Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

Karthis at Of Teeth and Claws links to an Elitist Jerks discussion on maximizing  druid cat form dps.  Here’s the rotation:

1. If Tiger’s Fury cooldown is up, cast Tiger’s Fury
2. If Omens of Clarity is up, cast Mangle if Mangle is down, otherwise cast Shred
3. If Savage Roar is down and Combo Points>= 2, cast Savage Roar
4. If Combo Points = 5 and Rip is down, cast Rip
5. If Combo Points = 5 and Rip is up, do nothing and wait for Rip to fade
6. If Rake is down, cast Rake
7. If Mangle is down, cast Mangle
8. If Energy>= 82 or cast Shred
9. If Energy>= 40 and Tiger’s Fury cooldown has less than 1 second remaining, cast Shred

My daily workout program has been going well.  I’ve stuck with it for over 18 weeks now without missing a day.  For a change of pace, I’m going to do hundred pushups program for my strength workout.  My initial test was a little embarrassing at only 19 pushups - I’d been up to almost 50 about 4 years ago.  Ah well, I’ll get there. 

The reasons I chose the hundred pushups are that it requires minimal equipment, it has a definite, achievable goal, and it fits beautifully with my current workout schedule. 

Gretchen Rubin has a post on picking a career:Why it might not be helpful to ask yourself “What’s my passion “. I really liked this bit of advice:

Do what you DO. What do you do already, in your free time? Try to do that as your job.

I don’t know how I would apply it. I am going to think about it some more and maybe I’ll come up with a good answer.

Reading this post by The Ferrett a few months back convinced me to subscribe to the online version of Cook’s Illustrated.   I have been consistently impressed with the results from their recipes.  When Cook’s Illustrated says that something will taste a certain way, it does.   The part I like the best is that they don’t use exotic ingredients - if I don’t have the required ingredients on hand, I can easily pick them up at the local grocery store.  My biggest complaint is that they have a limited selection of recipes.  I’ve looked for a couple recipes for particular foods and come up with nothing.  I would like to spend more time cooking, but in the meantime it’s great to have a source for wonderful recipes. 

Both my parents are birdwatchers, so it might be worth pointing them to I and the Bird #84, A Beginner’s Guide to Bird Blogs. It looks like there’s a lot of good bird stuff out there.

(via Polymeme)

Underground House Book might be worth checking out. I doubt I could get it built for $50 or even $500 as my handyman skills are lacking. From a quick look, the author seems to be a bit of a survivalist nut. Nevertheless it looks interesting.

I found this quote from Blessing of Kings: Warhammer Online: What to Play? to be a very good summary of the dilemma faced by healers (and to some extent tanks).

The thing about healing is that it is usually very powerful and scarce. And I don't *hate* playing a healer. So I could go healer, and my group or side would probably be more successful. Or I could go DPS, and my group or side would probably be less successful, but I would have more fun. But losing is not fun and winning is. So round and round in circles I go.

The exercise options out there fascinate me. Zen Habits has another post on Minimalist Fitness II. I haven’t changed the weights part of my exercise routine yet, but when I look at doing so I may try out Crossfit.

I am constantly amazed by the resources that are available online. You may not get credit for free online courses, but it’s still a great way to learn things.

The careful text books measure
(Let all who build beware!)
The load, the shock, the pressure
Material can bear.
So, when the buckled girder
Lets down the grinding span,
The blame of loss, or murder,
Is laid upon the man.
Not on the Stuff — the Man!

But in our daily dealing
With stone and steel, we find
The Gods have no such feeling
Of justice toward mankind.
To no set gauge they make us, —
For no laid course prepare —
And presently o’ertake us
With loads we cannot bear.
Too merciless to bear.

The prudent text-books give it
In tables at the end —
The stress that shears a rivet
Or makes a tie-bar bend —
What traffic wrecks macadam —
What concrete should endure —
But we, poor Sons of Adam,
Have no such literature,
To warn us or make sure!

We hold all Earth to plunder —
All Time and Space as well —
Too wonder-stale to wonder
At each new miracle;

Till, in mid-illusion
Of Godhead ‘neath our hand,
Falls multiple confusion
On all we did or planned.
The mighty works we planned.

We only of Creation
(Oh, luckier bridge and rail!)
Abide the twin-damnation —
To fail and know we fail.
Yet we — by which sole token
We know we once were Gods —
Take shame in being broken
However great the odds —
The Burden or the Odds.

Oh, veiled and secret Power
Whose paths we seek in vain,
Be with us in our hour
Of overthrow and pain;
That we — by which sure token
We know thy ways are true —
In spite of being broken,
Because of being broken,
May rise and build anew.
Stand up and build anew!

– Rudyard Kipling

Blizzard has opened up PvE to PvP transfers.  I think this is a decent idea.  I leveled my first characters on a PvP server thinking that it would add something to the game.  It didn’t for me.

I think the timing is key for this.  At this point the majority of the players who are leveling are playing alts.  A 70 who transfers over from a PvP server to gank lowbies is going to get owned.  I hope that new servers have six months or so before server transfers are allowed.

If you want a long take on this, see Lume the Mad’s PvE to PvP Server Transfers an Overdue Policy Change. 

In The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons Ian Angus argues convincingly that there is no tradgedy of the commons.  I din’t like that he led of with an ad hominem attack on the author of the Tradgedy of the Commons, but the rest of the arguments seemed quite sound.  The argument is that a stable community takes a long term view when it comes to managing shared assets.  Angus supplies links to a a number of studies that support this view.  The problems with a despoiling of a commons arrive when people can swoop in, grab as much as they can, and then take off for greener pastures.

I am interested in how this would apply for copyright.  It seems to me that one of the big reasons copyright is useful to a society is that it exchanges a temporary monopoly for the creation of a greater commons.  By extending copyright indefinitely, copyright maximalists are snatching what they can and running.  They want the freedom to build on the works of others, but don’t want to reciprocate by giving others the freedom to build on their works.  It’s been a long, long, long time since anyone created something without drawing in any way on the creators who came before them. 

I read the Ferrett’s post on Corrosion of Nonconformity, which discusses overly obsessed fans.  "But there is this fine line in fandom where people stop treating it as a hobby and start treating it as a mandate from God, completely forgetting that other people exist."

I would argue that there are very few areas of human endeavor where people do not fall into this trap.  It seems to me that it’s a key part of human culture and it’s not restricted to fandom. 

Take a look at any culture’s insults as an outsider and they will often seem ridiculous to you.  What does it matter that Joe is a keyboard turner, Nancy’s bow to Jane was preceded by a second’s hesitation, or that Pat wore orange to the bar?  I recently spent a day touring holes in the ground with people who have intense feelings about the exact kind of dirt that was in them. Take any aspect of humanity and there are people who have gone nuts turning the minutiae into shibboleths.  

I believe that there are very few people who are not at least mildly obsessed with something.  When people cross the line Ferrett mentioned, it is a problem.  As I discussed in my post on MMO Addiction, defining the line is a tricky proposition.  The bright side to this is that it’s generally not that hard to find out people’s obsessions, which then gives a good basis for conversation, building connections, and learning something new.

Jaimie and I are looking at buying a home in the next few years.  How to Prepare for Buying a Home has a lot of good advice, most of which we’re already following.  The nice thing is that we’re not in a hurry so we have lots of time to look at options and think things over.

Lifehacker has a reader generated list of the Best Video Feeds. I don’t watch a lot of video - for me it takes the worst features of podcasts and adds the necessity of keeping my eyes on the screen.

That being said, I’m really enjoying the TED Talks. They present big ideas in a positive way. It’s good to finish viewing a presentation on world events and come out encouraged rather than despairing.

EduChoices lists 25 Places to Read Free Books Online.  With only 25 places listed it’s not surprising that they missed some that I look at frequently.  One big one that was missed is the Baen Free Library.  Another is Cory Doctrow’s site where he posts his novels and short stories.   For shorter stories, I like Eric Burns’ Banter Latte, though he seems to have quit writing there.

For a short while, Tor was offering free ebooks (currently they’re offering free short fiction).  I’d love to buy a lot of Tor’s books as ebooks, but I’m still waiting.  Kindle format for books doesn’t count - I’m not touching anything that has DRM that goes deeper than watermarking.  When I buy a book, I want to be able to read and reread it.  (If you want to know hy DRM is a bad idea for authors, publishers, and readers look at Eric Flint’s Salvos Against Big Brother columns.)

(via Copyfight)

EDIT: More books online

I constantly struggle with trying to keep our house clean.  I have managed to form a few good cleaning habits, but there is a long, long way to go.  The key that I seem to be missing is doing a bit of housework every day rather than trying to do it in bursts. 

I tried FlyLady’s method for about 10 days, but I always felt that I was intruding on a ladies-only event.  Zen Habits had a post on Editing Your Rooms that looks to have some possibilities. 

Frankly, my big hope right now it that with the kids going back to school and getting back into a regular routine I’ll be able to get into a routine of cleaning house again.

There are a ton of podcasts out there.  They are informative, fun, and cover a lot of good topics.  I don’t listen to them.

The reason I don’t listen to them is simply that I have trouble with auditory learning.  I don’t retain things I hear nearly as well as I do things I read.  I’ve reached the end of many podcasts and asked myself "What were they talking about for the last hour?" 

I find myself in a cycle of finding interesting podcasts, listening to them, realizing I don’t have a clue what they’ve been talking about, and unsubscribing.  It seems that I can only listen to about an hour or two of podcasts per week.  Anything more goes in one ear and out the other. 

I wonder if a good speech to text program could help with this?  I don’t think the current technology is up to handling podcasts yet, but it doesn’t hurt to look into it.  I guess I’ll just have to live with the world not revolving around me. :) 

World History Blog links to Jane Austen’s World. 

This blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details.

I know that Jaimie likes to reread the occasional Jane Austen novel.  For a while there she enjoyed other regencies but she seems to have moved on to more contemporary romances. 

I don’t read a lot of romance novels, but they’re definitely worth reading.  Romance novels are as subject to Sturgeon’s Law as anything else.  The best thing about romance novels is that they’re one of the best guides for how to behave around ladies who read them.  You may not be tall, dark, handsome, and rich, but you can still act like a romantic hero.

"The hard part is having a wife who sees you the way you are. Hey, having one of those and keeping her in love with you is something of a challenge. If she notices that your hair is sort of thin on top"—he pointed to his own head—"and you’re sort of sloppy about pruning the weigela bushes and sometimes you don’t get around to taking out the garbage when she asks you to, how do you explain it? If she compares the waist size on your last set of briefs with the waist size on your new set of briefs, how are you supposed to persuade her that things aren’t settling, so to speak? A realistic wife—that would be a problem."

Marc was listening with fascination.

"But a member of the Romance Readers book club. Hey, Toby, it’s a cinch, if you do the husband business at a sort of minimum level. Basically, I mean, don’t get hauled home sodden drunk very often. Usually get there for supper on time and call when you can’t. Remember her birthday and anniversary with flowers. Which isn’t that hard, in spite of all the jokes. I keep Max’s birthday and our anniversary written on a note card on my machine. So, you see, just do that much. Your wife’s imagination will take care of all the rest. You see, she really wants to have a romantic, hunky, husband. So she’ll festoon you with all sorts of desired heroic qualities that you . . . ummm . . . may not actually have, like tinsel on a Christmas tree, and cheerfully ignore the fact that middle age is not just creeping up on you but has already arrived and taken up squatters’ rights on your midsection."
–1634-The Bavarian Crisis

Massively linked to a video preview of Free Realms.  It looks to have more to do and see than Club Penguin.  I hope that there’s enough of a game there to make things interesting.  If the system requirements are fairly low, it might be fun to play with the kids.  Eurogamer had another preview that really made it sound appealing I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.