americans would incorporate that into their civilizations speech and society.

Now honestly is this how Aussi’s and Kiwi’s talk? And who gives a crap what American slang is when they all throw shit at us in the media all day about how wrong America is on every level, including and especially our youth gang issues.

One thing you’ll be hearing from us Americans in the malls this Holiday season.. “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

-It’s called freedom of speech, looks like you guys could use some lessons..

..Ya Ho’s

Pearl Harbor, 2008, Aka Red Dawn...

.. So another Saturday drive to work, I work on the weekends, which mostly suck, mostly.

And heading off the island, onto the mainland, down the freeway and across the river to my job I go. And hopping off I-5 onto the trestle to marine view drive, on the Everett Waterfront.

As I was crossing the trestle a white military jet was coming across down the river on the deck as they would say. No markings I could see.
I live in the general vicinity of the air base on Whidbey Island, I am no stranger to U.S. military air craft, I know the profiles and I know the side profiles and underbellies of the jets in the area because they tend to fly over Camano Island now and then. I know our aircraft because I follow the military as a sort of sick hobby, and practically live on the military channel.

This one however was white, and much to slim for the ones I know, and had a hint of "Russian" to it’s side profile. From the aircraft I been watching on the military channel.
If I was to guess it looked like a hybrid fighter-bomber, with all the items on the inside of the plane instead of being loaded on the outside.

It first off was super quiet, which our planes are anything but. I often tend to stop any podcast I’m doing when they get near Camano Island, because they drown out my dog barking at two paces when their fifteen miles away.

This was quiet, on the deck, so low I thought it was going to ditch into the water, it got to the Puget sound and abruptly took a right turn heading north towards deception pass staying on the water.

I have never seen a plane fly that low and that quiet, I know Civi-planes would get their balls busted for pulling something like that, especially that close to the Navy base. This was not a civilian plane, it was a jet, as in a single seat jet, and no civilian jet is going to do anything like this.
Military planes are up high enough that you can see them regardless of what part of a hill your on. As far as I know military are forbidden to do what this guy was doing due to safety issues around civilian populations, roads, bridges, etc. being less then a 100 feet off the water and skimming the top of bridges.

So question is, we get some new planes? Or someone visiting us who isn’t supposed to be here, A.k.a, flying under the radar? They where traversing the valleys and came in from Marysville area apparently following the river.

Things that make you go HMmmmm. I’m wondering if I need to start arming myself..
I didn't have my camera with me or I woulda Snapped a picture of it. Though it had no markings of any kind.

I did some searching around on aircraft and the profile it was closets to was the ATD-X,
though the ass end was a bit fatter so the body coming from the back end of the cock pit was pretty much even all the way back instead of tapering off like this one does, the body was slightly longer and the wings where a bit more forward. however this was the profile I saw.
Our bad boys usually have ordinance under the wings (or pylons to attach ordinance if no ordinance are present), this one didn't have anything.

Lock-out / Tag-out

Wired seems to be the way to go lately, so heres a wire of the fish tank design.

Have been off line for almost a year. Didn't log in, forgot my gmail account because I do not use it for email, and took me the better part of three months to "hack" back into my blogger account, mainly because I didn't have any email account tied to this so I could get my password recovery info.

So alls well that ends well, or so they say.

The period of being locked out is over, Though there is the possibility of being locked out at work, The whole union Vs company issue, normal corporate operations. SOP

Been grinding and loosing days, not in terms of weeks but terms, as in presidential terms.

Get busy, new kid, house, etc, next thing you know The boy is in pre-school and those business deals you been working on turned to dried up cereal stuck on the bottom of a bowl for days on end. Hard and useless. You got to scrape it out, re-wash the bowl before you can get started again.

So far, Liquid metal hasn't been touched in over a year, the E.D. stuff has been sitting and cooling off, so I have to heat that back up before I can work with it again, and over all. I lost several more years of my life to drone work.

Now the issue I am facing isn't so much loosing a couple years of my life to make some corporation very wealthy. The issue I am facing is that for every month I stall on my projects, I get another year behind the competition, and that is because game design and development is still shooting forward.

By working on it full time as an Indi-developer, I slowly slide farther behind other companies who are shooting ahead with big money and big teams. By not doing anything Its like trying to run on foot after a drag racer, there is no way in hell it will happen.

Good news on this picture though. As I have been sitting on my ass watching my beer gut get bigger (So-long six pack, hello pony keg!) Some industries developed which will help me catch up again. Engine middle ware for MMO developers are srpouting up left and right, so you get an MMO engine, plug in your graphics, models, and scripts, and it goes. you do not have to build everything from scratch, like with the first release of Everquest, and Asheron's Call.

Server clients, player clients, server hosting, heck all you gotta have is the IP and ambition to stick your neck out on the block to publish an MMO now a days. Partly good, but so many are being published that it dilutes the quality and people's willingness to try new stuff, because everything else is crap.

So while I bury my head in the sand, I have been listening to podcasts a lot lately, and pod books. (audio books for podcasting.)

So many new industries are springing up that It gives me a glimmer of hope. It seems old school things are fading fast, however new school items are rising to take it's place. So as long as your plugged in you still have your feet under you.

For you writers out there, check out www.Podiobooks.com perhaps it's time to reconsider the whole publishing paradigm. Audio seems to be a better medium for those on the go or for those stuck in traffic for three or more hours a day.

Some suggestions is the Share series, Quarter-share, Half-Share, and Full-Share. To get a better idea of what I'm talking about. Tons of stuff out there, and I'm tempted to start publishing some of my closet writings in audio format.

I never had the ambition to get a book published, though I am a published writer, in magazines, newspapers, and business periodicals, I just didn't get into it that much. but this format seems like it would be some serious fun to make, and get published at the same time.

There again, you need to weed out the bad writers from the good one, but the best part of it is. Fresh blood can get into the market without having to be related to someone in the business.

And there is good blood out there.

Well now that I have access to my blog again I'll start writing some more, and keep everyone up to date.

and remember, don't forget to lock the hatch BEFORE you dive your sub.

To many Zombies..

Greetings all. I disappeared off the radar for a while, new job duties, new job title, same pay, same lousy place. Having a day-job really sucks, it really gets in the way of dev-time and all the things I really want to do. Though I have a house, wife and kid to support so I can’t abandon everything.

The more time and effort I put into things the more I am seeing this is a young persons arena to break into. Not simply because of the stuff to do, mainly because those who are just starting off, don’t have anything to loose, so if they hit a dead end or drop the ball and loose their shirts, they only loose like a couple shirts.

When you get older and accumulate things, such as real-estate, family, assets, you find you have much more to loose. So you have to continue with cost effective ways to maintain status-quo, Vs before you get into the rat-race, and you have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

Regardless, I am making a career change and going to get into the IP business one way or the other. Be it for someone else or working on my own. Which seems to be the case here. No one wants IP from someone else unless it is already making millions, and then they only want to pay thousands to own it. So I’ll make something build it up and try to become at least self sufficient.

For those of you out there reading this, it isn’t so much an impossibility or being a dreamer, it’s simply putting a couple rounds through your TV set.

Considering you prolly spend more time on your tube then you do with anything else (except making money for someone else in exchange for 40+ hours of your life every week.)

Consider America was built on entrepreneurship, America was not a corporation as it seems to be now.

The problem with Corporations is they are like a micro government, and they excise their laws on your life dictating what you can and can’t do, and to some points also exacting their laws on your life when your not “on the job” as well.

True freedom and it’s responsibilities is something that every person should exercise. It means getting off your butt, and not being a corporate zombie. Every person had their price, and it seems American souls are sold cheap, some as cheap as $20k a year, some for around $80K+ a year, but still the fact social indentured slavery is sold and taxed willingly by others.

Now I am not going on some liberal rant of “fight the man” or “Down with the corporate world” Not at all. Life and the world is a direct relation to how things are. Civilization needs to function and people need to continue on.

What I am saying is, if more people owned their own business, it would stabilize society and give individuals more voice in the representation of business and political society.

The problem with public education is it teaches people to be compliant, satisfied, and to go out and work for someone else.

It should teach people how to become self sufficient, to strive, and to make their own way, be it with their own business or working in a position that is right for one’s own satisfaction. That is, there is a place for big corporations, however working in a job you hate is the wrong thing to do. If you are going to work form someone else, it should be doing something you enjoy doing so you can excel at it.

My original job was creative problem solving, they eliminated that position, now it is drone operations, some times, almost literally, I do this job asleep.

There was a fantastic quote I lived by many years ago that slipped into the cracks under the bed, it was.

“Without change something sleeps in us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken!”

Can you do your daily routine without having to think twice or stop and figure out how to reach the end of the day? Well you are a sleeper.

Personally I spent the last 12 years of my life sleeping, time for a wake up call. Time to flush the TV, and get rolling on my dream world, so I can be awake while living my dreams instead of asleep in someone else’s dream, trying oh so hard to make them 25% on their profit margin.

My frustration on watching managers bumble through their day while all the drones fix their mistakes and do their job for them is closing to an end on a chapter in this persons life.

Time to use the competence and imagination for myself instead of saving the ass of someone who openly is hostile to the people who support them, degrading them in orer to justify their own pathetic and worthless existence.

You guys tired of arrogance, hostility and pathetic business ignorance? Start working on making the change for yourself.

I’m not talking about walking off your job, I’m talking about start making changes so you can work for someone else in something you life, regardless if it is for someone else or yourself.

The most important thing everyone needs to realize is, and I quote "Just because you have a job, It doesn't mean you have to stop looking for a another one."

and remember folks, they aren't happy unless your not happy.

-Psyber Wolf

Gold Farming, Now Unionizing...

Korea, is home of world turmoil, threats of being a nuclear wasteland from the north, and of course gold farming. Now those gold farmers are deciding to unionize against the government and MMO's who is moving against them.

Their new title is D.A.D.P.A. (Digital Asset Distribution Promotion Association) And it’s all about selling virtual items and gold to western MMO players who have more money then time and/or patience to play the game they are paying a monthly fee for.

Though it is breaking the EULA (End User License Agreement) Which is that three to five pages of small print you click past without reading to install any video game you load on your computers, in there stating you agree not to do that or forfeit your account if caught.

So in Korea where an average days wage is about or under $7 a day, selling 5 hours of farmed items and gold for about $10-$20 is a serious wage earning and real income. Supporting themselves, family, drinking and getting to play as well.

Of course the fact they are unionizing means this is not just a handful of guys here and there, but an actual industry, because five people do not form a union that stands against the government and other corporations in legal battles.

You should be very shocked at how many illegal aliens are in the U.S. boarder. If they where organized and all decided to strike at the same time, they could bring the U.S. to it’s knees, and now the U.S. online game industry has spawned a working class that is becoming a multi-national union of thousands of “digital farmers” who live within our virtual worlds doing the same thing that Mexico is doing.

Illegally invading the boarders to take on below “U.S. standards of living” and farming mundane and drudge works for pennies on the dollar. However it isn’t the salads and canned food, burgers, and other fast-foods we stuff our faces with after work, but it’s now our play they are living on.

We have such a level of living (yes even you guys who complain about working for minimum wage) are living at such a level in the world market that people are scrounging for your play-time scraps.

I have never purchased digital content, I have paid monthly fees to play games with digital assets, (Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy-Online, World of Warcraft, and Beta'ed many MMO's out there, Yah I have played a lot of them) I do know persons who have purchased from the farmers (DADPA’s) because their play, as is life, is becoming a business decision for any moment in play or work.

Their time is becoming so valuable that they have re-evaluated what their time is worth to them in play and by buying digital assets they maximize their limited fun time off of work.

Instead of spending hours and hours (we are talking almost like having a part time to full time job) to get to a level of play, they purchase short-cuts to get there because their play time, like the rest of our lives here in the U.S. we don’t have enough time to do the things we want.

So it comes down to , we are so successful her in the U.S. that we are literally paying others to play for us because we don’t have enough play time for ourselves.

What’s wrong with this picture??

MMO's, virtual worlds, and other legal drugs..

So it comes down to the fact that people's marriages are failing due to MMO's. relationships are being formed on MMO's that lead to future ruined marriages, and in some cases it seems to be saving marriages, as couples dive into this together. (Those who play together stay together.) the broken marriages statistically speaking is where one plays and one doesn’t.

Lack of sleep, work effected, people speaking in incoherent tongs at work, DPS Vs Tankers, Agro, bosses, mobs, it sounds like something to do with drugs and the seedy underground. Thieves assassins, getting owned, or owning people, sounds almost like a form of slavery as well, or possible sweatshops.

What is one to do?

Well logically it comes down to “shit I better get with the program or get left behind!”

So I am making it my singular mission to become part of the problem with EDMMO.

In the not so distant past, I had everything fleshed out for a RTS game, that also involved a “Light” form of MMO interface for it. And it as other types of drugs took on a life of it’s own. I was 6 numbers away from the financing I needed to make everything happen and for world domination.

Then, as if not playing the lotto, and winning, wasn’t a high enough odd for me to fight, a golden ticket appeared over my head in a bright flash of light floating down as if a mythic feather from an angel above granting me my wish.

As an Independent Studio with dreams of grandeur and self delusion several years back, pounding the keyboard night after night teaching myself C++ and C#. When suddenly in one of my nightly jaunts into the vast world wide web, my tears of blood and sweat of labor was answered by an unlikely agent of mercy.

I was looking to secure a web address by the name of multiverse for my game, when it appeared in front of me, someone had already owned the URL, not only that, they where an MMO maker, and not only that,.. They also where a publisher of MMO’s and supplied the engine for those who wanted to make MMO’s.. Whoa, that stunned me. what was the chance I would type in that URL and find the very thing I wanted without any knowledge of their existence? (6 numbers are easier to hit I think)

I signed up got into the pre-beta, and been working on it quietly ever since. Before the media hype, back when others where still trying to make stuff and before there where functional bits and peaces to supply.

It seems, that my delusions of grandeur are merely stepping stones to true world domination. So it seems, that coupled with the Garage Games engine for my RTS, I have my tools, and development as a very small studio, is in fact moving forward without lots of money and Macro-soft type of monster support.

If you haven’t yet checked it out, hit the sites. www.edmmo.com and www.edrts.com

Pretty soon I will be dealing out my own type of street legal brain candy, hopefully it will have the same clean and pure cut and strength of barbiturate known as WoW, (World of WarCrack), usually smoked with a Dwarven bong, or gnomish hooka-pipe. I’m sure the elves use needles, the horde just snort it, I mean k’mon look at those noses, you know they snort it.

I’ll try to supply it all for everyone. Though, and of course, your first few tastes will be for free.

The question is, will it save marriages and jobs or destroy them?

-Psyberwolf

Debt Free AND a Direction..

The talk of getting out of debit is on most everyone’s lips, How it is such a good thing, an attainable thing, just that we got so much going on right now, but hey, I can get out of debt most any time, just need to knuckle down and get to it.

Debit is such an easy corporate trap. Owing not to another person but to stock holders, as it is the group of people who are making a living and retirement on the monthly payments your making.
I’m not a corporate bashing, tree-hugging, Commie, steal from the rich to give to the poor, sniveling little puke. I’m a Tech-utopian Libertarian conservative. (most people at this point say.. WTF? You’re a what?)

Here’s how this out of the box person see’s things.
We can save this planet with additional Technology, as in wireless and or wired broadcast power and communications (talking vastly larger amounts of bandwidth to anyone who is on the grid.) Higher Tech fuels, as in screw the gas, Screw the Bio-diesel, We are talking ocean saltwater electrolysis Hydrogen stored and powered hydrogen fuel-cells with pure water and minor amount of heat for waste products, (just think folks, if this was going on, we could produce more Oxygen, if all the cars where replaced, then all of the forests we cut down in Americas history.)
Save oil for military, and industrial use. We really don’t need it for civilian use.
Laptop, portable, off the grid, but somewhat protecting the majority of the environment (not into clear cutting) but I do strongly believe in private ownership of land, homes and bank accounts. Thus the Tech-Utopian belief.

Libertarian in that I believe individuals should be allowed true freedom as far as choice over one’s own body, mind and spirit. However I’m Conservative in that I don’t believe in the welfare state. I don’t believe in communism, it never works because it is everyone’s nature to covet, to want. I want that really nice car, I want a big house surrounded with forest with no one else looking in my kitchen window while I’m cooking. Communism and welfare state deal mostly with those who don’t want to do anything and still have everything.

Communist leaders and “party leaders” end up with everything and everyone else is living in a welfare state. The Welfare state (note: I’m not talking about disabled persons) deals with people who don’t want to work or do anything and receive everything for basic living.
God’s (or whatever belief system you may have) only motivator to give any person motivation to get off their ass and do something was hunger. Take that away and people fall into apathy. The only thing driving America and other “developed” nations is that whole covet thing, “I want this and I want that.”

I believe If you get off your butt, go to work and make money, it shouldn’t be taken away from you to feed some jackass drunk who claims life wont help him get out of the bar to hold down a job, so now you and me must give some of our money so he can go get drunk. What a bunch of crap, if you can work, you should work if you want (anything) The only thing the state should be paying for is medical and child daycare (for those who can’t afford it. Instead of giving them a welfare check, cover the daycare costs so they can work and make a life for themselves.

Long description of my belief system.
I work a day job (at night) 40 hours a day, and working what extra hours I can for making my way as a publication and game studio, which = about 60 hours a week in active work. Some for money and some hopefully to eliminate the need for money, and the fact I really love to make games and develop story ideas bouncing around in my head. That and I really hate working for someone else 40 hours a week, away from home.

Tossing my life away for someone who is taking my skills and making 800-1200 percent more off of my contribution to the company then what they are taking from me. (My check isn’t any where close to the profit they make off of my labor.)
If I only make 120 percent of the value of my labor, and it is all my money and labor for things I love to do, would be vastly better then having someone else making the 800%+ off of my labor, because it is all mine for me.

If I work co-operatively with others working on the same or similar project then it is great because I am not being Financially raped to live off of my labor, it would be a mutually agreed work life instead of a forced life style.

So As I get farther into this development rout, and start some of these amateur product development, with my professional experience in similar products, I’m finding the work isn’t so labor intensive as with working for someone else, and my energy level has gone from 100% drained to a negative energy drain situation. That’s where you gain energy from what your doing instead of being wiped out by what you are doing.

So with my spouse, who is the financial planner and mover of the family, we have managed to work under the corporate thumb for a good number of years, but cleared our debit, close to having our house paid off, and free to really work full time on our own projects to make a living.

When you have no bills and no mortgage, switching jobs and going from the top of the market to the bottom of your “chosen” job market and working up becomes as stressful as eating an ice-cream cone during the summer. Because even if you have “bad months” all you need to worry about is some food, as the roof over your head is already paid for.
And those good months become really, really good months.

Note to others pay your bills off and get out of the corporate “voluntary slave trade” When we paid our credit cards off, all the money we used to pay to the card companies and “interest” was being put to our cars, which got paid off in less then a year, and all that money along with the money we put on our cars, suddenly got piled up on our house payments, Guess what. That accelerated the house payment from 30 years to a track less then 18 years, however, because we didn’t start spending it all and put more money on the house, we may have it paid off in less the 5 years. Then we will have all that money for, well. Vacations will be really good to us after that..

..It all started with putting an extra $50 on one of our credit cards, which cascaded onto other cards and so on as they got paid off. It doesn’t take the lotto folks, simply start living with “in” your means (Stop buying things on credit), and you will find you will be out of debit in relatively short order. All the money your paying in debit, could probably pay your house off in half the time or less if you took your current bills and paid them to a mortgage (or took all your bill money and bought a house instead of renting)

The only thing you have to deal with then is, what would you really rather be doing instead of what your doing now for a job? The answers pretty simple.

As for me now I’m working on my representative for Elemental dimensions
So you like, she’s not too bad, don’t let the bald head fool ya.