Jump to content

Ashoka the Great

Banned
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,480

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Ashoka the Great

  1. Ashoka the Great

    ATTENTION NERDS

    By Ashoka the Great,

    I interrupt your current military broadcasting in order to ask for some input regarding a new computer.
    Right now, I'm sitting at my eight-year-old desktop PC, a P4 2.66 GHz with 1 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9000 Video Card.
    OK, you can stop laughing now. When I bought this in 2003 it was pretty frickin' sweet, and it has performed admirably over the years.
    But now, alas, it is beginning to melt down before my eyes. Despite my very best efforts, my CPU regularly heats up far too much, compelling the computer to shut itself off in order to avoid frying. My poor little 150GB hard drive is nearly full, and I have about 100GB of saved data on other hard drives that aren't connected to the computer. (I admit....I currently use them as bookends.) Never mind that it is beginning to fail as well. Bad sectors and all that.
    So yes, it's time to get a new computer and toss this one.
    My needs with respect to a computer are surprisingly reasonable. Most of the games I plays are older, and the newer games I'd like to try out (like Sims 3 or Tropico 3/4) make relatively insignificant demands on systems when one considers what the most basic computer comes with these days.
    My problem is that I'm outside the loop right now. It has been several years since I completed all my computer certifications, and tbqh I haven't kept up with changes in technology very well. Neither have I been interested in the cost of systems that are out there right now.
    So, with this in mind, I present the system that I'm considering. It meets the most basic requirements I have, and can be 'upgraded' (by adding RAM, etc.) to make it work even better within my narrow set of needs.


    Proposed New Computer
    * Motherboard - AMD 760G, Socket AM2+, USB, LAN, PCIe, MicroATX
    * AMD Phenom X4 9600B Business Class Quad-Core Processor HD960BWCJ4BGH - 2.3GHz, Socket AM2+, 2MB L2, 2MB L3 Cache, Unlocked, OEM Cooler Master DK8-7G52B-A2-GP CPU Fan - 70mm, 2 Ball Bearing, 754, 939, 940, AM2, AM3, 3050 ~ 6000 RPM, 95W, Aluminum
    * 4GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Dual Channel RAM
    * LP Hard Drive - 1TB, 5900rpm, 32MB, SATA-3G
    * 24x DVDRW Drive - 24x, S-ATA, Black, OEM
    * Radeon HD 5450 Video Card - 1024MB DDR3, PCI-Express 2.0, DVI, HDMI, VGA
    * ATX Black Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side, Front USB and Audio Ports and 450-Watt Power Supply
    COST: $299.99 (after $10 Rebate) With this I would eventually upgrade the RAM to 8GB, but that wouldn't be a priority. (It would mean ditching the current memory completely -- since there are only two slots -- and picking up two 4GB sticks at a cost of roughly $180.00.) More important would be adding a cooling fan to the back of the case. That will cost <$20 if I don't simply take the fan out of my current PC and 'transplant' it.
    All prices are in Canadian dollars.
    Obviously it doesn't come with either a monitor or an OS. My current monitor is fine, so no worries in that department. (I'll eventually drop the money to get a nice big LCD display, but it really isn't a priority for me.) As far as the OS goes, I'd probably get the 64-bit Windows 7 Home version, which is about $100. The Pro version is about $150; Ultimate is $200. Those are possibilities as well.
    Is it a good deal? I honestly have no idea.
  2. Ashoka the Great
    It doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to look at the current match-up between Polaris and those attacking her and to realize where this may very well be headed.
    Will it go global? Oh, almost certainly.
    My question, though, is how long will it take before some poor alliance is put in the position of having allies and adversaries on both sides? It doesn't take a lot of playing connect-the-dots to make this happen, assuming that people don't activate the non-chaining clauses in their treaties.
    What we may see in the days (weeks?) ahead is confirmation of something I've been saying since the middle of the last global conflict. In this brave new world of ours, it is more and more difficult for alliances to belong to a bloc while also having individual treaties with other alliances. It is inevitable that a conflict will occur at some point, and I rather suspect that in most cases bloc ties will take precedence over individual treaties.
    While I find the current situation to be deeply regrettable, it may have one side-effect that I could support. If the leaders of various alliances are able to grasp the truth of the paragraph above, we may see a major shake-up occurring either during or after this war. By this I mean that we could end up with two, three or more 'sides' with limited (if any) ties to each other beyond the usual diplomatic niceties that are exchanged between non-allies.
    Just to be clear, these 'sides' would not necessarily be enemies just waiting for the opportunity to strike. Or maybe they would. I don't know that it matters.
    It may well be that I'm asking too much of alliance leaders. Complacency has taken root in many alliances, to the point where some seem to regard multiple treaties as a kind of insurance that they will never have to get their hands dirty in any conflict. Perhaps, though, this conflict will compel people to take a long hard look at their treaties and (if applicable) their bloc memberships and untangle the Gordian knot that is the current treaty web.
  3. Ashoka the Great
    Alright, so first things first: my 'confession'.
    Six or seven years ago, I took a number of training courses and then did the exams for A+, Network+, Security+, MCSE and CCNA. I did this for the same reason I studied Mandarin for a year; I was curious. I still remember much of what I learned, but the fact is that, like many people who do these courses/exams, I learned that there are three possible answers to just about any computer-related question:

    The right answer.
    The wrong answer.
    The Microsoft answer. (Or, more broadly, the vendor's answer.)
    I have a Netbook. I bought it about eight months ago. It has an 8GB SSD, along with a card reader (currently occupied by an 8GB SD card) and a couple of USB ports, one of which is used by my 4GB thumb drive. The other has a mouse plugged into it much of the time.
    When I bought it, it came loaded with Windows XP Home. After installing various updates over a few months, Windows had all but consumed my entire HD. Therefore, XP had to go.
    The reasonable alternative was Linux, of course. And so I messed around with a few distributions. Eventually, like many people, I settled on Ubuntu 10.04 for Netbooks. What I've learned about Linux over the last few weeks of experimenting does not make me terribly optimistic with respect to its long-term ability to reach a huge market, despite its legendary stability.
    For example, many Linux distributions for Netbooks are intended to run from a USB drive, installing themselves to the computer's RAM. That's neat and all -- and significantly speeds up performance -- but the fact is that most of us would rather have the OS safely within the computer, not on some peripheral device we might lose, break or spill coffee on.
    Also, many versions of Linux do not come adequately 'configured' for the average user. For example, Slax (which runs from a USB drive) has trouble with wireless networks. Some well-meaning nerd wrote a little program to overcome this problem, and posted about it on a Slax-related thread.
    Now don't get me wrong. I tried his solution and it worked quite well. But the average user would have looked at the instructions -- downloading/installing a module, followed by a lot of commands made in Terminal -- and given up right there. Nothing frightens the novice user quite like working in Terminal.
    Also, I've noticed what seems to be a script common to most Linux help threads, regardless of distribution. It goes something like this:


    Q: I can't get 'X' to work. Can someone help me?
    A: Sure. First I need to know a lot of stuff about your computer, the error message you're getting and so on.
    Q: OK, where do I find this?
    A: Look in 'X' for it.
    Q: Oh, OK. I found it. Here's what it says: "blah blah blah blah"
    A: Alright, you need to configure your system using 'X' app. Here's an additional ten lines of code that need to be entered exactly as I've put them here, or your computer will become a big ol' paperweight.
    Q: I'm lost and afraid. Can you give me a step-by-step method?
    A: Sure. Open up Terminal and type in the following fifteen lines of commands.
    Q: OK, I did that but 'X' still isn't working.
    Q2: Oh hey, I just saw this thread. I have the exact same problem.
    Q3: I'm having that problem, too.
    <insert fifteen pages of "Me, too!" and "Maybe this will work?">
    A15: The maker of this Linux distribution acknowledges that 'X' doesn't work on their system. As of right now there is no workaround for this problem. They hope to have it fixed in their next release. All of this doesn't intimidate me, but like many on this forum I'm not an average computer user. An average user is someone like my sister, who has never altered the configuration on any computer she's ever owned and who cried -- yes, literally cried as in heaving sobs of anguish -- when she got her first BSOD.
    Add in the fact that, even with Wine, many Windows applications (especially games, it seems) simply won't work in Linux and you have a recipe for frustration that will forever keep Linux from enjoying the popularity its enthusiasts believe it deserves.
  4. Ashoka the Great

    My New Avatar

    By Ashoka the Great,

    I am currently at war with a rogue who decided to hit Nordreich on his way out of CN. This individual didn't plan very well. He had plenty of nukes but not enough cash to sustain him beyond one round. By the time said round ended, he had dropped into my lowly range. He hasn't paid his bills in days and, if he were to collect, still wouldn't be able to pay them. Bill-lock after one round of war? How very embarrassing.
    This has gotten me thinking about rogues in general. On one level, rogues are simply those dozens (hundreds?) of individuals who have made CN a little bit more entertaining during the long dry spells between major conflicts. Not every rogue is a 'Frans Josef' -- my personal favorite -- but they do at least manage to give some of us a reason to log in each day.
    I have had six nations thus far, and the closest I've come to being a rogue was during the Vox movement, when I was elected a Senator on the Red Team. Having had a taste of being a troublemaker for the sake of causing trouble, I must say I liked it. It was fun. And, for those who didn't take their nations so seriously that they sent me wailing PMs of despair, it was fun as well.
    So perhaps there's a little bit of a rogue in all of us. Perhaps all of us wish from time to time that we could break something simply for the sake of breaking something.
    Therefore, as a tribute to the inner rogue who lurks within all our hearts, I'll be sporting a "NoR-ized" version of a certain banned member's original CN avatar for the next few days.
    While I've had my own run-ins with this individual over the years, I must admit that on some level he symbolizes all the things that many of us wish we could do. We may be held back by our own sense of right and wrong, our own obedience to the (game's) rules, or perhaps our allegiance to a group of people. Nevertheless, in our darkest moments I think all of us wish we could just be troublemakers for the sake of causing trouble.
  5. Ashoka the Great
    Every now and then I'll notice that players have their Political Compass score as part of their signature. I cannot tell you how many times I've tried this test. More than three but less than ten, probably. Each time, I gave up somewhere around Page 3.
    Way back when studying for the priesthood, I took a variety of personality tests. I was interviewed by several psychologists. Before that, while working in public policy, I was given security clearance in order to fête various government-types from various countries including my own.
    It is said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Well, having been compelled to examine my life from a variety of vantage points, I can also tell you that the over-examined life ain't so hot, either.
    There's another reason I've avoided the Political Compass. As you may have picked up from the above comments, I hate tests, especially those that purport to tell me more about myself. I think they're all about as reliable as opening up the paper and checking my horoscope. (I'm a Pisces. We're supposed to be sensitive and caring and all that. Oh btw, I have the same birthday as Josef Mengele.)
    Anyway, tonight I decided to try the Political Compass again. Not once, but twice. In the first test, I gave nuanced answers which most closely reflect my views at any given time. In the second test, I allowed myself only the option of 'Strongly Agree' or 'Strongly Disagree'. Nothing in-between.
    I did this because, like most people, there are times when I feel like supporting the most drastic measures available. For example, each time I read about a serial killer being put away for life instead of genuinely paying for his crimes, I find that I am willing to support capital punishment for people who cut me off in traffic. When my own father was recently denied a place in a veterans' home because he had not served five or more years in the Canadian Army -- he served about four-and-a-half, including more than a year in combat in Korea -- I would have supported damn-near any measure that would guarantee seniors a measure of dignity.
    And so on.
    We all do this, right? I call it the 'If I Were Dictator' hypothesis. Something annoys us and in our minds we can't help but imagine how we'd do things if only we had the unlimited power to do so. (By the way, if I'm ever Supreme Dictator all office telephones, photocopiers and coffee makers will have identical instructions for use. If you've worked in more than a couple of offices, you know why.)
    Anyway, according to this test, here's where I sit on a normal day:



    I find this result to be interesting. I have spent a large part of my working life in public policy research, and the organizations I have worked for would tend to put me more to the economic right. I mean, geez, I organized Milton Friedman's (belated) eightieth birthday party in Vancouver, coinciding with a Regional Meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society. My (economic) libertarian credentials are pretty darn good, at least on paper. But, according to this test, not in practice.
    Interesting. Perhaps I'm mellowing in my middle age, at least with regard to economic policy. Or perhaps I've just given up on the idea of making government small again.
    With regard to personal liberty, that's no surprise at all. I've always been a "Get off my damn lawn" kind of guy.
    Alright....having dispensed with that, let's see what the world would look like if I were granted absolute power.



    And this is what the world would be like if I were handed supreme authority.
    So what have I learned?
    Well, apparently I'm an Authoritarian Centrist. For some reason I find that to be very funny. Or, rather, I found it funny until I compared my results with the placement of various political figures on the Political Compass:



    Ha ha. Very funny.
  6. Ashoka the Great
    I've written before about my idiot neighbor and my landlord's efforts to get him evicted.
    Well, today we resumed our hearing. And, while we didn't get the result we were looking for, it was most definitely a 'win' for the good guys.
    Turns out my landlord had filed their paperwork incorrectly, which meant that the case could be dismissed without prejudice. It would start all over again, probably sometime in January.
    However, my neighbor, recognizing that his case was completely and irretrievably lost, agreed to mediation. By the time the judge noticed the paperwork error, all evidence had been heard from both parties and, well, it was overwhelmingly damning with regard to his noise, his drunken verbal abuse of neighbors and so on.
    Anyway....
    He has until April 30 to move. If he is not gone on May 1, the Sheriff will come in and 'help him pack'. If in the interim he wishes to move out, he need only provide five days' written notice.
    If the glitch in the paperwork had not been spotted by the judge (there was a one-day discrepancy) then the hearing would have ended today around noon. There would have been a decision handed down within five business days, and my idiot neighbor would have been evicted within a month.
    So I've missed out on an early Christmas present, but the end goal has been achieved.
    Oh, and if the idiot neighbor persists in making a non-stop racket, we can go back to court and do this all over again. Either way, the April 30 deadline is final.
    None of this pays to get the damage (caused by said idiot neighbor) fixed on my car, but it eliminates the cause.
    I'm not exactly happy about it, but I'm satisfied.
  7. Ashoka the Great
    OK, let me begin with a few caveats.
    1. I'm not American.
    2. I was involved in the policy-making process for many years and, having seen how it's done, I have very little respect for most politicians.
    3. My Bachelor's degree is in Broadcast Journalism.
    4. I have actually worked 'in the field' before, and I have less respect for journalists than I have for politicians. (One day I'll have to share my story of my one encounter with CNN's John Roberts. Perhaps in my next post.)
    All that being said, I believe I'm on fairly safe ground when I say that, Fox News notwithstanding, the American media enjoys picking on Republicans far more than it enjoys picking on Democrats. As a rule, the most extreme individuals are trotted out as being representative of the entire Republican Party.
    Generally, Democrats get a pass. When Robert Byrd died four months ago, he was eulogized for his 'progressive' voting record. His having served as an organizer/recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan in his youth went unmentioned.
    Quotes like this were forgotten:
    Rather ugly, don't you think?
    But then again, Sen. Byrd worked pretty damn hard to put his past well behind him. Perhaps he earned that 'pass' from the media after all.
    But then we have people like this:


    Meet Kesha Rogers, Democratic candidate for Congress in Texas' 22nd District.


    Notice anything wrong with this picture?
    She's a nutjob. A Lyndon LaRouche supporter. She wants to impeach Obama. She also received fifty-four percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, and did not make even the slightest attempt to hide her views from voters.
    Oh, and her campaign slogan?
    "Help send me to Congress, and we can send our grandchildren to Mars!"
    I get the feeling she's already been.
    So where are all the stories about loony Democrats? There are plenty of them, after all. I can think of half a dozen Democratic Party embarrassments off the top of my head, but none of them seem to be getting nearly as much airtime as everyone's favorite Tea Party poster-girl, the ever-chaste MILF, Miss Christine O'Donnell.
    Am I just watching the wrong channels?
  8. Ashoka the Great
    A few weeks ago I made a blog post about my charming next-door neighbor.
    Today we had our day in court to get him evicted. Unfortunately, the hearing did not conclude so I am unable to discuss my testimony.
    What I can say is that getting to the court at 0900 and waiting until 1530 for our case to be called was made extremely worthwhile by the last two minutes of the proceedings.
    At 1625, the judge announced that she was adjourning proceedings until a future date owing to the time. (The court closes at 1630.)
    At this point my charming neighbor jumped to his feet and started yelling about evidence he was trying to produce. The judge tried to ignore him, then cautioned him to be quiet and ultimately told him to leave.
    Throughout my testimony, he repeatedly interjected with "You're a !@#$@#$ liar" and other such niceties.
    As if to twist the knife, right after the judge told him to leave, my landlord's lawyer -- it's actually the landlord taking him to court, not me -- quickly asked the judge to advise the defendant not to make any noise that will disturb "this witness" (that's me, duh) between now and the next hearing.
    The judge raised her eyebrows, looked toward my neighbor with an exasperated look, and said, "Mr. Xxxxxx, I am asking you to refrain from making any disturbances between now and the next hearing of this Tribunal."
    "That'll be easy, since they're all lying! There is no noise to complain about!" he responded. (This was moments after we had played a video -- which the defendant posted on YouTube and later took down -- which showed him playing his drums with his stereo blasting. Good times.)
    "That's exactly what I expected you to say," she replied.
    I hadn't had a chance to leave the stand while this was going on. The judge collected her papers and, for a few moments, she and I shared what can only be called a 'look' while everyone else was leaving the courtroom.
    "Welcome to my world," I said in a low voice.
    "I think you're welcome to it," she said in an equally low voice as she exited the bench.
    Can't wait for cross-examination.
  9. Ashoka the Great
    More RL adventures here, kids.
    Let me begin by saying that I live on the second floor of a two-storey, wood-framed building. It's not ideal, but we moved here back in 2006 for a reason. At the time, my mother-in-law was fighting a comeback of breast cancer (she died on Boxing Day the same year) and my father-in-law had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Their house is two blocks away. We've been on call 24/7 for four years now.
    I don't mind, really. This is what families do. Well, what they're supposed to do, anyway.
    But lately....
    I've been dealing with a drunken, abusive neighbor. In recent weeks, he has been blaring his music at all hours. In a wood-framed building, this guy has a drum kit. Seriously. A drum kit.
    Getting nowehere in trying to reason with him, I phoned the property manager to complain. About 15-20 complaints later, and after he got drunk and followed the Superintendent's 15-year-old daughter around while screaming "Yo fatty!" at her repeatedly, they finally sent him a letter telling him to smarten up. They also commenced eviction proceedings, since apart from all of this he hits on every female who lives in or comes near the building and staggers around the parking lot, drunk and incoherent. People with kids (like me and several others) don't particularly appreciate this.
    And then my car was vandalized. Someone took a screwdriver or icepick to every single window and quite simply scratched the hell out of them. There's ~$2,000 worth of damage. We didn't have 'comprehensive' insurance to cover vandalism since it was an 'occasional use' vehicle, so my car -- a previously-pristine '98 Bonneville with 120,000km on it -- is a write-off.
    Later that night, three neighbors and I heard him bragging about it to his kids (seriously, to his kids?) and telling them how to lie to cover for him if/when the police asked about it. He finished off the evening by spending under my bedroom window, screaming about how much he hates me, how he thinks my wife is cheating on me and "Don't get me started on those !@#$@#$ kids." (The children who live with me, btw, are a 13-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy.)
    The following Wednesday (a week ago today) he was standing in the parking lot outside my apartment at 11:00 p.m., pointing a camera toward my place and taking flash photos. That same night he followed my wife around outside when she went downstairs for a cigarette. He just kept saying "Good evening!" over and over and over again while staying about three feet behind her.
    Two-bit intimidation. That's all it is.
    And yes, we've spoken to the police.
    Apparently all of this is harassment, but not criminal harassment. The fact that he admitted to the vandalism in front of witnesses is meaningless, since nobody actually saw him do it. They said they could go talk to him, but that would probably just make it worse. (Translation: "Wow, sucks to be you, but we don't want to do anything. Now if you'll excuse us, it's time for our coffee break.")
    Their advice? Move. Seriously. Move.
    Until then, they won't do anything unless someone actually gets hurt. But if I do something, I become The Bad Guy.
    Helpful, right?
    ----
    So, if you happen to catch me on IRC and I'm not all that chatty or I seem irritated, now you know why.
    But remember....
    Sometimes, believing in Karma means taking the long view. My wife has somehow managed to convince me that going to prison because of this moron isn't worth it. But eventually he's going to cross paths with someone who lacks my patience.
    I only hope I get to hear about it.
  11. Ashoka the Great
    So the missus and I took the kid soff to McDonald's to get a McFlurry or two.
    On the way back, my wife (who was driving) poked me in the leg and said, "What's Jack singing?"
    It went something like this....
    I get up every day.....it's a miracle I'm told....somehow I live to work....so I hit the road....
    Don't shoot! I'm a maaaaaaaaan.
    I could not have been a prouder parent than I was at that moment.
    What the boy was singing.
    By the way.....
    He's five.
  12. Ashoka the Great

    Reality Blows

    By Ashoka the Great,

    I play another online game rather a lot. On that game, I'm a server admin.
    Tonight, one of my fellow admins confided in me that he had 'taken a fit' the other day. He went to the hospital, where they found three tumors in his brain.
    The punchline?
    These were actually secondary tumors. He actually has lung cancer.
    Like me, he's forty-four years old. Unlike me, he has never smoked. (I quit a year ago, and think about it damn near every day. God, I miss it.)
    So we talked on TeamSpeak....for about an hour or so. And then another player joined the TS server so we had to make small talk about other things.
    I just sent him a PM. It's not all that relevant to CN. In fact, it isn't relevant at all to the typical CN demographic, but if only to give you a sense of the guy behind the walrus exterior....
    Life blows, kids. But that's no reason to take it for granted.
    Oh, and btw....the image in my sig on this particular game forum:



  13. Ashoka the Great
    With all the nonsense being spread about the reasons for this war, I think it's time to have a serious discussions about its causes, Ragnarok's reaction and the reactions of NSO's erstwhile allies.
    In the course of this I will explain in detail all the information presented to me -- as a representative of a Ragnarok ally -- in the hours leading up to Ragnarok's declaration of war upon the New Sith Order.
    No, I wouldn't do that to you. I'm not that cruel. Besides, there are more than enough threads and blog posts as it is, and most of these say the same things over and over and over. They're pretty much worthless. If ever someone should create a system in order to calculate a 'size of war':'number of threads/blogs' ratio, the current conflict will surely prove that there's some kind of perverse inverse relationship at work.
    Instead I'm going to type about something that is near and dear to the heart of every real man.
    I speak, of course, of reading in the bathroom.
    Every couple of weeks my wife asks me to clear some books out of the bathroom. For some reason she seems to think that having a selection of volumes in that particular room sends a bad message. I'm not sure who might be offended, though. The kids? The cats?
    Anyway, yesterday was one of those days, so off I went to collect the five books that had piled up. I looked them over and thought, "What an odd selection."
    With that in mind, I thought I would share with you the books that comprised my, er, 'light reading' over the last couple of weeks. Ordered by author -- with original publication date in square brackets -- they are:
    Carsten, F.L. The Rise of Fascism. University of California Press, Berkeley. 1980. [1967]
    A simple recounting of fascist and proto-fascist movements in Europe before the Second World War. What happened in Germany and Italy is well known, of course, but Carsten also discusses movements in places like the UK, Belgium, Romania and Austria; countries often overlooked in these kinds of historical reviews. Those sections are what makes the book interesting.
    The last twenty or so pages are devoted to a discussion of 'neo-Fascism', at the end of which the author concludes: "The whole political and social climate has changed to such an extent that a Fascist revival, in any way similar to that of the 1930s, seems extremely unlikely."
    I would agree, but only to a point. I happen to think we're headed for the kind of corporate, regimented state that Mussolini would be proud to call his own. It just won't be called Fascism. (cf. Jello Biafra's "Shut Up, Be Happy")
    Chuev, Felix and Albert Resis (ed.). Molotov Remembers - Inside Kremlin Politics. Ivan R. Dee, Chicago. 1993. [1991]
    Vyacheslav Molotov is one of the most influential yet enigmatic persons in modern history. A man who worked beside both Lenin and Stalin, signed the pact that allowed Germany to start the Second World War and, by his own admission, countersigned nearly every execution order that was issued during Stalin's Great Terror.
    His comments are a masterful example of justification after-the-fact. However, since what he's often trying to justify is mass murder, the violation of other nations' sovereignty and his own palace intrigues against supposed friends and political allies, the effect can be quit chilling at times.
    Leggett, Trevor (ed.). A First Zen Reader. Charles E. Tuttle Co., Tokyo. 1978. [1960]
    Not much to say about this one. I am strongly attracted to some of the ideas underpinning Buddhism, while fully aware of the fact that I would make a pretty terrible Buddhist.
    A very good introduction to the subject, however.
    Miller, Jr., Walter M. A Canticle for Leibowitz. Bantam Books, New York. 1997. [1959]
    I don't read a lot of fiction, and the fiction I do read needs to have more than a good story to it. This book certainly delivers.
    Taking place over a period of several hundred years, and in the aftermath of a global nuclear holocaust, Miller spins a marvelous story which shows, among other things, that people haven't changed a damn bit since they crawled out of caves.
    Ott, Hugo. Martin Heidegger - A Political Life. Fontana Press, London. 1994. [1988]
    Heidegger is a difficult philosopher to read. One gets the feeling that one is encountering a deeply profound thinker....or a complete intellectual charlatan.
    Ott's focus, however, isn't on Heidegger's thought so much as it is on the relationship between his ideas, his support for the NSDAP, his break with Nazism and, later, his post-war rehabilitation.
    The book is badly in need of an editor. Wild tangents run throughout.
    For example, Ott begins a discussion of the infamous 1933 "Rector's Address" by talking about Heidegger's post-war justification. Fourteen pages later he says, "But we have jumped ahead of the chronology of events again...."
    Yes. Again.
    Those familiar with the confusion of German grammar rules will understand me when I say this book appears to be organized according to those same principles. Just as it seems the author is going to reach a profound conclusion, he gets distracted by something shiny and travels down another road.
    -----
    You can view this as a recommended reading list, if you like. Or not. You may also use this as an opportunity to share what you keep at-hand in that most holy of household sanctuaries.
  14. Ashoka the Great
    Moments ago, I was mentioning to my wife that someone had vandalized the Wikipedia's 'Recent Deaths' page yesterday, posting a fake notice of Peter North's supposed death by drug overdose.
    "Who's Peter North?" She asked.
    "You know....Canadian? Porn star? Nicknamed 'The Decorator'?" I explained.
    "Oh, right," she replied. "I always get him confused with Oliver North."
    All I can offer in mitigation is that she had just woken up from a nap and was still a bit groggy.
  15. Ashoka the Great
    A few days ago on the Nordreich forums, a discussion was started about the Voyager 2 probe. Understabndably, this turned into a discussion about intelligent life in the universe. Aliens. Little green men. Whatever.
    It went on for a few pages before Captain Buzzkill decided to drop by.
    My entire post is below, although I've had to change the formatting slightly.

    ==============================================================


    In any discussion of extraterrestrial life, there are some important things to consider. These considerations are largely based on Earth's experiences, as will be obvious. (But hey, that's all the hard data we have to work with.)
    1. In any solar system, habitable zones are quite narrow. [May 26 edit. If I wrote this again I would add "if they exist at all."]
    2. Intelligent life takes time.
    3.
    have a way of short-circuiting this process.4. Humanity has only been properly organized into what one might call 'civilization' for perhaps 10,000 years, or since we advanced beyond hunting and gathering to genuine agriculture.
    5. Humanity has been capable of wireless communication over great distances for about a century.
    6. Humanity has been capable of manned space flight for less than fifty years.
    7. Humanity has the capacity to destroy itself many times over, whether through war, disease or continually "!@#$ting in our own water bowl." (A phrase I first heard used by a friend of mine while in high school. It's a remarkably apt way of describing us.)
    8. We have no data on which to estimate the average duration of 'advanced' civilizations before they succumb to self-destruction or are wiped out by natural causes. ('Natural causes' would include a supervolcano, a planet-wide extinction event caused by a collision with a big freaking rock or something like the eventual run-in between the Milky Way and Andromeda.)
    So sure....extraterrestrial life is 'possible', but intelligent life is much less likely. Technologically-advanced life is considerably less likely than that. In the billions of years of this universe's existence, thousands or millions of civilizations could have risen and fallen already, just as ours will eventually. Not one has left a mark on the universe that is visible to us.
    Does this mean that we should stop looking, unplug SETI and wait for the aliens to arrive? No. The human desire to know is unquenchable. We're worse than cats in this regard. (Much more reckless, too.)
    But we need to face the fact that Humanity is alone. We are confined to this planet, and there are significant barriers to space exploration. We may send out probes, but it is very unlikely that we will ever 'reach the stars' in a personal way. It is even less likely that we will meet up with alien life.
    When we are destroyed -- and make no mistake, we will be destroyed -- there will be no recollection of our once-great civilization.
    "Woman gives birth straddling an open grave."
    The universe is no different.
    We are, quite frankly, solitary and doomed. Our ultimate end will be the equivalent of an unnoticed gurgle in the universe's digestive system. We have no 'legacy'. We have no 'future'. The life and death of most men is forgotten in a generation. As a group, Humanity has no one to remember us at all.
    You're all welcome to stare up at the sky and think about things that will never be. Me? I think I'm going to get some ice cream.
    Note: I also do weddings and birthday parties. For some reason bookings have been scarce lately.

    ==============================================================


    Let me quote the comment that was posted immediately below this post:
    While I understand that the person who made this comment didn't intend it to be taken personally, there are some folks for whom the idea of 'life out there' is all that keeps them going. It is what drives both our religious impulses and our desire to know what's happening out in the stars.
    But hey....motivations be damned. We're pretty much boned regardless of what gets you through the day.
    My questions, though, are:
    Is this information genuinely depressing? If so, why?
    Am I wrong? Is there some law of physics I'm overlooking? Are Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and Frank Tipler going to arrive to take us to a wonderful singularity filled with virgins and beer bongs?
    If I'm right, does my my pointing this out make me a bad person? Should everyone just give up? Should you stop reading this and just go 'off' yourself?
    I asked my wife, and she just looked at me and said, "Did you put the donuts in the fridge? I'm worried the glaze will melt."
    Best answer ever.
  16. Ashoka the Great
    Anyone out there still play Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield?
    More than seven years after its release, there's still a decent community of players out there. Just wondering if anyone else is a dinosaur like me.
    Oh, btw, if you do play it from time to time or have RVS buried somewhere and decide to re-install it, you will be shocked to learn that I play under the username 'kingzog'. I'm usually on the Obsolete Superstars or Shadow Squad servers.
    Also, I have a real knack for TKing my entire squad on small maps. I throw frags like a girl, apparently.
  17. Ashoka the Great
    First, I would just like to say that I hate all of you. I hope you and your alliance die in a lake of fire that I personally ignite and that is only quenched by your incessant tears. That's right. I'm talking about you.
    That felt pretty good.
    You see, the best thing about retirement is that one is free to say whatever the hell one wants while always being able to fall back on the "My opinion - not my alliance's" defense. The worst thing about retirement happens when someone notices this and says, "Hmmm....how are we going to rein this guy in a little?"
    In RL, the easiest way to turn a radical into a conservative (or a loudmouth into a conciliator) is to put him in charge of something. Now....in CN terms, what would be the simplest, most effective way to ensure that a similar individual plays nice with everybody else?
    While you're mulling that over, I suppose I should mention that, effective immediately, my opinion does in fact represent the government of Nordreich, and I must therefore re-learn how to bite my tongue.
    Now, if some lovely, young, shapely CNer would like to bite my tongue for me -- you know, to get me started -- then that would be....what? I have to tone that down, too? Oh, c'mon!



  18. Ashoka the Great
    After my wife and I were married we lived with her parents for a year. It wasn't about saving money or anything like that. Both my in-laws had just taken early retirement from teaching, were in 'fragile' states and needed some help. We continue to live in the same area to this day. My mother-in-law died three-and-a-half years ago. My father-in-law still needs our help. But I digress....
    Across the street from us lived a couple with three children: two teenagers and a young son who is/was the same age as my step-daughter. She and this boy have been in the same class nearly every year since she was in kindergarten.
    A week ago, this kid's father was driving home when he had a heart attack just a couple of blocks from his house. His car went off the road and crashed, but by then he was already dead. He was in his mid-50s. I've no idea what sort of provision he made for his wife and son, but I'm not optimistic. (Protip: I'm almost never optimistic.)
    A couple of days later, our cat had the kittens we'd been expecting for a few weeks. My wife and I acted as midwives. I held the cat and comforted it as much as possible while my wife helped at the....er....'other end'.
    The entire litter was stillborn.
    I don't know if it's possible for a cat to 'mourn' over such things, but she's been extremely needy the last few days. I can't go anywhere in the house with her following me. If I stop she'll lie down on my feet, perhaps to prevent me from moving any further.
    Meanwhile....
    Yesterday was my youngest son's birthday party. I spent the afternoon entertaining five-year-olds.
    Life begins, life ends, life goes on. Just another week.
  19. Ashoka the Great
    Before quitting smoking a little while back, I used to go outside for my smoke breaks. I still go outside to pace back and forth, having still not figured out how to get rid of that 'antsy' feeling I have sometimes.
    It's not terribly exciting. I greet my neighbors, admire the trees and, on many occasions, see drivers acting like complete dolts. For you see, I live near an intersection. It's not a particularly busy one, but for some reason it attracts the worst drivers. (My kids cross at this intersection every day to go to and from school, so I have something of a personal interest in drivers' behavior.)
    Until today, I thought I had seen it all. For example:
    - Drivers coming to a complete stop on a red light, then going through the intersection before the light has changed.
    - Cars making left turns into the wrong lane, thus pointing themselves at oncoming traffic.
    - Drivers ignoring the crossing guard's large 'STOP' sign while there are children crossing.
    - Senior citizens peering through their steering wheels in order to see.
    - People flying down the road at 90 km/h when the speed limit is 40 km/h.
    I could go on. On average, there is one accident per week. Most are not that serious, although two weeks ago a truck driver blew through the red light while in the wrong lane, t-boning a pickup truck and sandwiching it between the truck and a minivan on the other side that was stopped. I may not know much about cars, but I do know three 'write-offs' when I see them.
    Today, though....
    I was standing on the sidewalk, facing south, when I noticed a car coming from the west. It seemed to be going very, very slowly, and from a distance it was obvious that the driver had both hands off the wheel. If anything, he seemed to be making the "I'm choking" signal.
    Now....I'm a good neighbor. I like to help people. So my first reaction was to prepare to rush out, yank the driver from the car and perform the Heimlich maneuver, CPR or whatever was needed.
    I'm also rather far-sighted -- 20/10 in one eye, 20/15 in the other -- so it wasn't long before I realized what the middle-aged male driver was actually doing.
    He was flossing.
    I couldn't help myself. As he began to crawl past me, I decided to inquire as to his intellectual capacity. His window was open, he didn't have the radio on and he was (maybe) fifteen feet away from me, so I didn't have to yell.
    "Are you a !@#$@#$ idiot?" I asked.
    The driver looked my way, hands still off the wheel. I suppose he must have knocked said wheel with his elbow, because his car turned right and mounted the curb about thirty feet short of the intersection. No (apparent) damage done. He missed both a fire hydrant and a pole. I expect there was some minor damage to the area around the front-right wheel well. Possibly some damage to his suspension, ball joint, tie rod....whatever. I don't know.
    I stood there, slowly nodding. The driver looked over at me.
    "Yup, you're an idiot," I said. And then I went back inside, sat down, and wrote this for posterity.
  20. Ashoka the Great
    Thinking about Admin's current Facebook-related competition....
    First, I deleted my Facebook account a while back, but I'm not going to whinge that it's somehow unfair. As publicity moves go, it's not a bad idea and I support it.
    However, I feel the need to say this:

    If, in a few weeks' time there appears a CN alliance called 'Farmville'*, I want it killed.


    ------
    * - Or named after any other FB game my wife kicks me off the computer for.
  21. Ashoka the Great
    Some of you will know that my relationship with my Christian faith is a bit, well, complex.
    Several years after finishing my Bachelor's degree in Journalism, I attended an Anglican seminary. A few years after that I went to live in a monastery in New Mexico. (I came back after a few months because I made the 'mistake' of falling in love before I left. Every now and then my wife will say, "If you're ever a widower, I know where you're going after the estate is settled." And she's right.)
    In both seminary and the monastery I attended services very often. In the case of the latter, several times per day.
    And now?
    I don't go at all.
    Parish life holds no interest for me. It clashes with my personality. There are those who are comfortable in that kind of environment. I am not one of them. (Which is funny, considering how 'intense' one is involved in a monastic community.)
    Similarly, I have no prayer life to speak of. I have an interior life, but that's a somewhat different thing. My 'prayers' are usually uttered at especially bad times, and tend to consist of my looking skyward and muttering, "Really?"
    This is all background, btw.
    Today I found a YouTube video which purports to ask '
    '.The purpose of the video is transparent enough. Its creator wants Christians, especially educated ones, to feel a little bit stupid about their faith. In this it's not particularly different from Richard Dawkins' atheistic crusade. He posits questions and then places limits on how one can answer. (Watch it for a minute or so and you'll see what I mean.) It's a very old debate tactic, although not a particularly good one.
    But his first question did remind me of a story told to me by a rabbi, which I would now like to share.
    Take from it what you will. I just felt like sharing.
  23. Ashoka the Great
    We've all seen this picture, I think. It's downright iconic.
    Well, seeing it posted in a thread today reminded me of a fun story.
    It was 1993 or 1994, I believe. I was working for an economic research institute, and we were expecting a group of economic experts from the PRC, all of whom had the title of 'Vice-Chairman'. (I found that hilarious, for some reason.)
    The day before they arrived, a protocol officer from the Canadian government dropped by to make sure we understood who our guests were, topics that were off-limits and so on.
    He walked into my office, looked at the wall and saw that it was dominated by a very large print of the above photo.
    ProtocolGuy: I would ask you to please take down that picture as it may offend your guests.
    Me: Sure, I'll take it down. By the way, what's Mandarin for, "Kiss my $@!, murderer"?
    My boss intervened at that point, and we compromised on closed curtains. (My office had two glass walls.)
    The next day the meeting came and went. It was notable for two things:
    - these Chinese economic 'experts' clearly did not understand how a free market worked
    - they were shocked that a research institute that was critical of government policies could be allowed to exist
    Several times I watched my boss try --and very nearly succeed -- to conceal the fact that he was laughing at them.
    The meeting ended, the board room doors opened and everyone stepped out.
    In the meantime, my secretary, who complained whenever I closed my curtains ("It makes it too dark around my desk," she'd say) had opened them to brighten our corner of the office.
    Oh, did I mention my office was right outside the board room?
    Good times.
  24. Ashoka the Great
    Just wondering....
    Does this forum design not include the ability to see which people are celebrating their birthdays today? If it does, I seem to be missing it.
    There's some (ir)rational self-interest here. Tomorrow is my birthday, and in previous years I've taken a kind of bizarre anti-pleasure in realizing how old I am compared to the average CN player.
  25. Ashoka the Great
    Here's how the game is played:
    - Alliance X makes a mistake of some kind.
    - Someone from Alliance Y calls them on it.
    - The second individual is reminded of when they did something, possibly by someone unrelated to Alliance X.
    - The above individual is castigated over something else.
    - Eventually, you have a loop of people all pointing and calling each other names.
    - Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Always repeat.
    This would seem to be one of the favorite games these days. So prevalent has it become that I found myself typing a variation of it earlier today. At Bob Janova, of all people.
    (Sorry, Bob.)
    Well, no more.
    It's time for a reality check, folks.
    All of us who have been here a while and who have served in government(s) have made mistakes along the way. At times they may have only affected ourselves or our own alliances. But there have also been times when some of our more spectacular screw-ups have affected hundreds, even thousands, of nations.
    All of us have screwed up. (And if someone's going to jump in and say "Hey I haven't" then I can only say you haven't been trying hard enough.)
    Our errors inform our future actions. Well, they're supposed to at any rate. When they don't, there's always someone there to remind us of this. (CNers are very good at this sort of 'reminding'.)
    But y'know, it would be nice if our errors informed our comments as well, making said comments more pertinent, more cogent, more....anything other than bitter and childish. And hey, we might just learn that the guy who did a bad thing two years ago isn't really so bad after all.
    Is it so hard to focus on the matter at hand, whatever it may be? I'm not just asking that question of others, but of myself as well. Do those of us with a lot of history simply have too much baggage that we refuse to let go of?
    When I find myself acting like the second monk, I feel stupid.
    So enough with the ancient history. If it isn't truly relevant, then save it for that book about CN you've always wanted to write. (*cough* loser *cough*)
    Don't go on and on about a "pattern of behavior." Save that for the DoW, if you've got the stones.
    Finally, there is one point that needs to be made with regard to anyone who claims the moral high ground. I've said this before, but it may bear repeating:
    We are all monsters. If we are not monsters, we are friends with monsters. And if we are not friends with monsters, we are food for monsters.
×
×
  • Create New...