Raithe

Trying to teach the puppy that no he should not chase the cat and try to play with/eat him. And I'm going to accompany my sister to dog training classes tonight to see if I can pick up any better tricks for handling him when she disapears to work. One garage rear-door built and taking it's paint. Although having both primer and paint that requires 16 hours to dry really does make it a day-by-day progress. Of course this is the test build really. The front doors and frame have been slowly rotting away the past 20 years, so it looks like we'll be rebuilding them at some point in the near future. Sat down with some logic problems, worked away at that for the mental exercise.. but it's so much fun when having been successful with a batch, you then hit one that you read.. you understand the english behind it.. but your mind makes absolutely no connections for what it actually means...

Useful is perspective.. But the array is already built, so the costs are pretty much just the operating ones... And it was the only array dedicated to looking for non-terrestrial signals, all the other arrays do a little bit when they've got nothing better to do. Sure, that's the big question on whether there's life out there, but they do pick up funky new astrophysics doing it. Sometimes pure science can be worth it. I mean, we're talking a budget of about

Hm.. well to carry over something I saw elsewhere... We've just past through the joys of Easter... and well.. consider Matthew 27

It's not a discovery, but science based news.. Alien Telescope Array Mothballed Apparently SETI have lost the Alien Telescope Array in California. The only Array dedicated to the search for Extraterrestrial Life has been shut down due to US budget cuts. The bizzarre thing, is that their annual operating costs is basically equivalent to building a mile of highway. So you can really see how the US is saving money by slashing that budget...

Finished the Back to the Future adventure set over the bank holiday weekend (well, apart from Episode 5 which isn't out yet). Generally amusing, with some light brain work involved. Although I know they're episodic games they did feel a little short. And I'm remembering not to try to just do a "quick dabble" on Alpha Centauri when I've got a batch of things to do in a day..

It never feels a good start to the day when you wake up with a snootful of half-congealed blood. Still, it's the may bank holiday. Not that I really notice that... A little bit of logical problems to exercise my mind.. and I think I might give Back to the Future Episode 4 a try for some other adventure problem solving bout.

I just thought I'd have a quick dabble on Alpha Centauri while I had an hour or so free. Heh. I really should know better. 5 hours later and dinner is putting a pause in my Centauri accomplishments.

If you're going back a few centuries.. or a lot of centuries depending on the particular property... Plus they have a large amount of money that doesn't come from taxpayers. Or would you compare it to the robber-barons who built the railroads and big industrial complexes in america, making fortunes in ways that are now considered illegal, and have established families who are the "wealth" aristocracy and own big chunks of real estate.... Would you say they should lose access to their wealth and properties because of how their ancestors acquired it all? Times change, methods of building a fortune and future for the family have changed.

Because yes, the French government and attitude is something we really want to copy and spread around the world.. And we didn't shower them with wealth and castles. Kind of the reverse actually, the Royal Family gave huge chunks of real estate to the government for the public use some time back.

To be fair, Charles and his sons do have a lot of duties they deal with. So it's not all jetplanes and parties. Throw in the Queen as a general UK Ambassador type and the figurehead of state and spirit of the nation, and they do put in the effort. Say what you want about the majority of countries around the world, but state visits by the Queen and the immediate family can do a lot of good diplomacy for the country. Just because it isn't all in strict "official" form of diplomacy ...

Why would one watch such a thing. I mean Is the outcome in doubt.... The republican in me gets really pissed at such pointless extravagance, but I suppose it will more than pay for itself in tourist derived income. We've been doing it like this for 350 years. It's a celebration. The yanks (my pardon to those in the south) have July the 4th, and the inaugeration of a new President. Every country have their own version of things to spice up a bit of sense of a nation. We don't really throw celebrations for the Prime Minister, but we do serious Royal Weddings.

Another Deus Ex Preview Deus Ex "FEMA Camp" Preview

I heard they've even set up special provisions for the wedding in case anyone tries objecting. They're going to set up several short seconds for that part of the ceremony..and they've set a small room aside to interview any objectee. I believe they call it a police cell... But eh, I have to say, weddings don't exactly fill me with happy feelings the last oh, bout 10 years. And this week has been chock full of wedding fever. So while I might be a bit on the monarchist side, I'm trying to ignore much of the day's media coverage.

Eh, after Oblivion I'm barely paying attention to Skyrim. I'm firmly on the Deus Ex bandwagon for anticipation this year. ME3 is kind of hand-wavey-in-the-future-anticipation. Not actual anticipation.

While it's staying quite bright and sunny, the temperature seems to have dropped and tis turning quite chilly. My sister brought the dogs back and the puppy wandered into my room and took a leak by the window.. I'm going to exercise my mind a little with some sudoku and logic problems before I have to do the run up to the doctors to pick up the value pack of prescription pharmacuticals. Edit: And for the silly news story of the day - "Pets" Should be called 'Animal Companions' Trying to suggest we should use a new style of pc language to encourage better treatment of animals. Including dropping the terms "beasts, vermin, creatures" from academic papers and then common usage. Oy Vey.

It's a Deus Ex game. You don't want smooth dialogue in casual tones. It has to be stilted lines with that noir tonal speech. o O (Just all done in a smart way rather then a 'crappy' one)

Infiltration Interview

Struggling with procrastination today. And I keep getting distracted from that by other assorted mini-tasks that need dealing with. ... and putting it that way does look kind of funny.

It's kind of scary isn't it. We wouldn't buy a used car from most of these people, but we still end up voting for them to run the country...

Maybe I'm jaded or too cynical, or just weary of it all.. But the trouble I have is there just doesn't seem to be that much different in the various leaders and main people in the parties these days. They all seem to be from the same cookie-cutter mold.

On that long running Democracy.. well it kind of depends on what elements you qualify as democracy... and whether interruptions to said democracy count. I mean, the Polish had that sort of democracy where all the nobles had a vote around 600 years back. Of course, that screwed them because bugger all decisions could be made in that situation since each noble pretty much had a veto to the whole government. Part of the reason they kept getting invaded and made the whipping boy of Europe for a few hundred years... England has had Parliment and certain elements of constitutional monarchy for about as long, although not everyone counts that as a valid "democratic" form of government, but that came about with the Magna Carta back in the late 1200's (I can never remember the exact year). The Allthing was in Iceland, which from what I understand was pretty much the morphed results of early Norse popular support for leadership. (Same with the Scandinavian Things). Although the key thing for all of those "democratic" forms during the middle ages were that they were only democratic for strict minority groups. I think Wals might have an edge with his view, because the UK's government has pretty much run uninterupted from that form for nearly millenia. Even when Charles lost his head in the civil war, they kept parliment ticking along (well, at least the people who could vote on it).

Just doing a quick set of pushups.. when suddenly there's a rustling noise..and the cat bounces down the stairs with a plastic bag in it's mouth. He stops about 4 inches from my face, looks at me, mews, and then starts wildly humping the bag right there. Kind of distracting to the concept of pushups.

Scream 4 Eh, entertaining for the most part. Although the "deconstruction of reboots" was rather thrown away. I think the key trouble is that you know there's going to be a twist - so a part of the mind is looking for the hints, and you go "Ah hah! That's what it's going to be!" before the twist arrives. Neve Campbell still looks kinda cute.

It's the slight ret-con on the Hyperspace War - The "original" Sith/Dark Jedi got into the war, then the Republic stormed in and wiped them all out. The ret-con being that certain Lords fled into the dark reaches of space unknown by the Republic and spent the next millenia slowly rebuilding. What kind of scares me is I was in a gaming group that did that with the Star Wars d20 pnp ... playing the dark side characters in the run up to the Hyperspace War and then during and after. Which led to much fun sith politics in the background and had some characters arranging the whole flee-ing thing. Which has me going "Hey! Bio Stole that Idea!"

I think Mythbusters took a look at Pykrete and the "ship made of ice" in an episode some time ago...