G8 [chat]

Much like the real G8 we will spend the week talking about things and accomplish nothing by doing so.

Flagship Studios: DEAD

Since for many people EOIAS is little more than "that blog with the Hellgate London Online Skill Tree post", as evidenced by our google analytics report, I thought it sensible to delight in a bit of schadenfreude with our Online Skill Tree seekers over Flagship Studios sinking like a piece of dense, fiberous shit. While we don't know exactly what will happen we do know that:

In summary, Flagship's well is dry, all intellectual property has been lost, all staff fired, and the studio closed. It truly is the end of the line.

I'm sure that some will argue that Flagship's candle going out will not make Blizzard's burn all the brighter. Certainly many will argue that we oughtn't delight over the lives being wrecked by a company ceasing to exist and their jobs being lost.

But as someone who enjoys WoW and mostly hates Hellgate London and its fans I think it poetic fucking justice that Flagship Studios crawled into a hole and died after releasing, if this news is any indication, an incredibly shitty game which no one fucking played.

TONY SNOW IS DEAD! HOORAY!!!!

LINK

Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and conservative pundit who bedeviled the press corps and charmed millions as a FOX News television and radio host, has died after a long bout with cancer. He was 53.

La La La La La! Tony Snow is Dead! La La La La La! Tony Snow is Dead!

...Really, he charmed millions as a FOX News host? Charmed?

20 Questions

1. Not larger than a breadbox.
2. Not edible.

Bush: Jobs > Environment

The Bush administration on Friday rejected regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, saying it would cause too many job losses.



Fuck the environment. Fuck the atmosphere. Fuck the planet. We need jobs, god damn it. We'll breathe stocks, eat nickles, and shit tax returns!

Hellboy Review: Mike Mignola’s Intellectual Property Theft

Last night I watched Hellboy on FX because it was on and I needed to do something entertaining while I played WoW. After watching the movie twice (FX showed it twice and nothing else was on) I think I've managed to condensed my opinions of Hellboy down to a one word review: Obvious

Hellboy is a very obvious story turned into a very obvious movie. How is it obvious? Well, allow me to explain. Oh, and don't bother to stop me when it becomes predictable.

Hellboy is the story of a Demon brought to earth by Nazis who utilize their knowledge of the occult and access to Rasputin to conjour a portal to Hell in an attempt to access monsterous gods with which they can destroy Poland. (Yeah.) During the Satanic Ritual the Allied Forces overcome the Nazis and "capture" Hellboy. Hellboy is then raised by the U.S. Government and is employed by a Secret Government Organization which fights Paranormal Whatnot. Yes, Hellboy took everything you could already get somewhere else and mashed it together in one convenient package.

And it's not that Hellboy is terrible in itself. The problem is that Hellboy is such a fucking obvious, predictable, rehashed combination of shit you've already experienced. What? You mean Nazis are the bad guys? Oh my god who would have thought of that?! And the Nazis are involved in the occult? That's so fresh! Oh my shit, and Rasputin is involved in the occult? Stop me before I'm unable to accept such ludicrous, unheard of claims! And this is all before we get to the secret government organization that explores the paranormal which, by the way, has been a trite and predictable idea ever since humanity first constructed governments. Then you add on the whole American Self-Flagellation of "fighting Nazis" and that hackneyed "using evil to combat evil" theme and we're left with an amalgamation of dumb which isn't even justified by the fish person. Oh, yeah. There is a fish person. There's also a girl who catches on fire. Because that's original.

I would like to think that Mike Mignola had at least one original idea in the formulation of Hellboy. But, really, it's just a very obvious story which combines predictable, trite, over-used themes, characters, and stories from American popular culture and re-tells them in a worse way than they were originally told. True, there are a finite number of stories human beings tell which are rehashed over the years. But, usually, the retelling adds something new, which is where Hellboy fails.

If you've seen Beauty and the Beast you know that pretty ladies can fall in love with monsters. If you were educated in an American Public School you know that Nazis are bad. If you've seen the X-Files you've already seen enough secret government organization v. paranormal whatnot to fulfill your lifetime recommended dose. And if you've seen Hellsing then you know that monsters can be used to fight monsters. Fuck, if you've seen pokémon you know that monsters can be used to fight monsters.

If you haven't seen Hellboy don't watch it. And if you're at all interested in any of the themes or characters offered by Hellboy? Don't fucking watch or read Hellboy; go find the original material from which Mike Mignola stole the idea.

Weeble Sneaks Food

An interesting discussion, relating to Diablo

It also kinda touches upon the chat thread semi-discussion of Hellboy..

A semi-rant, about Diablo style inventory schemes and how they impact/drive play and warp story.

kinda interesting.

Link

McCain: Nation of Whiners

Per Phil Gramm, McCain's top economic adviser:

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

So that's what's wrong. We're just whiners.

Vote McCain!

As Boredom Leads Roscoe Down Dangerous Paths

Vagina dentata, what a wonderful phrase.
Vagina dentata, ain't no passing craze...
It means 'no penis for the rest of your days
It's a penis-free girl cavity!
Vagina Dentata!

(to Hakuna Matata)

alternatively, it's a problem free vasectomy...

Zero Punctuation: Lego Indiana Jones

McCain: Social Security a Disgrace

I suggest putting on welder's goggles before you read this quote, lest you become blinded by ignorance.

Source:

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.
- John McCain

This is the point at which I say something witty to mock him. But...he just described how Social Security works and then called it a disgrace. So maybe he just hates Social Security? Would he rather we take taxes from eldery unemployed retirees?

The crazy old coot is losing it...

Abandoning Mental Contrivances: They're all Golden Showers

There is an obvious duality to human beings in that physically human beings dwell within the actual world but mentally they dwell within a realm of perceptions and opinions of that physical world. If one were to claim that there is a primary crux to the problems of humanity that duality, that failed reconciliation of perception and reality, would have to be it. And the evidence is fucking everywhere.

Let's start out small. Rodney Hawkins died from eating crab at a Ruby Tuesday. Now, the perception, the mental illusion, is that people with severe allergies can consume food at public restaurants and avoid foods which will kill them due to a plethora of social constructs fabricated into reality by humanity's stupid little social system. But the point to which Rodney Hawkins' corpse attests is that factually, actually that little social system does not always work: its utility and dependability is an illusion. So, while one can maintain the position that their shellfish allergy oughtn't prevent them from eating at Ruby Tuesday, Rodney Hawkins' corpse attests to the contrary: If you have a food allergy cook your own fucking food or die.

Senator John Cornyn provides another terrific example:
“When people fill up their trucks or S.U.V.’s in Texas and pay over $100 to fill up their vehicle, it gets their attention, and they are looking to Congress to frankly get out of the way and allow America to develop more of its own natural resources as we take other measures to conserve energy and become more efficient.”

Marvel at the obvious internal disharmony in that statement. Americans want to drive S.U.V.'s AND conserve energy? Explain that. And what possible meaning can exist within "develop natural resources"? "Natural" Resources are not developed; humans drill, dig, and pump for natural resources. Americans want to be more efficient with our consumption of resources? Fuck no they don't! America's energy situation right now is simply a migraine inducing clusterfuck of stupid which is completely divorced from reality.

The problem is that reality is secondary to perceptions of reality and the entire thrust of humanity's effort is towards reinforcing and maintaining that illusion. We drive cars and cut down trees while at the same time acknowledge, fundamentally know, that we require oxygen to breathe. The only way to do that is to maintain a mental illusion that the oxygen we breathe is separate and distinct from those trees, that car exhaust. The only way to maintain the notion that we can secure an unending supply of cheap gasoline is to maintain the illusion that earth's resources are not finite, despite reality. The ony way to make sense of humanity's stupid little system is to ignore the fundamental disharmony between the reality we mentally fabricate and the world in which we live.

Someone asked me this weekend if I want to have kids. My initial reaction was to point out the flaw in that question. I can certainly see the appeal in having an ideal little boy or girl, fostering that relationship and teaching it to hate the things I hate. But when one recognizes the chance of a birth defect, the possibility of birthing a little case of Autism? When one recognizes the facticity and reality of the situation and abandons the little mental illusion utilized by society to portray parenthood as admirable and desirable? The desire to breed disappears.

And that, I think, is the mindset to which all ought strive. We need to mentally dwell within reality, to appreciate the facticity of our existence and abandon those mental contrivances which lead us away from reality and towards a fabricated illusion. We need to stop thinking that we exist independent of Earth and realize that we rely upon Earth for our existence. We need to stop thinking that we were divinely created and realize that we're just a happy accident. We need to stop thinking that there is some purpose and meaning to our being and realize that we are simply here. We need to stop thinking that when we turn on the shower we're granted access to clean water and realize that, actually, we're bathing in someone else's filtered piss.

Stated simply: Human beings need to pull their heads out of their asses and look at reality rather than their own repetitive, delusional, idiotic shit.

I think I want to buy this..

.. but I fear for my very soul.

Song Summoner

it's.. well.. it's.. RIPE for humor and for being lost in. Soldiers made outta the Front and Coulton? Zappa? A Strat rpg that I can play through my coat?

yeah..

Madness, I tells ya.

Richard Lenski, E. Coli, Conservapedia

Per today's You Are Dumb we have a wonderful example of what happens when faith meets science. The overview of the situation is that Richard Lenski spend 20 years observing, collecting, and growing E. Coli, eventually producing E. Coli which consume citrate, an activity which does not "naturally occur". Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia, "learned" of this, acted like a creationist asshole, and was then made a fool of by Richard Lenski, who is awesome.

So go read today's You Are Dumb. Then check out the Lenski Dialog on Conservapedia. And if you're just plain tickled by the exchange check out Richard Lenski's Homepage and delight in his awesome.

Evolution: A Glimpse at Truth

Evolution is not a sentient force enacting its will on reality. Evolution has no end goal, no purpose, no intent. When we anthropomorphize Evolution, when we talk about Evolution as if it were a thing which intentions we fundamentally skew the entire concept of Evolution and allow for morons to portray Evolution as something with which one could disagree.

It's a fairly simply situation to understand. When the language used to discuss Evolution denotes the idea of a "design" onto Evolution then Evolution becomes a "designer", a thing, which then allows for other fabricated "designers" to be included in the conversation; we allow a false equivalency. But the problem is not limited to "design" language. See if you can find what is incorrect with these two sentences from the Wikipedia entry:
"The first is natural selection, a process causing heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common in a population, and harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to reproduce, so that more individuals in the next generation inherit these traits."

Do you see how those sentences compacted the situation? How "helpful for survival and reproduction" were crunched together when, really, the traits are separate and distinct? Look at the second sentence. It is not the case that "individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to reproduce". Rather, individuals with traits which behoove reproduction are more likely to reproduce. Individuals with traits that behoove survival are more likely to survive.

The problem is that scientists are not equipped to deal with semantics, are not capable of articulating a message. But in a much larger sense the majority of human beings are not capable of identifying the problematic nuances of language. Here is a quick example: We cannot answer the question "Why is the sky blue?". We can answer the question "How is the sky blue?".

But getting back to evolution, the thing that most pisses me off is the self-centered way people discuss evolutionary changes over time. I'm sure you've heard the evolution of the eye argument, founded on the idea that the eye is so complex that it could not have happened by accident; it had to be designed. The problem with this view, as with many critiques of evolution, is that they view the way things are as some goal which evolution had to reach; they maintain the position that evolution was working towards developing eyes and no amount of random change over time could result in that desired end.

Which, as you can probably guess, is FUCKING STUPID and indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of what the fuck we're talking about. Evolution was not pondering reality, decided that sight would be keen, and so fumbled and tripped its way towards developing eyes. Eyes were a mutation, sight was a mutation within the string of happy accidents which is reality. Things which mutated to have sight were able to fucking trounce sightless things. Therefore, etc.

The only explanation I can think of for why this language problem exists within discussions of Evolution is that to maintain it one must acknowledge that reality has always been a happy accident, that permanence is an illusion and change is the way things are, in a very odd understanding of what "are" means. To have an accurate and correct understanding of Evolution one must accept that fundamentally this, the way things are, is all just something that happened as a result of these random mutations. We, You, I do not exist as a result of our needing to exist and some design for our existing. We're just something that happened. We're not engaged in an evolutionary arms race, developing and changing to accommodate an innate desire to one up other beings. We're just the result of a bunch of mutations. We exist within an infinite expanse of time containing a nigh-infinite universe with nigh-infinite stars around which orbit nigh-infinite planets. When you think about it that way, apply evolution, and abandon a self-centered viewpoint? You begin to understand what reality is all about.

And very few people want to accept that.

Primary Statistics: thegreenpapers.com

I'm linking these for future reference due to how fucking useful and awesome they are.

2000 Primary Statistics
2008 Primary Statistics

Obama Will Give Convention Speech At Stadium

This rumor popped late last week on some blogs, but now it is official. Barack Obama will be giving his acceptance speak, not at the Pepsi Center, but at Invesco Field at Mile High. Invesco Field can hold over 75,000 people and setting will be open to anyone, not just convention-goers.

From the AP Article:

"The Democratic Party is nominating a true change candidate this August, and it is only fitting that we make some big changes in how we put on the Convention," DNC Chairman Howard Dean says. "By bringing the last night of the Convention out to the people, we will be able to showcase Barack Obama's positive, people-centered vision for our country in a big way."

I thing this is a great move on the Democrats part. Bring is as many people as they can to watch Obama talk good. This will be the first time a lot of people will get a chance to see Obama give a major speech, and it is sure to be a good one. On top of that, it is the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Sponge Bob Death Note