Confused04's Plot of the Web - Miscellaneous

Picture of the Day #17

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:09:00 -0400

Wow... I've been gone for quite some time. Sorry about that :P Anywho. Just got back from Wisconsin for my roommates wedding. Had a blast at the reception and on the way back we visited Castle Rock which is an exposed limestone bluff that rises from the rolling plains of Western Wisconsin. Pretty rural area which I'm not used to. It was nice to get away for a weekend but its back to work tomorrow!

The Minnesota State Fair just started this past Thursday. Its one of my favorite things to do and now that I have a job, I can actually eat to my hearts content which includes stuff like Chocolate covered bacon, deep fried mashed potatoes, and much more!

Today's picture of the day was taken from Castle Rock towards another limestone bluff. Wisconsin was fun but I will forever prefer Minnesota, especially since we have Bret Favre now :P. But really... County Road G in Mauston, WI is stupid... doesn't travel in a logical path. That and sideways lights are REALLY stupid. And a cheese factory is not a one room cheese stand. Just to let you know thats what you need to work on Wisconsin :P.

Here's a recent picture of me.

Picture of the Day #7

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:09:00 -0400

I hope everyone has had a great Easter weekend and got their fill of food and family. I had to temporarily stop posting here because my grandmother was admitted to the hospital. She's alright and was finally released this morning although she still has multiple appointments trying to establish what really happened to her. The doctors have unfortunately been unable to match all her symptoms to a disease or issue so it'll be a while before she's fully back to normal... well... normal for someone in their 80's. Oh well.

I don't have much to say unfortunately but I'll try and stick to adding more photos.

We don't need a roof... oh wait...

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:54:00 -0400

So today marked the first MLB game to be played at the new Target Field. Despite its controversial start that saw the threat of moving the Twins or permanently contracting the team and a stubborn public clamoring to vote no for any tax hikes, the Stadium now shines as a stunning accomplishment and a resounding rejection of modern MLB stadiums fetish with "retro" architecture. This deviation and the stadiums integration with the intermodal transportation hub while being intimately tied with the fabric of downtown has been well received. Between the limestone facade, state of the art green technology and construction, and revamped luxury food options, this stadium undoubtedly a success even before the regular season opens. I have tickets for the April 20th game and I'm absolutely thrilled! The sterility and awkwardness of the Metrodome has been cast aside and now we have the summer open air baseball stadium that since 1982, Minnesotans have wished for.

Of course, some still wanted a roof and today they nearly got the irony needed to prove them right. Earlier today thunderstorms dumped heavy rain over the Twin Cities threatening to delay or cancel the game. Thankfully the storms moved out and the game remained untouched and the great season long celebration with World Series dreams has begun.

PotD #6

A Severe thunderstorm with small hail pushes through Saint Paul in the Summer of 2008. The tornado sirens across the river were initiated but other than temporary street flooding, the storm was nothing more than a welcome relief from a short stretch of warm weather, one that I welcomed as I didn't have AC in that house, and still don't at my current location.

Minneapolis moves on stalled street car plan

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:05:00 -0400

Courtesy of the Transport Politic (click pic to link or click link below)

Back in 2007, Minneapolis announced an effort to replace some of the cities most popular and shorter (so non-express, non-suburban or connectors) bus lines with modern street cars to much fan fare. RT Rybak for years has championed this cause and was on the approach to getting city approval. Unfortunately, the Bush administration's hostile criteria for federal funding assistance stalled the street car plans to which even Rybak pointed out in his State of the City address as one of his biggest non-accomplishments. But with the election of a more transit friendly administration, the Minneapolis City Council is set to embrace a long term street car plan along the densest corridors in the city providing cheap and relatively reliable service to the transit dependent while hopefully encouraging even more dense development that was characteristic of the 2000 to 2008 boom.

Of course, this always leads to the argument about whether this sort of funding is worth it and the inevitable "why are we subsidizing". To be frank, I find this argument rather pointless as pretty much all modes of transportation (with very few notable exceptions) require some sort of public funds either through local or state bonding and usually with a federal grant. So highway or street car, we're using public funds. At this point in American urban development, our network of highways is for the most part "complete" and the vast majority of highway projects are usually interchange re-planning or widening with the miles of new limited access roads decreasing. In terms of societal efficiency, we just don't really have the room for highways with similar levels of car dependencies. If the US does reach the 450 million mark around 2050, and the population continues to urbanize, we have to move the extra 140 million people and the net gain in cars from this population growth has to be very small. The US can't afford financially to both build and maintain hundreds of thousands of new highway lane miles and its accompanying demand for resources. I don't doubt the benefit of interstate highways, but as the US struggles with oil dependencies and chronic congestion, we have no choice but to invest in these forms of mass transit, even if it comes at a somewhat greater public financing cost. Highways are quickly becoming antiqued and inefficient. States that are increasingly highway based also face the economic weight of gas prices now becoming an increasing burden, especially on Sunbelt states that have generally avoided mass transit. In addition to the increased societal cost of increased highway construction, and the impending oil demands, there's also the added health cost of being a sedentary population, stuck in traffic jams for hours at a time. Cities with great massive transit plans also tend to have lower rates of obesity and obesity related diseases just from the fact that you have to walk to and from transit entrance and exit points. So in a way, mass transit has a hidden cost BENEFIT that is never included in federal funds requests. Of course, no individual project can claim a reduction in municipal fat but the evidence is clear.

In the planning community, street cars have a love-hate relationship with many. One the one hand, street cars are slow, operate in traffic, and are usually limited in scope. However, there is no doubt that these street cars have time and time again encouraged development and promote commuting and even equalize racial disparities in ridership. Unfortunately, whites tend to avoid mass transit buses in droves but change it to a street car which is essentially no different, and its a hip new clean way to travel. Its unfortunate that mass transit has to combat on social preconceptions as well as financial ones, but its the reality of American transit. So as illogical as street cars are compared to other lines, they still get the job done and encourage growth and at a significantly lower cost than light rail. Many of the lines proposed in Minneapolis' transit plan are barely a mile long (at first) but can see tens of thousands of riders a day at 1/10th the cost of a light rail line.

I think Minneapolis is doing a great job so far in its mass transit planning (of course, implementation is a whole 'nother story) and its approach is very systematic and reasonable. Minneapolis' plan is to use a gambit of transit options to meet generally at one intermodal station that would connect buses, BRT, commuter rail, light rail, taxis, street cars and even bikes and skyways in downtown using the best solution for each corridor necessary. This is a logical plan that I'm surprised many cities aren't following through with. Yes, many cities beat Minneapolis in current mass transit construction, but many of the systems I've looked at run independently from the other systems or at best intersect haphazardly here and there.

Personally, I just like the fact that Minneapolis used its new baseball stadium to anchor the intermodal station which will be constructed in the coming years.

PotD #5

Reflections on the Mississippi River late night in Saint Paul. Again... not studying when I should have been.

The Speeding Cushion

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:32:00 -0400

Lets face it... the vast majority of us speed, myself included. Sometimes that damn 55 mph sign is just too slow or if you're like me you live near an interstate with illogically low speed limits like I-35E. 45 mph on the freeway is just a sin. However... it appears as though the recession is attacking even our speeding cushion. Its unfortunate that our municipal tax revenue is becoming reliant on citations to remain economically viable but at the same time, 5 mph is a reasonable cushion. I mean, all it takes for some cars to go the extra 5 mph without the driving noticing could be slight decline. For example, my car doesn't shift like traditional cars and I can't feel when my car changes gears (which I actually like) but it sometimes will hit a bump and my car will increase the gear ratio and even though my foot hasn't depressed on the gas any more than it was before, my car will respond by accelerating. Its the 5 mph cushion that makes it not a big deal but if that goes by the way side... crap...

Besides... EVERYONE speeds. I very rarely see anyone doing 55 on I-94 between Minneapolis and Saint Paul and when they do, traffic tends to jumble around them as people switch lanes to get around them. Yes, everyone's speeding TECHNICALLY breaking the law, but until we somehow convince the majority of people to stay at the speed limit, then this 5 mph cushion is needed.

Anyway...

Today was an absolutely stunning day outside reaching in the upper 70's. I had to turn the AC in my car on (as rolling down your windows above 40 to 45 mph is wasting more gas). Summer is finally coming and soon it'll be fricken hot... How humans enjoy such heat is ridiculous. Come on fall!

PotD #4

Minnehaha Falls on a stunning early autumn evening. I took this picture instead of studying. This is a few miles from my apartment on the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi. Its a nice little park to go wading stream side, walking your dog off leash, or just enjoy the scenery.

First for Final Fantasy... a lead character who is both feminine AND female! Review of FF XIII

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:51:00 -0400

Final Fantasy EX Aye Aye Aye....

After a decent but flawed showing with FF XII (please learn to pronounce Marquis), Sony has released a multi-platform Final Fantasy title aimed to please as many people as possible. The newest installment is a dramatic shift from the older days of Final Fantasy RPGs for both better and worse. I have been with the franchise since Final Fantasy VII which was probably the breakout hit for the US market on the then new Playstation system. From the days of Cloud and his save the world from unsurmountable (yet I guess I did beat that game...) evil whilst breeding chocobos, talking to a variety of random NPCs for hidden gifts, and firing at random objects from a rollercoaster at the Golden Saucer, I have been hooked to the franchise. The massive nature of Final Fantasy VII is what got me into this genre completely, although I was keen on watching others play Chrono Trigger and the likes for few years. Since then I have played most of VII's sequels... cleverly named Final Fantasy 8, 9, 10 and 12. I skipped eleven as its departure from the genre into the MMORPG universe was disturbing and I think financially sound. I throughly enjoyed the story from Final Fantasy 8 but I thought a lot of the technical aspects were a bit... lacking. FF9's cartoonish vibe was a huge turnoff and probably the low for modern Final Fantasy games (excluding FF XI). Final Fantasy 12 was refreshing in both story and gameplay although I was never able to beat it do to my lack of permanent ownership of a PS2 and the workload in college.

I believe it was three years ago when I first saw the first hints of Final Fantasy XIII and I was both hooked and mystified as what the few little tidbits and cutscenes actually meant. More importantly there was a WOE-MAN in the renders :O. A real authentic female even by Japanese RPG standards that wasn't on the lines of a shrill annoying subordinate like Misa Misa from Death Note. Although it does abide by the brooding loner cliche of most JRPG's (see Crono, Cloud, Squall, and many many many many many many many many others), but hey, I guess I can't argue with a non-male avatar for myself. I was very pleased to hear that they were porting the game to the 360 (and I'll comment on the comparisons between the two later).

I kinda ended up forgetting about Final Fantasy until shortly before its release date and after looking at a few previews, I decided to give it a whirl.

Boy is Final Fantasy XIII different. I hesitate to even think that this can be called an RPG. Being a Mass Effect 2 loyalist til I die, I'm used to free flowing, non-linear, choice driven, story lines and in the digital age of customization and choice, Final Fantasy XIII throws that all down the drain and says "See this rail? Yea, you're on that for the next 24 hours of gameplay." For the first few hours, I thought the constant fighting with a few intermittent cutscenes was just a dramatic entry for a long awaited Final Fantasy game. But the cool down period NEVER came. Dialogue? Yea it occurred, but not in the "Lets talk to everyone on the street for no reason" format, but in a "watch this clip NOW" format. I realized that this game had totally ripped the soul of most RPG's away. There was no towns, no random NPC's. I hardly felt I was even playing my characters. There were no choices, I had no freedom to choose strategy or anything outside of battles. I was really torn apart by this development. What good is an RPG if there is no Role Playing and exploration. Anyway, let me break it down piece by piece.

Plot
Ignoring my lack of NPC's, towns, and old style role playing, the Plot is actually refreshing. Its not annoyingly convoluted and tiresome like Final Fantasy XII and its not dumbed down like Star Ocean or Blue Dragon. It certainly isn't as depressing as say Lost Odyssey either. The whole premise of this game is that Cocoon, the world that houses humans hovers above a beast infest planet called Gran Pulse and the humans live in constant fear of creatures and near God-like entities of the Fal'cie (get used to apostrophes). The Fal'cie are powerful entities that reside on both worlds and are responsible for things like food, water, sunlight and even gates and are pretty much the provider for humans. Otherwise, they try and stay out of human affairs with the exception of Eden Fal'cie which is kinda the head hauncho of all human society (as an advisory/protector role goes). Gran Pulse also have these entities which the Cocoon folks fear as they are hell bent on bring down the safety of Cocoon and destroying human civilization as they know it with memories from a previous Cocoon/Gran Pulse War driving human fears. The problem comes from the Fal'cie's ability to brand humans to do their bidding where failure leads to zombification of sorts, and success leads to eternity spent as a crystal. This branding makes humans into unfortunate slaves, called L'Cie, to fulfill a goal, called a focus. The story starts with an entire city being "purged" to export all the humans who COULD have been exposed to the Fal'Cie to Gran Pulse to maintain security on Cocoon and all your characters are caught up in this net somehow. In an attempt to save one person's fiance and the resulting Fal'Cie battle ends up with all your characters being branded a L'Cie, doomed to carry out a task which only a brief vision even hints at. As the story progresses, the interconnectivity of your characters and their string of crises of faith, and their struggles with mortality, purpose, and understanding provides a nice story line, if albeit linear. I know my quick synopsis probably doesn't do the story line justice but going through it is rather fun. The characters seem a bit like they were freshly unpacked from the archetype shipment boxes, but as you go further, they are surprisingly deep for even a Final Fantasy game. Unfortunately, a lot of the nuances of character relationships aren't exactly visible unless you read the little chapter synopses which I kinda think takes away from the game a little bit, but I can see there being a translation/cultural values difference that may have made some concepts hard to carry over directly.

Overall, I give the plot a 9/10. The names really could use a lot of work. Lightning (an alias thankfully), Snow, Fang, Vanille, Hope... come on... Never the less the litany of unnecessarily apostrophied words like Fal'cie, L'Cie, Ci'eth....

Gameplay

I personally believe this is where the game takes the biggest hit overall. The complete overhaul of a tried and true formula is always risky and I personally believe that they have dumbed the game down for casual gamers at the expense of a decent game. Granted, RPG's belong to a niche market and for the amount of content and the costs incurred by developers for RPG's, I imagine its somewhat harder to recoup these costs nowadays. But a game on rails these days that isn't a first person shooter just doesn't seem right any more, especially in the Final Fantasy genre. This is a huge step back in my opinion. The game does awkwardly shift off the the rails for a bit on the 3rd disk and I find the transition to be very weird and nothing more than filler and power leveling.

The battle system is actually very clean and logical and kinda does away with the complicated systems of the old days and replaces it with a simplified system that WORKS. Thats an important thing Sony... simplification for the sake of simplification is NOT good. But the days of managing 80982034 items are gone and there are far fewer accessories and weapons to equip. This lack of items is balanced by an upgrade system that is easy to understand.

Additionally, there are paradigms, which are reminiscent of older Final Fantasies as well as FF X-2. Each character specializes in certain areas and each job is critical in how the battle flows. But this time around, the battle is less focused on the actual move a character makes then on the overall strategy. Instead of picking "Fire" or "ice" or "heal" individually, your character works under a given set of overall instructions. For example, there is the Medic "class" where your characters task is to heal and remove status effects on your other characters that could be charged with say... casting attack magic. Again, not going into the details of it, but the overall point is to balance your tasks as the battle moves. You might have to act more defensively with certain enemies or when direct attacks aren't effective you have to use sabotage or distraction as a means of finishing the battle.

Overall, I give this game a 6/10. Sorry Sony, I liked having a breather and goofing around in town. Yea know... having fun?

Graphics/Sound

The Final Fantasy series have always been on the upper end of RPG graphics and this is no exception. The lack of towns and NPCs allows for a more varied and stunningly rendered environment although in most cases I found a lot of the environment rather useless. It was very tiresome to run roughly a kilometer without an enemy, save point, or treasure chest in sight. Like... why even have it? The characters are well rendered in both cinematics and other integrated cut scenes. The PS3's graphics are very noticeably cleaner and more detailed, but anti-aliasing suffered just a little bit giving a kinda blocky edge to everything. Although, it is nice to have only 1 disc for the PS3 version instead of the 360's three discs. The environments are widely variable from urban, to trash heap, to grand wilds thus using the entire color palette that a lot of games refuse to use (Final Fantasy XII was one of them).

The Soundtrack is alright. I feel like the used the character theme songs a bit too much, especially Serah's theme which is the one with the high pitched angelic voice/choir which sounds nice but is used in SOOO many cutscenes that its pretty much the only one I know. Otherwise, most of the music is rather forgetful which is unfortunate for a game that has a history of great music. I gather that most of the music is geared towards cinematics as each level only has one song that is played ad infinitium, although this is not unique to this game. Sound effects are what they are expected to be with the exception of the walking sounds. They are particularly loud and distracting that even people in the room your playing the game in will notice them over the actual soundtrack.

Graphics and sound get an 8/10

The game overall gets a score of 7.67/10. Now this score has a caveat that you are a Final Fantasy fan that is used to the older titles and likes them. The reason why I docked the score may be a result of Sony trying to encourage new gamers to join in and perhaps they might like this version that is simpler and less cumbersome than those of yesteryear. Lets call this ... the Simcity Societies syndrome. Dumbed down to open new markets at the expense of die-hard fans. I think you all can appreciate this final analogy.

While we are at it. PotD #3

So called "Australian Fried Potatoes". I have my doubts on its authenticity but not its taste. They can come with ranch dressing or melted cheese. I prefer it as is. This can be found at the Minnesota State Fair and perhaps my kitchen some day.

South Dakota joins Texas in the Race for Poorest Education Standards

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:02:00 -0400

Its okay to disagree with the current scientific theory or study. That is how science progresses. A hypothesis based on current research is created, a study conducted to test that hypothesis, and the hypothesis is rejected or "supported" and adds to the current understanding of the world around us. In those three steps... a lot can happen and a lot of mistakes can be made and thus "results" are arguable, even if they are mere measurements of the world around us. At some point, a collection of results can lead to a "theory" and this theory helps explain a phenomenon through basic observations and can be supported by duplicable testing. A THEORY is NOT a hypothesis. In lay terms, theory is often used in place of "conjecture' or "guessing". A scientific theory is NOT just "conjecture" and you cannot disprove a scientific theory by debasing its status using the lay definition of the term. In other words... you can't say "____ is just a theory, and therefore is debatable." This is not how science works...

Of course, South Dakota likes to think otherwise. Just like states that choose to ignore the overwhelming evidence on "evolution" because it is just a "theory," South Dakota has taken the steps to provide a further so called balance in their education system regarding global warming and man's influence. I'm going to ignore the current "argument" (which is mostly a fabrication of the media) about anthropogenic global warming. But there are several pieces of the South Dakota legislation that is just a slap to general science education and if the US wants to even pretend its still dominant in scientific fields, this seriously lapse in judgement needs to be overridden. Its one thing to want to give your children an education based on your social values, even if I strongly disagree with that too, at the very least thats a more gray area. But to deny your children basic facts about the world around them in an effort to push YOUR dying agenda into the next generation is morally wrong (ironic saying these people are trying to save morality). By pushing things such as global warming and evolution away in some backwards sense of balanced education on beliefs based off of flawed information or just plain arrogance and ignorance, these lawmakers are just going to make their children suffer. What Texas has done recently to History education by focusing on just part of WHITE culture (forgot hispanics and liberals!), South Dakota is doing with science.

I'm not gonna review the legislation myself in this blog as Dr. Jeff Masters has done a far better job of analyzing this piece of "work" than I ever can.

South Dakota seems to have confused genuine scientific discourse with political indoctrination. Yes, we want our children to think critically and independently, but we also don't push false science just so we can satisfy our political desires. Its okay to say, "don't accept scientists work just off their word." But to discount something without even understanding it is just wrong and states like South Dakota WILL suffer for it.

The Great Irony of this legislation is greatly summed up by Dr. Masters here.

"(3) That the debate on global warming has subsumed political and philosophical viewpoints which have complicated and prejudiced the scientific investigation of global warming phenomena;

It's highly ironic that these politicians are complaining about political viewpoints complicating the issue, yet here they are asserting their own political views, laden with awful science, to further complicate things. I agree that the political debate on global warming has complicated its scientific investigation, since climate scientists must now spend time away from their research to defend their work against absurd attacks like this one. Allegations that the debate has "prejudiced" scientific investigation have not been proven, and unproven allegations have no place in an official resolution by lawmakers."

Way to go South Dakota... another reason for your Minnesotan neighbor to stay on my side of the border.

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On to less damning things....
PotD #2

Still here...

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:25:00 -0400

Hey, just dropping a line to let you all know I'm still here.

I'm trying to figure out a direction for this blog because I can only post so many pictures of the area before even I get sick of it. I'm thinking of going through all my pictures and posting a random pic a day. I know thats pretty ambitious for someone who posts once or twice a month. I still have a bunch of pics to post from my last outing in Saint Paul as well as the recent flooding that occurred in my area.

If people have any helpful suggestions as what to post or whatever, feel free to add.

Anyway. All the pics I post are mine unless otherwise noted.

Here's pic post #1 back from May 2005

I took this pic on a cruise to Alaska back in my sophomore year in college. This was up a specific arm of a bay that had a glacier at its terminus. Unfortunately, the rapid melting and calving of the glacier made it impossible for the ship to reach the glacier safely but the views were none the less spectacular. For being May, the weather was fantastic and I believe we hit several records while we were there. It was funny when the local tour guide to the Salmon bake described the local weather as "cold" with a record low of -22 F. I laughed :P Those Fairbanks folks must really think fairly low of their Juneau counterparts.

Mass Effect 2: Review

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:07:00 -0400

Before I even get started with this review, I need to start out saying... I'm a Mass Effect fan boy. They could have practically given me the same game from Mass Effect with new missions and I would probably still play it and be thrilled. I heavily enjoy the story, its characters, the background information and the artistic style that make Mass Effect a game with staying power. Mass Effect has not only drained many hours from my life, but its given me faith that there is still SOME innovation and creativity left in the video game market, especially in the realm of action RPG's which by nature are more flexible than first person shooters. After all FPS are kinda defined by having one gun and being able to shoot it from a first person perspective which is very limiting in terms of game play.

I think what attracted me most to Mass Effect is that the story line is a very believable look at humanity in its galactic infancy (even decades after they joined the Galactic community). For once humans are not super advanced and enlightened like Star Trek or a number of Japanese RPGs and nor is it post apocalyptic. Additionally the human-alien dynamic is finally believable. It seems that most sci-fi story arcs either have complete disdain for humans or love to stroke human ego's by saying how creative we are or how love triumphs over all etc etc. The humans are an awkward piece in the galactic puzzle and its believable. Some aliens react positively while others don't trust humans... but additionally, its not all blanketed across the entires species, but individuals also have their own views. Thank god cause I was getting sick of homogeneous alien belief systems. The complexity and creativity behind the aliens, technology, and even human "history" made Mass Effect a very engrossing story.

But, even with this amazing story, Mass Effect wasn't without issue. Much of its gameplay was spent running around bland redundant landscapes are talking incessantly over pretty useless trivia. Many had complained that the first game was, for a lack of better terms, slow. I see their points, but then again, when you play RPG's, slow game play is a staple that you get used to it. I often enjoy the down times and side games, but I guess others don't. But that wasn't the only issue. Perhaps the biggest issue was the unimaginative inventory system that was very cumbersome to work with. Long load screens also became a common complaint.

So the question is... did Mass Effect 2 keep what was strong with Mass Effect and continue the saga in a matter most befitting the storyline.

The answer is a definitive yes. Having played the first game through the first time completely several times, I can tell you the action is probably at least doubled. The developers took player comments very seriously and upped the tempo for this overwhelmingly dark story. Much of the UI and game menus and controls have been completely altered and for once... for the better! The inventory system was for the most part scrapped, which made sense. You still buy stuff but you don't "have it" like you did in the old game. Most of the purchasable items were upgrades that you had to research to apply to your weaponry/armor. The ammo types were condensed from the old games and instead of becoming yet another inventory item, they were converted to a ranked "power". This made it impossible for your team mates to have access to all types of ammo so you'd have to team your buddies up with complementary powers to be at your most effective.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes that at first was unsettling was the addition of actual limited ammo. It was very nice to be able to run around in Mass Effect and have no issue with lighting up the dark side of an entire planet if I had to kill a rat. But now that ammo is limited, you actually do have to a decent bit of aiming (although it wasn't by any means restrictive on Normal difficulty). At first I was a bit peeved that I had to actually watch my ammo and it seemed that some guns, like the heavy pistol, just seemed to be underwhelming in ammo capacity. For example, my vanguard Shepard had the shotgun, heavy pistol, machine pistol and a heavy weapon. The heavy pistol had some 35 bullets (perhaps it was 50, I don't recall) and even though it was remarkably powerful compared to my machine pistol, it ran low on ammo in the middle of a gun fight pretty easy. The game would often throw wave after wave at you and unless you like charging (like the Vanguards are SUPPOSED to do, but thats another time), the ammo clips would lay at the feet of the next on coming wave. So sure, you wouldn't have to wait long to get new ammo, but it just seemed tedious to empty your heavy pistol in intense gun fights when you have the machine pistol with its 650 bullets which probably ran out ONCE in the entire game. Even though it was weaker, it was perfectly fine.

So I felt there were SOME balancing issues in terms of ammo. However, as I went through the game, the ammo aspect made sense, especially when you got to heavy weapons. These weapons were ridiculously powerful and almost unfair, especially once you got your hands on the collector ray which would take about 1 second to vaporize your weakest enemies. But because the ammo was universal for you heavy weapons, you had to be careful how you used them, especially cause you could only pick the ammo up at certain locations. This made the addition of ammo limitations forgivable, especially when you got to the mini-nuke launcher.

The story line was very entertaining if not predictable and relatively simplistic. Although there were small twists and turns, the game loved telling you over and over that "this is a suicide mission" which even for my awesome optimistic dude from Mass Effect failed to overcome. Yes game, I know its a mission of low odds... But even though the story for the most part was really good, I had one beef with it... It HAD to be divided into "missions" which I really didn't like one bit. Perhaps its a personal preference, but RPG's should never subdivide the story or side quests into "missions". The whole point of an RPG is to have a dynamic continually evolving and flowing story which Mission screens subdivide and make it feel blocky. I found it VERY irritating to earn someones loyalty by killing their worst enemy and then BAM "Mission Complete"... how cold. Yes, Cerberus is cold, but that doesn't mean the story has to be told so rigidly and its not like the Mission complete screen really told me anything new, it just sums up what just happened. That could have just been detailed in your quest log and left to the side to not interrupt the flow.

The music and artwork were otherwise spectacular and have to be experienced first hand. The developers spent a lot of time trying to enhance the environments of the levels. In the first game, the environments were rather static and bland and the "atmosphere" was pretty universal throughout the entire game and it was only different in cutscenes or battle. In the sequel, they spent a lot of time developing the seediness of Omega, and the ostentatious Wall-Street like world of Illium and the ruins of Tuchanka.

Character development was also upped but I won't discuss it too much to avoid spoilers. But seriously... getting Mordin to sing Gilbert and Sullivan was AWESOME!!! But a lot of the stories each character posses really adds to the backstory that was given in the first game. I know a lot of people don't like dialog in video games which is beyond me, but to each their own. However, this game I suggest to not skip any dialog and to push each character to the end of their conversation sequences because they intertwine and augment the entire universe around you completely altering much of what you new in the first game in a couple of instances.

Bioware's biggest selling point was that actions from the first game affected the story in the second game. They certainly weren't lying, but in most cases they were rarely that important or they would only give you an advantage/disadvantage for a few mins. There were probably only a few instances where decisions were VERY important (like if Wrex lived, who you killed, a couple NPC decisions). For the most part, your decisions had some minor ripples where half the time they result in you getting... an EMAIL!!!! Yea... a bit over hyped. If they continue this motif into the next game, they really need to up their effects. Although, I need to know if anyone has imported a character who let the Citadel Council die in the first game. I didn't play all the way through with my renegade character so I am not sure if there's an all human council or not.

Anyway, this game is an absolute must have. I give it a 9.5 out of 10. This game continues to make Mass Effect my favorite game series. I just hope they can wrap the series up eloquently for a story so deserving of a grand finale.

Lawlz

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:28:00 -0400

LOL

Pickles....

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:16:00 -0400

I swear to God, even though I've been living here for 6 years and I've been coming to this state practically every year of my life before then, I will not understand one thing about Minnesota, which perhaps can be extended to the Upper Midwest....

What is your obsession with pickles... I mean soooooo many people love pickles and just eat them whole... on a stick even! Deep fry them at the fair. You get pickles with hotdogs in many places. I mean, you even have pickles in individual plastic wraps at Blockbuster. I don't get the obsession. Almost all of my friends LOVE pickles and its just simply beyond me. Nowhere have I lived or visited has a culture been so pickle demanding.

I haven't forgotten

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:41:00 -0400

I know its been awhile since I've updated and I've been trying to. I'll just let you know whats going on in my life so that maybe you all will forgiveth me :(.

A ) I've been watching over a sick relative and will continue to be doing so for the long term. I'm not going into details here on my blog but suffice to say its been rough on the family and I'm in charge of morale I guess, so my father says.

B ) Still job hunting... .lame

C ) I've been writing a short sci-fi story and I'm pretty close to posting the first part of it. I say short only because I have no clue how long its gonna be, I'm kinda winging it. I like stories that kinda evolve by not knowing whats going to happen next myself :P. Although, I do realize that i have to watch for plot holes. But I hope it turns out respectable.

D ) I got some photo editing software so I've been going through a few of my photos and sprucing them up a bit. I'm also looking to add some of my England Photos to my photo tour spaces, but who knows.

E) I tried embedding google wave into a page but I guess you can't just post the code into a post or page on this software :P. I tried, oh well. If someone has better luck, please do share.

F). I've been baking bread! I have about a 50% success rate.... oh well :P

Here's one picture of my bread. I'm still struggling to get them to rise well, but whatev.

So far no one has taken me up on my offer of a blog "web ring". Oh yea... pulling out those Web 1.0 terms. HA. And finally....

I thought these two youtube vides were pretty cool. The 2008 one is way better, but I do have to admit, 2009 wasn't THAT bad for music. 2007 was downright awful.

Omg... you really do love me!

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:12:00 -0400

A warm fire for cuddling :D

I just wanted to say thank you all for the nominations and Trixie awards. I really do appreciate this great honor. First and foremost, I wanted to thank all the staff, especially those who had their hands directly in the process of making this entire cookie sheet of Trixies. These awards take a lot of work from the page design, to reading the nominations and actually creating the awards, never the less the $5,000 prize that goes with it.... :P (just kidding folks). Anywho, I'm just glad that I can use this blog space to talk about random things and the place where I live. I enjoy having this blog and I hope you all enjoy reading it. On that note, I would like to announce I got even MORE books on my area from its lost architecture to its history so hopefully I'll have more random things to post about my area.

Currently I'm in the middle of a large snow storm thats looking to dumpe 16 to 22 inches of snow in this area. Thankfully I got to put my car in my grandmothers garage so I don't have to deal with digging my car out once the storm is done. Unfortunately this same storm has cancelled both my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day plans (in conjunction with family illness). So my holidays are being spent with just my grandmother and brother. Its going to be a low key affair, but thats okay. So far we have about 8 inches on the ground with 10 to 14 more to go. Hopefully I get to go out on Sunday and take pictures of the nice newly fallen snow.

On that note, I wanna wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. This is a nice time to reflect on the year and to enjoy the company of your family, even if this is the only day you can stand to be around them at all. Its hard to imagine that the "00s" are already done and a whole new decade is about to begin. So Happy New Years to everyone as well and don't party too hard.

On a blog related note, I'm thinking of creating a blog ring page to link to other people's blogs. This blog ring will be mostly "casual" so I prefer to add blogs that DO NOT talk about SC4 (predominately). But if you're interested in adding your page to mine, feel free to message me or post in the comments. I'll take a look, even if your page is exclusively SC4 related, I'll at the very least take a look. But my goal is to increase blog usage and posting (even for me) and I find that if more people are posting, the more likely I am to post as well. I'd like to specifically add blogs that use PERSONAL photos of where you live (anyone can google for crying out loud). Other casual blogs are welcome as well.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Thank You all once again! PEACE!

Presidential Election: A Very Theoretical Look at Electoral Math in the United States

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:56:00 -0400

Me running for Governor of Maryland... pft... yea right.

On election night in 2000, candidates Al Gore and George W Bush awaited the returns in one of the closest elections in United States history. The polls were very tight in many battle ground states. Pundits pondered the possibility of a mathematical blip that would allow the winner of the electoral votes to lose the popular vote and still become president. Many considered the possibility and some were saying that yes, there was a chance, but somewhat low. Most of the statistical modelling that used polling data came up with a roughly 1 in a quarter chance of this situation (where the Obama-McCain election didn't have a single instance of this occurring in a 10,000 simulation run). As the polls came in, the numbers were extremely close, many states waited til far later than normal to report their numbers. Al Gore looked ready to take the White House as his margin in the popular vote grew. Of course, he knew that the popular vote wasn't technically what would win him the White House, but it is nice to have as in all but a couple elections, the winner of that vote DID win the White House. However, complications in Florida led to a one month recount challenge that remains very controversial. Democrats feel they were robbed of their vote and Al Gore unfairly lost an election where he earned one million more votes than his counterpart (and in the interest of transparency for you readers, I agree). In 2004, Kerry was looking for a similar break in Ohio and even though I voted for him, I agreed on principle that Bush was elected (unfortunately). I did hope that a second screwed up election in a row would unite the Republicans and Democrats into abolishing an archaic system. The arguments for keeping it are outdated and principally undemocratic.

The main argument is that the electoral college is there to protect the small states from being out voted by the big states. But to me thats a pointless argument. Why should small states have more proportional say than large states in NATIONAL matters. We are all equally affected by presidential decisions. There is no reason that a voter in Wyoming has basically 3 times the voting power than a Californian. This is a national vote and everyone should have a fair and EQUAL part in deciding the presidency. Yes... Wyoming is a small state and only has 3 electoral votes, but there are a great number of small states and they unfortunately have a disproportionately higher say. During the founding of this country, the electoral college made far more sense when vote counting would have taken too long and sending representatives to the capital made logical sense. At this point it was reasonable to send people to represent your populace to make a vote collectively. During this time, many people didn't really even know the platforms of the candidates (and in many cases who they even were) BUT they knew what they stood for and sent their representatives (in this case not the House Reps, but the electors) who understood what their voters were looking for and decided what was the best course of action. But as we've advanced and vote counting and campaign information became readily available, we've figured out that the electors were pointless. We no longer vote for electors like we used to and in many states, faithless electors are forbidden (voting independently of your voters). So why do we still have electoral votes!?!

Another "reason" for keeping the system is to force candidates to stop by small states to earn their votes (as they have a disproportionately higher say). Of course this has never in reality panned out. Many states, big and small are completely overlooked based on polling. A simple look at a campaign spending map will show you how much of the campaign really exists in less than 1/3 of the country. Obama AND McCain skipped many states. Some states haven't seen a Presidential candidate in decades. Abolition of the electoral college will force candidates to get votes from everywhere. Democrats wouldn'tt abandon cities like New Orleans because the state as whole is relatively red, and the same goes with cities like Austin, Atlanta, Memphis, Oklahoma City and so on. Republicans could target rural areas in relatively populous areas like Upstate New York (where "rural" is far more dense than "rural" South Dakota). If anything, the Electoral College limits prospective campaign stops. Even "safe areas" like NYC would still require Democrats to visit to maintain enthusiasm to make sure they have a lock on the millions of votes. Instead the Democrats can just rely on the "as long as we have more than them, we have the state" argument.

Others argue that abolishing the electoral college would create a city-oriented campaign. I see nothing wrong with that... people tend to live in cities. God forbid that where more people live, they have more power! Besides, its not like any of these rural districts aren't still political heavyweights in the House or Senate where they can eat all the pork they want (I'm looking at you Alaska).

One of the obvious problems with the electoral college is that it enforces the "auto-coalition system" (otherwise called the two party system). Since it requires a majority of the electoral votes to become president, third parties (or potential new parties) would have to fight an increasingly tough battle with each major candidate. This would force people to concede power and force an automatic coalition. In 2008, the Democrats had a tough fight over the nomination knowing full well they had to come to some agreement before the general election or lose to the Republicans. If we divided the Democrats into the two main constituents, the Blue Dog and Liberals, there would have been no hope against a single Republican candidate. But lets pretend that the divide in the Republican party was a bit more transparent (there was a divide, it just wasn't as visible; See enthusiasm gap). If there were 4 major candidates it would be unlikely that anyone would get the 270 or more to win the election. This would have gone to the "tie breaker" phase which would leave the party (or parties) in power in Congress with the keys to the election. 3rd Parties have no hope in getting into office under the electoral vote rules. Ross Perot had an impressive show at the ballot box in 1992 but failed to garner a single electoral vote. He received nearly 19% of the vote. Yes, of course he would have still lost but imagine if people voted how they really wanted to if the electoral math wasn't so against him.

Another ridiculous argument in support of the electoral college is that it neutralizes turn out disparities. Does anyone who truly believes in democracy find that insane!?! Too bad if one side came out more than the other! Thats how voting works! If you can't mobilize your voters to vote, than thats an issue with your platform and campaign, not the system. Minnesota pulled out the highest turnout in the nation at 78%. Arizona, which has the same number of electors at ten, had a turnout of just 56%. A 22% difference yet the implications in voting were exactly the same. Arizona neutralized Minnesotan voters. Hardly democratic in my book.

I'm not gonna go through some of the other arguments unless prodded. You get my drift in terms of how undemocratic and out of date the electoral college is.

This got me thinking. Gore lost to Bush despite having a 1 million vote margin nationally. Although in terms of elections, 1 million votes is chump change, a 1 million vote margin and STILL losing is a bit depressing and in my book morally wrong. One million people throughout the nation lost their voice because of a few hundred people in Florida. Illogical. But, I sat there wondering how high could this number theoretically be. 2 million? 5 million? So I decided to do a little model with these basic assumptions to find out the ABSOLUTE maximum (as of 2008) vote margin that you can win but still lose the presidency.

1. All Eligible voters turnout.
2. The bare minimum of 270 electoral votes to win
3. The electoral "loser" will receive all 100% of the votes in the state that he did win (that totaled 268 Electoral votes) He will earn 50%-1 in the "winning" candidates states.
4. The converse would be that the "winner" would win by a hair; 50%+1 and lose the other states entirely
5. There are no third parties
6. I am ignoring contemporary political trends and partisan identities. I.E. Any state can be won by either candidate.
7. I would add up the winner totaling the smallest electoral votes to reach 270.

So... some assumptions I had to add after doing the math...
7. Any state split in exactly in half would have the loser "lose" a vote to keep the margin at just 1 vote. Otherwise, the margin would be 2. Example, a 5-5 split would be turned into a 5-4 split. Otherwise it'd be a 6-4 split if it was a zero sum situation. Although this really doesn't matter cause this would only alter the final sum by a couple dozen votes.
8. Adding up the smallest states by electoral vote didn't get me to exactly 270. In order to get into EXACTLY to 270, I removed the largest state with electoral votes equal to the margin (this would eliminate the "overshoot") and further exaggerate the margin. Eliminating the smallest states to get to 270 would not maximize the losers numbers (as they have disproportionate say, I.E. more electoral votes per person than bigger states). In this case its Massachusetts.

Table 1: The Popular Vote Totals By State and Nationally

Figure 1: Popular Vote Percentages

As you can see, the numbers are staggering. The absolute maximum margin that someone could lose by in the popular vote and STILL win in 2008 was 113,425,484.

Yes... of course this is a very hypothetical situation. Of course you can't get everyone to vote, or everyone in a single state to vote one way. This is merely the hypothetical maximum boundary for the 2008 election. Of course naturally the numbers can only apply to the 2008 election due to differences in population, and reapportionment that occurs every ten years. There's probably some distribution of all possible scenarios that could come up with a "realistic maximum" at which the chance of winning an election without the popular vote would be...say... less than 25%. My guess is that this realistic maximum would be around 2.5% (where you will have a 25% chance of winning an election while losing the popular vote by 2.5%). Conversely, at 2.5% margin, 25% of the simulations would succeed in an election despite the loss (if given enough runs). Do I have any numbers to back this up... of course not thats just mere conjecture. I'm not a statistical genius so thats outside of my power. I presume that the 75-25 value would be pretty consistent throughout time fluctuating for the very reasons I explained up above but roughly around this area. Can you imagine the revolution if a candidate won the popular vote by 113 million votes.

There is one good thing about the Electoral College.... thats the nifty maps and often finding out who won before the final polls close. Take THAT parliamentary/unitary democracies!!!!

The Little Things...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:47:00 -0400

Sometimes its the little things in life that kinda make your day. I had just one of those moments driving from down south from near Mankato back to my place in Saint Paul. The drive is mostly boring since the urban growth boundary kinda kills development after Shakopee. Between Mankato and Shakopee, there are only 4 towns in roughly 60 miles, and none of them really have anything beyond gas stations, and a few bars. I mean... there are literally only TWO McDonalds. Yea... scary right? So besides the pleasant looking countryside, the drive is pretty much left to my own devices. Going 70 mph down this highway, I'm usually singing or thinking about random things Unfortunately the drive is incredibly lonely.

However, yesterday... a "little thing" occurred that made me happy. After passing a truck on the outskirts of Le Sueur I came upon a light blue/teal car with a novelty license plate which, for privacy purposes I'll call him "Mr. Happy". In my review mirror I saw a white car fast approaching. I figured he come to pass me but instead he stayed behind me... So I thought pretty much nothing of it. About ten miles pass and we are the only cars on the road and we are all within only a couple car lengths of each other. It felt like a convoy! They were keeping me company. When that tractor with its hazard lights took up the right line, we all pulled a nice synchronized vehicular maneuver that looked straight out of the movies. I was having quite a bit of stupid fun. This little convoy made me feel special. We made it through Belle Plaine without incident despite an additional ten to twenty cars on the road. We swerved around the slow ones and maintained the integrity of our convoy with Mr. Happy in the lead. We continued on through the country side together, with the distances between our cars roughly constant.

But than we hit Jordan and Mr. Happy decided the right lane was too long and swerved into a small opening in the left lane! Our lead vehicle abandoned us! As the light turned green, his lane proceeded while ours remained stalled behind a painfully slow truck carrying soil. I was saddened. After a mile... I was disturbed... there was no novelty license plate to remind me that we are in this drive together! I mean... the white car behind me was reassuring, but I can't focus my eyes on him for safety reasons. But then I saw... just about 1000 feet up the road... "Mr. Happy"!!!! I looked down at my speedometer and I noticed I was ONLY going 65 mph... the speed limit is 65! I still had a bit of head room for my speed. I switched to the now open left lane and passed the truck, a bunch of tractors, and god knows what else. Suddenly I see Mr. Happy get back into the right lane and there was space... The convoy was reunited!!!

Or so I thought... the white car was missing... I looked briefly in my side mirror and noticed that he got stuck in the left lane when another car in front of him tried to pass but wasn't going particularly fast. I was worried. He had been there for nearly 40 miles! He helped me through the disappearance of Mr. Happy. Thankfully, that car pulled back into the right lane and the white car resumed his position back into the convoy! After just about 4 miles... the convoy was back together. The traffic began to thicken so I knew full well that our convoy was threatened. We reached the 2nd to last light and I saw a blinker.... it was in my rear view.

The white car wasn't going to make the journey to Minneapolis-Saint Paul. I bid him farewell. But I still had Mr. Happy and we continued our journey through Shakopee past farm equipment and construction trucks. We maintained what was left of the convoy all the way til we hit Bloomington...

Nearly 60 miles after our journey began I said farewell... I said.... "Sorry, this is the big city, you're on your own" and pulled away passing him as his lane slowed. I never saw Mr. Happy again, but I thank him for his extended journey. Once we hit 494, I knew it couldn't last... two cars... together... around 1 PM, in the big city. It just wasn't meant to be. My normal license plate (although not novelty is TOTALLY easy to remember) and his novelty plate just couldn't be together any longer.

Mr. Happy... White Car... it was a pleasure to drive with you!