A minor revelation

Y'know, despite liking Mage lotses, and reading it lots, for a long while I didn't understand why writers were lumped in with Virtual Adepts had Correspondence as their main school. Though it "felt" right. Then a minute ago, I thought of a nifty title, but I'm tired and want to go to bed. So I'd throw it in the file with the rest of my notes. And I thought "I should write every day. LJ doesn't really count, and I have all these nifty bits, but they're useless without some way to connect them. That's what writers do, they find or make the connections between things." And that led to this. Because Correspondence is in theory about the connections. Though it was a bit less coherent than that, but this makes a better story.

I wonder if the "interconnectedness of all things" that's popular in lots of writings is due to the fact that they're written by, y'know, writers. And yes, I realize that this is a largely pointless revelation about something obvious, but hey. It's my journal, it's my braintap. Half the stuff that goes here is me highlighting how my brain works, to try and figure it out for myself.

Tags: Mindscribbles, Writing

These people are mental.

"If the system were fair," says Larry Mumper, sponsor of the Ohio bill, "Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be tenured professors somewhere."

Um. Right. Because bot of those guys have even tried to become professors. And teach people about what's really happened, and educate the you... Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? They're both hate-mongering propagandists. They sit on the radio and the internet and TV and make shit up and slander and libel any of their opponents as "communist" "terrorist-sympathizers" "objectively pro-Saddam" "fifth columnists" and other bullshit like that. They're two of the main outlets of the Republican Party's talking points. They've both been at the Republican National Convention.

Here's some interesting comparisons between the rhetoric of David Horowitz and other critics of "liberal academia" and the rhetoric of, oh, Communist China. Clicky (Via Crooked Timber)

Tags: Politics, Quotes, Links

I remember why I was procrastinating statting characters in GURPS

Because it takes So. Damn. Long. Cripes. All the options are nifty, but I'm definitely more of a descriptive, rather than numerical kind of guy for making characters these days. If I plan to actually write any more NPC articles for Pyramid, I think I'm gonna break down and buy GURPS character generator. Sheesh.

On the other hand, GURPS would be a great system for a computer game, if the character creation part were done right. Add templates and so on, but leave it all customizable... That'd be great.

Okay, it's not really just GURPS, M&M has it too. I think it's a flaw of any point-based system, really.

It's infrastructure and research, stupid.

This article from the Washington Monthly points out some of the things I've been harping on. Infrastructure. Stupidly restrictive IP law. "Deregulated" broadband that favors the local phone monopolies. Municipal wireless. Alternate energy creation and distribution. Gah.

IF you wanted to know why I'm not Libertarian, this is a big part of why. The Free Market does not magically do everything perfectly. It MAJORLY under-does basic research. And with all the incentives for short-term profit over long term viability lately, it's no wonder the US economy is falling behind in these sorts of things. When the geeks start moving out, you're in trouble.

Tags: Politics, Mindscribbles, Economics

(no subject)

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Turns out it's about more than green beer, whoda thunk?

Tags: Mindscribbles

Consolidation time

Currently, I have three web browsers that I use. Yes, I know that's goofy.

I have Mozilla, which I was using before, and has all my forum cookies and things, I use it mostly for forums, LJ, and checking webmail.

I have Firefox, which I use for most "other" browsing now.

And Opera, which I use for downloading, since it's download setup's a little better than Firefox's.

And I have an old version of IE around, mainly for Windows update, and checking HTML.

I'm thinking I may migrate over to Firefox completely from Mozilla, though.

I also need to start using bookmarks, rather than just the auto-complete thing, because then I Forget.

See, I'm on a bit of an organization kick, since I got all of nothing done today. Didn't even re-glue my rear view mirror into the car. I need to finish things more. Consider this an open suggestion thing, too. I wanna be a techno-geek. :)

Oh, and if anybody has suggestions on how to install Firefox to a USB thumb drive, I'd be glad to hear it, that way I could surf with my settings most anywhere. And I SO wish I had broadband.

Things to do tonight: Finish either IN or GURPS statting for article. Write more on RL/KnT fanfic. Finish job applications. Download more video game remixes. Eat dinner.

Tags: Me, Mindscribbles

Sad news...

As seen in the Fans! forum over at TAC... Andre Norton died.

Tags: News

(no subject)

"Improved focus can be achieved through activities such as meditations, yoga and turn off Instant Messaging" - Ulrich Mayr,
U Oregon.

(Via craphound via boingboing)

Tags: Quotes