Maebius Musings

Yet another computer-game post, which you folks here for odd musings can skip if you need to. Long rambling fanboy-glee to follow.

The newest patch in World of Warcraft enables an additional new boss for folks to try out, named Emalon the Storm Watcher. He is no lame pushover, either! (Nolame=Emalon backwards :/ )

This boss is available periodically only after your faction wins a player-vs-player battle in a zone of the game, and defeating the boss drops top-end awesome gear if you are lucky. I was lucky enough to run with some of my guild folks, and some other random characters, ten of us in total (plus pets), but he dropped rogue gear, so nothing for me.

While I am not quite epic-geared as many in my guild, I was not turned down for the boss run, which made me happy. I get really annoyed when random PuGs look at my character and say “no, sorry, you need moar purplz” (epic gear).

The fight is rather complex, with multiple enemies, and a few tricky gimmicks for timing and positioning. As a single-target healer, my job was a little less chaotic, but still fraught with stress and rapid-fire keypresses. Essentially, my job in this fight was to heal the off-tank, and toss some group-heals if time permits.

The boss has 4 helpers, and will energize/overcharge one of them every so often. The DPS classes must, MUST kill the overcharged helper within something like 25 seconds or it explodes, killing our group. While this is happening, the main tank is holding the attention of the big-boss, and the off-tank is keeping all 4 helpers in line. The overcharged helper gets initially healed to full life and every few seconds gets a “stacking buff” to deal a bit more damage. This means, every so often my off-tank rapidly, RAPIDLY takes increasing damage. Earthmother’s Ashes, does that damage hit hard and fast!

To round out the boss’s abilities, every so often he will stop and charge up a Lightning Nova, that damages anyone standing near the boss’s feet after 5 seconds. Thus, it’s all but impossible to stand still and just spam heals/damage. The group as a whole is spread out and must move away from the boss to avoid the nova.

To keep an epic-feeling story short, Kanandi shielded and queued up a heal to land a half-second after the boss was engaged, then moved quickly to a far corner where the off-tank would round-up the helpers. From there, I kept myself shielded and OMGWTF cast heal spells at my target. Only my off-tank. Did I mention only? …with about 4 minor exceptions where I could quick-miniheal someone who took some Nova damage. Otherwise, if I hesitated a moment, hit the wrong key, or otherwise made a ‘mistake’ like pausing to, you know, sneeze once, the person I was healing died.

In fact, the first time we engaged the boss we didn’t realize how FAST the DPS needed to switch to the overcharged enemy. 26 seconds later, the screen goes boom and 9-10 people were dead. 2 second or less after that, the still-standing main tank fell to 5 big nasties smacking on him. ..Woah!

All told, we wiped (died) as a group six times. Once from me tossing a few extra heals to patch up minor damage from the Nova on other characters, thus letting my target die (I learned quick!). Once from me and a few others getting a lag-spike that caused a fatal delay in healing/damage. And a few more on something/one else that eventually resulted in an Overcharged explosion. Still, each time we did noticeably better and closer to killing the boss.

The epic-ness of the whole evening was how little guilt and blame was given out. In the case of me not concentrating on my target, I understood, “do it differnet next time“. When the DPS zigged instead of zagged to pick up the overcharged enemy, those people nodded with a “yep, my bad“. The majority of us there were new to the encounter, and I suppose it showed.
Yet, each time, people understood the fight a bit better, smoothed out their strategy, and worked to improve. No one whined about repair bills, no one pointed fingers accusingly when things went wrong. We simply stopped, took mental notes on what happened, and vowed to push forward One.More.Time. until it was done. On the last attempt, with the local time of midnight and a few folks starting to mumble about sleep, we did it. The fight lasted just over 5 minutes, and had a rhythm and flow that was awesome to experience.

Offtank pulls everything, I heal-spam… main tank taunts boss and drags him to opposite corner… Boss novas, we run away, then move back in… helper gets Overcharged, all healers switch to the off-tank and pray he survives while DPS blows cooldowns to KILL IT NOW… Overcharge addd dies, I breathe for 1.834 seconds… Boss novas… another helper respawns and gets overcharged…. rinse… repeat. Every 30 seconds.

I have never, in all of Kanandi’s healing, had such a hair-trigger job, against such a challenging boss. I have never before felt that sense of “progression” where each attempt was better than the last with NO whining from the unguilded random people with us. I felt like a “Real Raider”, and was honestly and sincerely Proud to simply see some unknown stranger get the gear that dropped. The teamwork was palpable, and appreciated. We all worked our butts off to get things done, and each person had the most important part. If one fell, we all fell (within 25 seconds!).

It was epic.

I can’t wait to do it again next week!

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Back when I was younger, one of my more fond memories was hanging out with my dad (and sometimes uncle) and coming up with all manner of philosophical discussions on the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. (yes, also inspired by that book).

One of our more persistant ‘theories’ from back in… I don’t even know how long ago, but think it was around 1990-ish..was that of Dark Suckers. While going through the attic to clean out some stuff, my father found this ancient manuscript, reproduced here for your amusement!

DARK SUCKERS

For years it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light. However, recent information has proven otherwise. Electric bulbs don’t emit light,…….they suck Dark. Thus we should call these bulbs Dark suckers. The dark sucker theory proves the existence of Dark, that Dark has mass heavier than light, and that Dark is faster than light.

The basis of the Dark sucker theory is that electric bulbs suck Dark. Take for example, the Dark suckers in the room where you are. There is much less Dark right next to them than there is elsewhere. The larger the Dark sucker, the greater it’s ability to suck Dark. Dark suckers in a parking lot have a much greater capacity than the ones in this room. As with all things, Dark suckers don’t last forever. Once they are full of Dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the black spot[s] on a full Dark sucker. A candle is a primitive Dark sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You will notice after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the Dark which has been sucked into it. If you hold a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, the tip will turn black because it got in the way of the Dark flowing into the candle. Unfortunately, these primitive Dark suckers have a very limited range. There are also portable Dark suckers. The bulbs in these can’t handle all the Dark by themselves, and must be aided to a Dark storage unit [batteries]. When the Dark storage unit is full, it must be replaced before the portable Dark sucker can operate again.

Dark has mass. When Dark goes into a Dark sucker, friction from this mass generates heat. Thus it is not wise to touch an operating Dark sucker. Candles represent a special problem, as the Dark must travel into a solid wick instead of through clear glass. This generates a great amount of heat, thus it can be very dangerous to touch an operating candle. Dark is also heavier than light. If you swim just below the surface of a lake, you see a lot of light. If you slowly swim deeper and deeper, you notice it getting darker and darker. When you reach a depth of about 50 feet, you are in total darkness. This is because the heavier Dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the lighter light floats to the top. The immense power Dark can be utilized to man’s advantage. The deeper the body of water, the more Dark is stored, and the more potential can be derived from it. We can collect the Dark that has settled to the bottom of lakes and push it through a turbine, which generates electricity and helps move the Dark to the ocean, where it can be safely stored. Prior to turbines, it was much more difficult to get the Dark from the rivers and lakes to the ocean.

The Indians recognized this problem and tried to solve it, as they were well-attuned with the natural world. When on a river, in a canoe, traveling in the same direction as the flow of Dark, they paddled slowly, so as not to stop the flow of Dark. When they traveled against the flow of Dark, they paddled quickly, so as to help push the Dark along it’s way.

Finally we must prove that Dark is faster than light. If you were to stand in an illuminated room in front of a closed Dark closet, then slowly open the closet door, you will see the light slowly enter the closet. But, since Dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the Dark leave the closet.

In conclusion, I would like to say that Dark suckers make all our lives much easier. So the next time you look at an electric bulb, remember that it is indeed a Dark sucker.

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First, sorry for the lapse in posting. We’ve had a cycle of pneumonia, flu, and other plagues that worked its way through the entire family, and back through.. again. Poor little one was out of school all last week with a fever, and we are finally on the upside of illness, though not quite totally healthy yet.

Now on the the musing!

In this age of Facebook, ubiquitous mobile cell phones (is it even Cellular anymore?), and bluetooth Live Online IM (“I AM” not, thank you), it seems like the youth and upwardly mobile of today are more connected to each other’s personal daily lives than ever before. Folks are commonly known to Text, Twitter, Twirp?, and such from almost anywhere, any time.

In relation to this information overload, I’ve heard and read Op-Ed articles ranging the topics from the invasion of personal privacy, to the detachment to personal relations.

Yet one thing I pondered this weekend, which I had not really seen on the media sites I frequent, is that this interconnectedness and online availability of personal frivolities, may simply be a return to the small town community, redefined by current technology.

Back in “The Good old Days”, you hear some talk of the small towns, where everyone knows everyone, and the gossip grapevine bore plentiful fruit. It may have been true that everyone KNOWS old man Maebius likes to play some damned MMO computer game or hated tomatoes, but it didn’t matter in the overall scheme of things, since if you alternately needed gardening advice or cheap farm-fresh eggs, Maebius could hook you up.

I don’t recall the recollection-minded mentioning huge inroads on the personal privacy lawn, like online information does now (except in references to Big Brother or “the commies” depending on era).

Today’s mobile-connected are looking more and more like those communities, where the intimate details are available if you care to look, but most people aren’t looking anymore, because it’s so available. The communities are essentially becoming the Small Town Mind again, but instead of geographical locality as a border, it is self-limiting by Network Interest.

Imagine, if you would, if technology advanced to where sunglass cameras, or RFID devices on every person’s common gadget were hooked up to a Global Database. At a glance, if you wish, you could pass by some stranger in the hall, queue up their info, and instantly know marital status, favorite hobbies, and name (as described by that person’s self-described bio profile).

To make it more current and specific, the cellphone signal on that guy next to you on the bus would load their Facebook page and display it on your phone, if you loaded the appropriate app. In this case, nothing you would find out would be “private” as it is culled from the stranger’s public profile. They could even lie about things.

But why would you care? Just because information is available, does not mean it is necessary to see by everyone and by everyone at all times, like some folks have stated while decrying such social networking sites.

Such transparency in your personal life is only created, if you, yourself, choose to create it. And in doing so, you join the Little Big Town of today’s Network-Now.

I think overall, this just shows humanities intrinsic desire to belong to a Clan/Tribe/Family. We just keep shifting the lines on who gets included to ours, and how it is defined.

The trick though, is to forge communties as best we can, using whatever method we can. For those of the druidic persuasion, that may involve physicality again for the event of a technological network outage. For some folks though, such a situation is too far in the future, and the online communty still has value Now.
In the end, I don’t think it’s that big a deal, potentially knowing the minutiae of Maebius. I don’t update my Facebook anyway.

…and if you do need fresh eggs, stop over to Everthorn Farms for a cup of mint tea from my garden. I’ll share that with you strangers anytime.

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It’s no secret to some folks who know me, that I am a contradiction in lifestyles somewhat, in terms of my current job and Life Philosophy.

I have an active Virtual presence on a number of forums, MMO games, and of course, this blog, plus I work as a computer-support tech for a multinational corporation. While I don’t own the t-shirt, I have what I consider an appropriate amount of geek-cred on the intarwebs.

Still, my personal/spiritual/whatever life is one based on the sacredness of Nature, a relationship with the Divine (in whatever form you choose), and things that at a glance are the polar opposite of “The Internet”.

Facebook, MySpace, and such are pointless to me, and I’ve been quoted at work as saying that I dislike digital media and (while I do not practice what I rant) understand that Vinyl Records are probably the penultimate sound-storage concept. Even this Blog is a contradiction of Virtual and Reality, yet exists as convenience to share my thoughts with an otherwise unconnected population of e-friends.
I will not probably ever own a Kindle, or an iPhone, or any such “must-have” tech gadget, unless purchased for me by kindly associates and friends, though I’m starting to lean towards buying a cheap MP3 player just to listen to some good grooves while meditating outside under the stars during campouts when the usual crickets are too quiet.

Also, since the days of working at the local library during my school years, I just like books too much….
…as so wonderfully mocked explained by the folks over at Penny Arcade:

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Turn and face this Page
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be different, man
Time may change me
But I cant trace time…(apologies to David Bowie)

The astute reader here may have noticed that the banner image has changed, and the blogroll has suddenly vanished from the sidebar and begun a slow migration to a completely separate page. Those less astute, or reading this through and RSS feed, feel free to check the page itself out briefly and tell me your thoughts on the new banner. Do eeet!

The new (temporary) image is a cropped picture out across the briar-strewn fields of Everthorn Farm taken last summer. Eventually, I’m trying to figure out a fancy way of taking similar images throughout the season, and semi-automatically rotating them at some interval, to virtually “evolve” the image and have it reflect the general weather patterns here in meatspace. I don’t know if it’s even totally possible, but it’s a good dream. Anyone with knowledge of automated FTP server-scripts, webcams, or other associated technologies, I’d love to hear from you.

The blogroll moving to it’s own page sill eventually be much more populated than the old sidebar was. I personally follow about 80 blogs, some of them with actual regularity. To be fair to those I like best, I think having a full page to list them would be more convenient than a growing sidebar list, and can be sorted semi-topically.

That’s all for now. If you see any other unusual little tweaks on the site, just remember the words on the cover of that excellent book.

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Just a quick note to advise folks I may not post much for a few days… There’s a plague in our home currently. Wife feverish and spent the day in bed all yesterday, kid so far healthy but still mild snuffles. Myself, I cand breed oud of by dose at all. Dis means sore dhroat, sniffles, and achy feeling ad work dis morning. BLAH!

(Bad timing too, since I have a free-trial of Lord of the Rings Online, and couldn’t keep myself upright to be on the computer much this weekend. Double-Blah!)

In terms of Spam, I am not sure what has been happening across the general wordpress Blogosphere, but when I checked my comments today, there were exactly 186 new comments awaiting moderation?!?! (update: since I posted this, another 54 new ones!)

All from the same fake-sounding email, and for everything from monster [roosters], and other ‘enhancing’ services, or young/old/group/goat -related activities best confined to private quarters. Sheesh! … Or I apparently am also pre-approved for debt-inflation cards, and can get really inexpensive wrist-borne timekeeping devices bearing a well-known branding. /facepalm

I am also fully aware that even these semi-tame words will queue another round of such things soon in reply to this post! Do people really click on those types of link? They must for it to continue to be a ‘viable business model’.

Anyway, I’m sick, planning to pass out at home for the next few days after I get home from work, and if you comment here and it does not immediately show up, you know why.

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I made a mental note to do some actual scholarly research, but I was pondering a discussion recently about Oral traditions, Written books on Spiritual Paths, and such things. Essentially, what is the current ‘media modus operandi‘, for today’s culture and it’s relation to myth? I may be completely wrong about history and precedent, but it doesn’t sound completely false logically. I’m a bit ignorant (ie: unlearned) on the academic levels of this topic.
I am guessing that historically, faerie tales, and oral traditions of bedtime stories were the most common form of passing down myths and cultural values. Beyond the simple safety-lessons like “Don’t go in the woods or the Boogie Man will eat you”, such stories were able to pass along ideas for morality, and cultural memes.

After the age of printing, books started to replace the bedtime stories, or at least allowed them to find a common ground. Regional tales still existed, but the advent of books helped to somewhat “standardize” the most well-known stories. For better or worse, this may have introduced or sterilized some of the more potent or subtle/scary tales. Just look at what Disney has done with “the classics”.

In more modern times though, staying on the topic of passing Myths and stories to the younger generation, even books may be falling out of favor. For the youngest kids, picture books are still a decent part of learning, but more and more, I seem to see Television and Movies as the media of choice. I can’t help but feel this is a bad thing.

My own son’s imaginative play is awesome for a geeky parent like me, but visiting other kindergardeners Birthday parties, it always strikes me how commercial those kids are. Every girl, even at age 5, must MUST have a Hannah Montana thing, or High School Musical. Age five =/= High School, people.

In a similar vein, the stories of our culture are mainly passed on by movies now, I believe. The trend of either horror stories, which stand in (poorly) for the archetypal “boogie man” myths, or the comic book heroes which replace the Heroes Tale by shallow replacement of action CGI over the deeper character development. Granted, Characters still exist, but the most popular movies, and thus the ones who set the pace for future movies generally, are a much different beast from the old Grimm’s tales.

In life, unlike the movies or those old stories, not everyone wins.
I see this as a good thing.
Is this over-hyping of commercialism the new Spirituality? Are we missing the old spooky tales, and thus depriving ourselves from the deeper questions of life and accountability?

There’s much more to ponder here, and it’s a vast and complicated topic to be adressed again in part later…

Your thoughts?

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While the groundhog says winter will last another 6 weeks, the other day it was warm enough to melt most of the snow in our yard, and begin a raging torrent of thaw runoff in our little stream-fed pond. Granted, today it is back to being 10F and icy, but it got me pondering spring plantings and such.

Recently, I found a nifty little printout that can be used to help plan and organize your springtime plantings, or at the very least, get a rough idea of what to plant when, and hastily printed out a copy for myself on nice high-bond paper. You try to figure out the date of last frost, and each page of the pamphlet has a list of the types of plants that can be started “frost-minus #” week. So if week Zero is when the last frost hits, week -1 is when you’d have flowers and stuff in the cold frame. Week -2 has lettuce seeds going into a frame, while Week -10 (ten weeks before the last frost) you can start slow-growing things like beans indoors. It’s really really handy, and is small enough that each quarter-page simply lists a bunch of plants to plant. It can be a handy reference to put in your pocket, or synchronize to a proper “Calendar” hung on the wall.

Of course, then, as most web-browsing happens, I closed that page and moved on to other things… and can not find the cool little pamphlet to link here! D’oh!

However, I can encourage folks (and myself) that while the snows may still be swirling around the garden this time of year, it’s the perfect time to get your seed catalogs out, and organizing your garden supplies. Before you know it, it’s time to get things stuck in dirt! You’ll thank yourself later, when harvesting abundant crops!

Another nice resource, which I DID manage to copy down, is the following link about plants that you should really consider growing. The woman who writes that blog lives within an hour drive or two from me, and thus has some great advice that is locally relevant. Go check it out, and adapt things to your local climate! I plan on trying a few items she lists, which I’d never considered before, such as Rice and Amaranth.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see quite a lot of plants listed that either grow naturally around me, or are already part of our seasonal plantings.

http://sharonastyk.com/2009/02/10/20-plants-you-should-consider-growing/

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(Secret unrelated fun: sharkify!

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We just watched a very, VERY awesome movie that I had rented via NetFlix, called Kirikou and the Sorceress. I did not know anything about this film, but it showed up in a random sample of children’s/international movies. All I can say is, I highly recommend it for anyone wishing to step outside the usual Disney films and expose your family to a bit of multi-cultural flavor.

(Trailer is here)

The movie does a great job translating my pre-conceptions of a good African Folktale into an animated movie, and seems to remain really true to the culture. The colours are bright and vivid in many scenes, which contrasts the barren landscapes shown in some other segments. The storytelling is very engaging and can easily be broken up into a number of shorter mini-segments if you want to spark off an educational discussion regarding the plot.

The plot, without giving anything away, follows a small baby, Kirikou, who is born fully self-aware and speaking, and learns that an Evil sorceress has cursed the town and eaten all the men. He goes through a series of adventures to save the various townsfolk, using his wits and child-like love to overcome the obstacles in his path. Eventually, he confronts the Sorceress through several teachable moments, and important lessons, such as not letting mean people get to you, and understanding that the way someone treats others has more to do with them than those they are hurting. Kirikou remains child-like and small of stature throughout the film, but is never “childish”.

For very young children, there are a very few slightly disurbing scenes, such as the initial meeting of the Sorceress being kinda scary (similar, I suppose, to the old Disney character, Maleficent, who was not a nice witch!), and later a weasil-like creature hunting smaller chipmonk-ish things. However, these scenes are not overly threatening, or gory, and the tension is mostly felt through dramatic music and a close-up of angry faces/flashing of teeth.

I’ve seen worse on daytime TV commercials, but the engaging nature of the story means we all got drawn into the world much more than a TV commercial would, and thus jumped a bit at the sudden angry-sorceress scene (it only lasts a second or two). Sensitive children may also need to be spoken to about the fact that wild animals hunting in nature are not always nice, (though there is never any prey killed overtly on-screen), and the situation is presented more as an “environmental hazard” to avoid during Kirikou’s journey.

One thing that probably kept this movie off my radar until now is the fact that it contains…*thematic drums: Dun Dun DuNNNN*…. nudity. That is to say, the kids of the village run around naked, and the women of the tribe are topless (no adult male nudity depicted, just little kids au naturale). However, this does not make the movie eroticized in any way. It merely presents the tribe-folk as they are, and in my mind, is part of the wonderful multi-cultural experience.

The sprogling giggled and commented on how the other kids got to run around “nudie-butts” like we did at Starwood, which opened up an excellent discussion of that lifestyle compared to our current American one.

After the second watching of the movie, our kid also really seemed to connect with a few of the lessons Kirikou learned in the process of helping out the Tribesfolk, who got themselves in trouble by acting selfish or thoughtlessly. The lessons throughout the story are not over-done, and merely presented in an easily believable way, allowing good opportunity to show the issues and offer short discussion of solutions before the characters work things out with Kirikou’s help. This is benefited by the overall “african folktale” style of the movie, and really does make a great ‘teaching tool’, beyond being a wonderfully entertaining film.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Kirikou_and_the_Sorceress/60000485?trkid=188469

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181627/

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Warning, this post is more a thought-experiment, and you may not necessarily agree with the view in this post. Musings here are not always “right/wrong”, but can inspire some self-reflective thoughts. Debate and commentary quite welcome here, regardless of your stance.

I found this article from the LA Times, regarding Ahmed Ressam, the “millennium bomber” convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. I’m not sure which angle to view the subject from, as explained below.

On one hand, as stated on FARK, the story could be summed up as follows:
1) Arrest terrorist,
2) Give terrorist light sentence in exchange for cooperation,
3) Spend years interrogating and isolating terrorist to the point where he can no longer cooperate
4) Increase sentence because he is no longer cooperative

We may have him in custody, and as a result are a bit safer than if he was out plotting more bombs, but I don’t see us having the upper hand.

However, without defending the actions of terrorist activity, I can see this as a moral win for Ahmed. He had been convicted of unlawful activity, and offered to cooperate, but now, withdraws that cooperation and is quoted as saying: “Sentence me to life in prison, or anything you wish,” he told the judge. “I will have no objection to your sentence.”

As a result of this recanting of prior testimony, a few other individuals who were to be tried for criminal activity may just be released. One attorney was also quoted as saying “Ressam has provided no indication that he has repudiated the goals of terrorists to inflict harm on the United States. His decision to end cooperation raises the specter that he continues to pose a real and serious threat to the United States,“.

What struck me immediately, was how this situation seems unable to be defused or resolved without the cooperation of “the terrorist”. For all our judicial authority and efforts to keep our contry safe, it all crumbles to bits if those in custody simply say “Oops, my bad, I’m not talking anymore.”

If jail is, at it’s heart, meant to reform criminals as supposed, (it does NOT, in this country, I feel), what defense does it have when the ‘reformed’ refuse to conform? Waterboarding, naked pyramids, and solitary harassment aside, is there any way to both protect the security of our citizens by both isolating them from society, and trying to coerce cooperation?

In this particular case, I see Admed Ressam as defiantly standing “in the lions den” and allowing himself to be a martyr for his cause. In his mind, with this action, he wins.
I may not agree with the results or reason for his stance, but I can respect the dedication to his ideals.

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