Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

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.

Tank Like a Girl continues their overview with Heroics order, part II: medium to tough.  I really like the detailed look at heroic instances including how tough they are and what the nasty parts are.  I had originally planned to do a lot more heroics than I ended up doing.  We moved into Kara after doing a few heroics and that pretty much took up our grouping time.  Maybe in Wrath we’ll do more heroics, but with all the new ten player raids I’m not betting on it. 

For a while there was a potion sickness effect in the beta of Wrath of the Lich King that kept people from consuming more than one potion per fight.  I really hope this mechanic makes it into the actual game. 

For those of you who didn’t raid before Burning Crusade, it wasn’t uncommon to have six or more elixir buffs up for progression raiding.  Raiding was an even more expensive proposition then.  Elixirs were then divided into Battle and Guardian elixirs and you could only have one of each or a flask up.  There was a great hue and cry that raid bosses would be impossible to beat.  Shockingly enough, the sky didn’t fall and there was still plenty of raiding and downing of raid bosses.

Anything that reduces the cost of raiding is fine by me!

I love the idea of drawing on external resources in exams.  It seems to me that the way that most exams are currently done is silly.  I find it encouraging that some schools are trying new examination ideas.

Clive Thompson has a post up on Wired that discusses Weight Watchers as an RPG.  It’s really not much of a stretch. 

As with an RPG, you roll a virtual character, manage your inventory and resources, and try to achieve a goal. Weight Watchers’ points function precisely like hit points; each bite of food does damage until you’ve used up your daily amount, so you sleep and start all over again. Play well and you level up — by losing weight! And the more you play it, the more you discover interesting combinations of the rules that aren’t apparent at first. Hey, if I eat a fruit-granola breakfast and an egg-and-romaine lunch, I’ll have enough points to survive a greasy hamburger dinner for a treat!

It seems to me that the next step would be a barcode scanner or some such tied to your PDA so that you can do a quick swipe and see that this pack of granola bars would put you way over the top while that pack of sunflower seeds would leave you some wiggle room for a later treat. 

When will World of Workcraft become a reality and a fun game?  I remember reading a story in Analog that had people starting out by playing a high fantasy MMO then moving on to doing work that benefited society instead.  MMOs as a huge social positive may not be that far away.

In the interview How to Live the simple life, Tim Kasser recounts the following story. 

There is a story about a man who approached Gandhi and said that he’d been thinking about living a simpler life, but he didn’t feel like he could give up his collection of books. Gandhi is said to have replied, "As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you."

The question that keeps coming up in life is "What do you value the most?"  It could be argued that every choice you make comes down to this question.  Do you value the good looks of your dress shoes more than the comfort of your sandals?  Do you value keeping your word more than moving on to a better opportunity?  Do you value the health benefits of All Bran over the taste of Fruit Loops? 

Ultima IV had a unique character creation process.  You were given a series of questions that forced you to decide between two virtues.  For example, "A merchant owes thy friend money, now long past due. Thou dost see the same merchant drop a purse of gold. Dost thou: Honestly return the purse intact, or Justly give thy friend a portion of the gold first?" It is not that one virtue was inherently better than another, it was how you choose to rank them.

Lassirra at The Hunter’s Mark has a post on WoW Web Stats Usability.  She recommends LoggerHead for remembering to start and stop combat logs.  I’ve used it for quite a while and it’s really helpful.  The other utility she recommends is Combatlog Splitter.  I’ve been splitting my logs by hand and it can be a pain.

Charles Murray has an opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal titled For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time.  My quick summary of his position is that a profession-specific certification exam would be far more useful and equitable than a bachelor degree. 

I agree that a certification exam would be a far more pragmatic approach to becoming or finding someone who is qualified in a particular field.  My work experience and high school algebra have been more useful in my day to day work than any of the classes I took in college or university.  I paid my own way, was careful with my money, and still came out with roughly $15,000 of debt from going to university.  From what I’ve read, this is on the low end for debt when finishing a four year degree. $15k what amounts to a membership card is ridiculous.  However, the statistics I’ve seen consistently show that those with a degree earn considerably more than those without one, so maybe a degree is just a cost you have to pay to play.

For me the value of my degree is that it opens doors.  If I had the slightest bit of entrepreneurial drive, a degree would be a waste.  As an employee a degree gives me a piece of paper that HR can check on their list of qualifications. 

The most valuable classes I took in university were those that had absolutely no relation to my field of study.  I took a social geography class to fill out some degree requirements and it gave me valuable insight into maps.  Now that I’m making maps every day, that basics I learned in that throwaway class are useful.  My class on leisure taught me a lot about how I choose to spend my spare time.  Philosophy classes still give me plenty of knotty problems to work thorough in my everyday life.  I would argue then that the value of a degree is in the classic liberal education and not in how well it prepares you for a particular job.  Still $15k is rather steep for being encouraged to read a little more broadly and to have my essays evaluated.

(via Polymeme)

Gretchen Rubin just posted Six tips for enjoying a vacation.  I don’t know when I’ll be taking a vacation that involves travel again, but these are great tips.  I know I’ve followed some of these tips by accident in the past and they’ve definitely made for a happier vacation. 

In her first post on lessons learned from her vacation, she talked about traveling without a computer for the first time in a long time and how that added to her enjoyment.  I’ve done a couple vacations now without bringing my computer along and I think for me it’s the opposite.  Having my computer along helps me enjoy my vacation because it serves as a kind of security blanket - if I get too stressed I have someplace safe to retreat.  Without my computer I feel trapped and start to panic - not a feeling that’s terribly conducive to a relaxing vacation.

I finally watched Batman Begins last night - three years late is actually pretty prompt for me.   I was playing World of Warcraft as I watched the movie, which brings back memories of playing the original Warcraft and watching The Rock.  I have trouble focusing on movies.

It did a very good job of telling a Batman origin story.  The explanations made sense in the context of the movie and I didn’t spot any huge plot holes or cliches.  The story was fast paced and kept moving along.  The action sequences were well done.  I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys action movies or superhero movies.