The Secret of Spore

The reason Will Wright's little baby is becoming so popular is simple.

You remember all those Pop Cap Games and Yahoo Games that you got for free (or from some cheap DVD)?

Those games were mindless and hopelessly addictive. They are known in office jargon as "time-wasters". The wonders in mind-hanging one can work with a little knowledge of Flash or Java is the stuff of productivity decline notoriety.

Spore is five of these "time-wasters" all rolled into one package game. So, you're essentially paying $40-$60 for five $1.99 games. The only game with any real complexity is the last one, and yet thousands continue to bite the hook, playing the repetitive little bits over and over like an iPod on permanent shuffle. Its kinda like watching someone play Luxor five different ways.

Brilliant. Will Wright is a money-making genius.

Oh, and for other Spore secrets:

Console Cheats

Press Ctrl+Shift+C to open the console screen. Type code into the console, then hit enter. Press escape or the red X to close console.

Code	Effect
capturePlanetGIF	Captures a spinning GIF of the planet you are on and dumps to AnimatedAvatars directory.
setConsequenceTrait (trait)	cell carnivore, cell_herbivore, cell_omnivore, creature_aggressive, creature_social, creature_mixed, tribe_aggressive, tribe_social, tribe_mixed, civ_
stylefilter -none	change view back to normal
help (command)	Explains action and usage of a command.
styleFilter -oilPaint	Gives the game an oil painting effect
addDNA	increase how much DNA you have to spend.
moreMoney	Increases your money in Civilization or Space stages.
help	Lists all cheats and debug commands.
freedom	No complexity limit in creator
levels -unlock	On the Spore main menu, allows you to unlock every stage for new games, even if you haven't completed their prerequisite stages.
universeSimulatorPirateRaidPlunderFrequency #	Rate that pirates will steal spice from your systems
universeSimulatorPirateRaidAllyFrequency #	Rate that pirtates will raid ally your systems
universeSimulatorPirateRaidFrequency #	Rate that pirtates will raid your systems
killallhints	Removes all hints from the game.
refillMotives	Replenishes depleted health and other motives.
SetTime (h, m)	Sets time of day at the Avatar's position, and optionally a speed multiplier.
freeCam	Toggles free camera mode.
unlockSuperWeapons	Unlocks all superweapons for your Civilization type.
spaceCreate	Unlocks and recharges all creation tools in Space Mode.
styleFilter -filmNoir	View game in black & white

DM of the Rings

D&D, in all its geeky glory, is the bastard love-child of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. In fact, D&D would probably be inconceivable without it. But D&D (and AD&D) have drifted so far from the original source that they probably won't recognize each other if they'd met again in a bar.

Which is why I find this webcomic so hilarious. What happens if you try to "D&D" Lord of the Rings? Hehehe...

When the dork meets literary pavement, sparks fly. :D

Johnny Fanboy

I'm sure every one of us has had a celebrity crush from time to time. (Explains the unearned prestige these people get most days.)

In connection with the release of the first episode of the new season of House, M.D. last week, allow me to indulge in mine.

I have a huge, stupid, irrational* crush on this woman right here:

 
Olivia Wilde, she of the porcelain skin and ambiguously bisexual TV roles. Also occasionally indulges the whiny childhood fantasies of emo songwriters.


She's also quite smart. Hey, she plays a doctor on TV doesn't she?


She also likes moonlit walks. Cliche, but I'm too busy looking at her eyes...err...eye.


She works hard, but doesn't seem to look all that tired and bedraggled.

And she makes the best argument there is for gay marriage. (Or at least, the only one I'd indulge for at least two and a half minutes.)


She also likes animals. Really likes them.** Here she is with a stuffed one named Jonathan. (OK, so I made that up.)

*Sigh*

___________________________________________

*Irrational, because this woman supports PETA, campaigned for Obama while promoting her show, and is very much married (last time I checked). I don't understand myself sometimes. Shit.

** Did I mention how much she likes animals? Believes they ought to have "rights". Man...buzzkill.

A Moment of Zen #3

[h/t Engrish.com]

Because There is Only *One* Choice...

Think about this next time some pro-choice activist tells you its all about "freedom of choice".

"That is, we need the mentally retarded to teach us how to better sacrifice our lives and divest ourselves of our self-interested ways more than they need us to care for them. At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as "the worship of retardation." Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child's severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less."

Yeah, choosing life for the Down's Syndrome child is selfish "worship of retardation".

This moron even finds time to be morally outraged.

So in the anti-abortion advocate's eyes, a parent's desire to raise healthy children by squelching unhealthy fetuses while the are still in the womb is little more than a pernicious quest, but it is not considered a pernicious quest to knowingly bring severely disabled children into this world.

Isn't eugenics anything other than a "pernicious quest"? But the funny thing is, based on what he is implying here, how is "knowingly bringing severely disabled children into this world" evil? Oh, because mentally handicapped people make you go "ewwww..."

There are few more morally bankrupt moral propositions in this world than being "pro-choice". Euphemisms make murder go down easier. After all, even the Nazis had to hide their genocide behind the term "Final Solution".

You keep affirming the morality of killing the lesser, eventually, you will find yourself at the wrong end of the knife.

This is What Passes for a "Leading Moral Philosopher" in the UK

Baroness Warnock, a so-called "leading moral philosopher", has just suggested that old people suffering from dementia must do the world a favor by taking the fastest bus ride to Hades.

As proof that her species is completely immune to irony, it fails to occur to the old bird that she is, in fact, 84 years old and advocating something only the demented would advocate.

Good luck on the ice floe, Baroness. Don't let the cold bite you on the way out.

I sure hope my sisters retire here. The UK is no country for old men (and extremely young ones).

Ahoy, Me Hearties!!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Arrrr....

Liberal Multiculturalism

Britannia is officially on its death bed. They just gave Islamic law equal standing to the laws of its kings and parliaments. Queen Victoria must be looking for lightning bolts to hurl down from heaven.

My thoughts on this bit of multiculturalism are simple. But I will borrow some eloquence from other, better men:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

- General Sir Charles James Napier, on a Hindu request to continue the practice of "Sati", or widow-burning, in India.

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.

- Jerry Pournelle, Science Fiction writer and essayist

Christ is risen!

- Russian soldiers' response to the Chechen battle cry "Allahu Akbar!"

Multiculturalism? Fuck multiculturalism. If we Christians had any use for Islam's barbaric codes of law, we wouldn't have kicked their asses at Poitiers, at Lepanto, at Vienna, at Granada, and wherever else the Paynim have threatened to hang their veils over us. Viva la Cristo Rey...

- Jonathan Guillermo, ordinary joe

History Teaches Us That...

...apparently, nobody really learns all that much history.

"Which brings up an interesting question: If history is such a good teacher, why do we teach so little of it to our young?

Take, for example, history’s place in America’s higher education. Many institutions that are training tomorrow’s leaders don’t seem to think that history is just what they need. At Princeton, for example, those who receive A.B. degrees need take only one course in history — any history. Bachelor of Science students at Princeton can skip history altogether. So can those at Yale. At least Harvard requires its undergraduates to take a pre-modern history course. But that is rare. It’s increasingly difficult today to find a college or university that requires students to study Antiquity, or the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or anything at all that occurred before the students’ own short lives."

One of the reasons I love UA&P...we don't take history lightly.

The Other 9/11

In a belated commemoration of the tragedy of this generation's 9/11, here's a reflection on another age's 9/11. From the AmericanMinute:

In 1683, over 138,000 Muslim Ottoman Turks surrounded Vienna, Austria. For two months they starved the 11,000 Hapsburg-Austrian defenders. Sultan Mehmed IV sent a message to Austrian King, Leopold I: "Await us in your residence...so we can decapitate you."

Secretly, Polish King Jan Sobieski, gathered 81,000 Polish, Austrian and German troops and on SEPTEMBER 11, 1683, led a surprise attack causing the Turks to flee in confusion. Upon entering the abandonded Turkish tents, they found bags of beans - coffee beans - revealing how Turks could fight day and night. Shortly thereafter, (legend has it that) Polish General Kulczycki opened one of Vienna's first coffeehouses and coffee quickly spread across Europe.

Whereas the Pope and European leaders hailed Jan Sobieski as the "Savior of Western Civilization," the humiliated Muslim army beheaded their general, Mustafa Pasha, and sent his head back to Sultan Mehmed IV in a velvet bag.

President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his 1916 book, Fear God and Take Your Own Part: "From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Jan Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact it...could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor."

John Cleese - The Scientists - 2008

Trust a Monty Python alum to take apart materialistic determinism....

Simply awesome.

Screw "Heroes"...Here's a Real One

I came across this story from the Washington Post.

If you ever ran into Nokesville dad Thomas S. Vander Woude, chances are you would also see his son Joseph. Whether Vander Woude was volunteering at church, coaching basketball or working on his farm, Joseph was often right there with him, pitching in with a smile, friends and neighbors said yesterday.

When Joseph, 20, who has Down syndrome, fell into a septic tank Monday in his back yard, Vander Woude jumped in after him. He saved him. And he died where he spent so much time living: at his son's side.

"That's how he lived," Vander Woude's daughter-in-law and neighbor, Maryan Vander Woude, said yesterday. "He lived sacrificing his life, everything, for his family."

You know, I hope to God I end up even just half the man this gentleman was. Guys like me talk a good game, but we often fall short of the stuff we espouse. This guy flew way past the mark.

I want to be like him.

Requiscat in Pace...

I'm an Ignorant Neanderthal...

...because I thought the concept of "women's rights" included such things as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (Note to my students: "Pursuit of Happiness" being the ethical, rather than psychological, concept.) I always thought "women's rights" were human rights.

But according to the National Organization of Women (NOW), I'm as wrong as a shorts-and-barong combo.

Here are the money grafs:

"Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.

The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No.

In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would "choose life" -- meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion."

Okay. I've been set straight for my own good. So, women's rights are not what we would traditionally call "human rights". They're abortion rights. Because Mrs. Palin, for all her "woman in power" credentials, is pro-life, she is against women's rights.

You know, if this is the case, then I am so glad there were no women present when the Declaration of Independence was drafted. Or at least, I'm glad NOW wasn't.

They say that traditionalist women who stay at home, have babies and care for their families set the women's rights movement back several decades. I'd think that these feminists do a pretty good job themselves. I think trying to get women to murder their children for the sake of paltry, petty and ultimately inadequate causes sets the women's rights movement all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis

Obama on Unplanned Pregnancies

Mr. Change Incarnate says this about unplanned pregnancies:

"I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. "

Okay. Considering the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama was born out of wedlock to an 18 year old mother, what would he say to his mom if he could go back in time and confront her? "Hey, Mom, abort me!"

So grave is this guy's lack of moral perception that he would unwittingly will his own annihilation in order to satiate the gods of secular humanism. The funny thing about the abortion and contraception combo is that it feeds on the souls that advocate it.

At a Time Where Most news is Bad News...

It's important to keep things in perspective. The world is not such a bad place. And to reinforce my admittedly heartfelt cliche, let me use a bunch of pictures of cute little animals...


Even enemies can be friends...

Achievement isn't everything...Sometimes, good things just come to those who wait...

I got nothing for this one. The little fur ball says it all.

G'night folks.

[images from this website]

Another Legend Dies

Don LaFontaine is dead.

Who?

The guy whose voice was behind every blockbuster trailer for the last 20 years or so.

The man who changed the way we heard the words "In a world where..."

The King of Movie Trailers is dead. Long live the King.

Femilingo

Somebody typed up a short translation guide to women-speak for a bunch of engineers at work and shared it in one of the comment boxes of a blog I visited. I'd like to salute this guy, because decoding femilingo is an arduous, dangerous task. And, guys like me really need a dictionary. I understand women like I understand quantum physics.

Here's his guide:

She says - What she means (ALWAYS dependent on context or lunar position)
You want - I want you to do this...
We need - I want
It's your decision - The correct decision should be obvious by now
Do what you want - You'll pay for this later
We need to talk - I need to complain
Sure...go ahead - I don't want you to... I dare you
I'm not upset - Of course I'm upset, you moron -
You're...so manly - You need a shave and you sweat a lot
You're certainly attentive tonight - Is sex all you ever think about?
I'm not emotional! - I'm on my period
Light! - You left a light on somewhere in the house, turn it off
I’m cold - Get out of the warm bed and turn on the heater
I’ll wait for you in the car - Hurry up
Be romantic - Turn out the lights, I feel fat
I heard a noise - I noticed you were almost asleep...
Is my bum big? - Tell me I'm beautiful
You have to learn to communicate - Just agree with me and learn to read my thoughts
Are you listening to me!? - [Too late, you’re dead]
This kitchen is so inconvenient - I want a new house/apartment/curtains/carpeting, furniture, wallpaper...
Hang the picture there - No, I mean hang it there!
Do you love me? - I'm going to ask for something expensive
How much do you love me? - I did something today you're really not going to like
I'll be ready in a minute - Kick off your shoes and find a good game on TV

Basics
Yes - No
No - No
Maybe - No
I'm sorry - You'll be sorry

In answer to the question "What's wrong?"
The same old thing - Nothing
Nothing - Everything
Everything - My PMS is acting up
Nothing, really - It's just that you're such an _
I don't want to talk about it - Go away, I'm still building up evidence against you

I wonder if the guy missed anything...