2007/09/28

Misc. Friday Ramblings...




Friday FIREPOWER!
  • A perfect mount for your weapon.
    Robert Anderson, President of Sure Set Holster Mounts, has come up with a product that keeps you from rooting through drawers and fumbling around shelves. The SSHM attaches to just about any hard point, under a desk, work counter, bookshelf or wall. Another good application is in the console between the seats of the car or even tucked out of sight on the floor. It can be adjusted any which way to aid in a smooth natural draw from your holster.

    Picking a gun up off a shelf doesn’t lend itself to a proper firing grip. You’ll have to regrip in order to bring the gun into the fight. The SSHM gives you the necessary clearance to secure a proper grip when you truly need to have one. It comes with a lockable security cable to keep the kids away and even a special mounting bracket allowing you to attach it to either side of the bedframe.


2007/09/27

"Is our children learning?"

Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."

Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the centrepiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.

During his first presidential campaign, Bush -- who promised to be the "education president" -- once asked: "Is our children learning?"

On Wednesday, Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said.

Apparently, it is having to write the speeches phonetically that is getting his staff screwed up.

2007/09/26

When you chum the water, you just might get a shark.

With a rod and a reel, a local man landed a huge shark off the Central Florida coast. The 12-foot-4 hammerhead was pulled ashore in Flagler Beach, just blocks away from a popular swimming spot.

After putting out his bait at Flagler Beach Saturday night, he fished for two hours with no bites, but then it hit and he knew it was big.

"I hopped up cause I knew something picked it up and then it just started screaming, whiiirrrr, and it didn't stop for a good half hour. I couldn't stop that fish," he said.

His reel spun so fast he had to get water to cool it off. It turned into a three-hour battle that ended with him recruiting 12 people to actually pull the shark ashore.

"When we were trying to pull it up onto the pier, it was bigger than the pier. We had to use a truck," said eyewitness Matt Grosse.

The full fish was so big, he couldn't keep it. Just the head measures almost a yard from tip to tip. It's so big he's still not sure how he can keep just the head.

Okay, so, he chums the water near a popular swimming spot and gets a shark. Then people wonder why sharks bite people there. Hmmm, maybe they passed it around that there was free food?

2007/09/25

Halo 3 released today

When last we left Master Chief, he was headed towards Earth, determined to stop the Prophet of Truth and his cadre of Brutes from destroying the universe in a blaze of zealotry. Cortana had been captured by the Gravemind, a disgusting creature intimately tied to the Flood. The Arbiter and his Elites, once bitter enemies of humankind had made an uneasy truce in order to conquer a greater evil. Frankly, things didn't look so hot for Earth and its inhabitants. For three years fans have been waiting to find out what comes next. Most won't be disappointed, as the story eschews some of the ambiguity of Halo 2 and tells a more straightforward narrative. Events play out like a sci-fi action blockbuster.

This is a good thing. Ambiguity is not very endearing to gamers who want closure, not the promise of having to buy the sequel.

It should be noted that the difficulty level is a bit out of whack, though done purposefully. Bungie has to service an enormous casual crowd who (let's face it) suck at games. There are millions who will play Halo 3 and only Halo 3 this year. All they want is to finish the fight and take a nap on the couch. But at the same time, there are an equal number of hardcore gamers who have become immensely skilled at Halo over the past six years. For these folks, the single-player version of Heroic and Legendary difficulties has been ratcheted up just a tad. Many will immediately jump into Normal difficulty, and never see the more aggressive AI that calls in reinforcements and makes better use of its weapons and equipment. Frankly, Normal on Halo 3 is too easy for the average gamer and that lack of challenge may actually bore some.

Casual difficulty is a good thing. Heaven forbid they make the game like the Devil May Cry series, where pretty much only the hardcore need to apply.

While Heroic and Legendary single-player offer a good challenge, the same can't be said for co-op. A decent Halo player can get through the campaign alone on Heroic in 10-13 hours. Four decent Halo players can burn through Legendary in 4-5 hours easily. Unlike Halo 2, you aren't penalized for having a teammate die. As long as you aren't amidst a swarm of enemies, your dead buddy will respawn, whereas in Halo 2 if either player died, you were forced to restart from the last checkpoint. But don't worry, Bungie has set up an interesting system to add a bit of challenge and replayability to co-op for those who don't want to be able to obliterate the enemy with ease.

I'm glad to see CO-OP mode back again. CO-OP mode is something many games could use. Not everyone that plays online wants to deathmatch all the time.

If you don't dig the layout of a particular map, you can make some adjustments with the Forge. This new addition to the Halo series will keep these eleven maps fresh for years. While you can't alter the geometry of the level, you can make any other adjustments you wish in the Forge. On your own, you can hop into any map using The Forge and rearrange the placement of objects, weapons, power-ups, spawn points, and objectives. You can also access a Counter Strike-style menu and spend money to drop new vehicles, equipment, objects, and more anywhere you like in the map. Then you can save the new map you've created and upload it to Bungie.net for others to check out.

Audience participation....yeah!

By now you're frothing at the mouth thinking of the thrilling battles in the campaign, of blasting people online with all the cool new weapons, and mucking around with the Forge. Now imagine if you could keep a visual record of everything you ever do in Halo 3. It's not only possible, it happens automatically. Every time you play Halo 3 -- be it a campaign level, Forge, or multiplayer -- the 3D game data from your match is saved to your hard drive or memory card. The file is only a few megabytes, but you'd never guess it from the replays you witness.

Giving the PWNZ crowd one more tool to be obnoxious and flaunt their e-peen.

The campaign, which is very good, is Halo 3's weakest point. It doesn't capture the cavalier spirit of the original Halo, but you'll still have fun playing through it. There's no first-person shooter on 360 that can equal Halo 3's blend of cinematic action, adrenaline-pumping shootouts, and male- (and female)-bonding gameplay. Look beyond the gameplay and you have a rich feature set unlike anything ever delivered in a videogame. The Forge and the replay functionality raise the bar for console shooters so high, it may never be surpassed this generation. There will be plenty of aspects for fans to nitpick, but it's hard to argue against Halo 3 as the most complete game available on any console.

Too bad it won't be available on the PC for another two or three years, and even then only on a Vista machine. Ah well, I guess a working Vista beats a "red ring of death" X360 anyday. :)

EDIT: With any popular gaming series, you sometimes have to deal with the rabid fanbois out there. Hopefully, an apology to the fanbois for apparent grievances will be good enough.

2007/09/24

Man Beheads Tame Hotel Duck

A man was in custody Sunday after police said he ripped the head off a tame duck that lived in a hotel lobby's ornamental pond.

Scott D. Clark, a guest at the Embassy Suites Hotel in St. Paul, cornered the duck early Saturday morning, grabbed the bird and ripped its head from its body while a hotel security guard and others watched, police said.

Clark then turned to onlookers and said: "I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat it," St. Paul police Sgt. John Wuorinen said.

"He was allegedly drunk," Wuorinen said.


Allegedly? What, was there no "Hey Ya'll, Watch This!"?

Best play of the weekend...imho...

2007/09/21

Misc. Friday Ramblings...

Andrew Meyer (UF Tased student):
"Don't Tase Me Bro!"

Friday FIREPOWER!
  • Should teachers be allowed to carry?
    In court documents, she's known as "Jane Doe." Innocuous enough, but the woman behind that pseudonym pushes one of the nation's hottest political buttons: guns and school safety.

    What Ms. Doe wants to do is take her Glock 9-mm pistol to the high school in Medford, Ore., where she teaches.

    She's licensed to carry a concealed weapon and she has what many supporters say is a legitimate reason for being armed: a restraining order against her ex-husband based on threats he's allegedly made against her and her children.

    But district policy prohibits anyone except a law-enforcement officer from bringing a weapon onto campus. When word got out that she had a concealed-carry permit, administrators reminded her of that policy. There's the political rub: According to state law, "any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly."

    Backed by gun-rights groups, Doe intends to challenge the school district in state court this week. Meanwhile throughout the country, lawmakers are filing bills that would make it legal for adult school employees to carry firearms, in some cases providing special weapons safety training for those who want to be part of their school's security force in addition to their classroom teaching duties.

    Gun-rights groups and school boards around the country are paying close attention to the Oregon case.

    "There's a specific state statute that prohibits local governments, including school districts, from passing laws or policies prohibiting people from owning or possessing firearms," says James Leuenberger, the Portland, Ore., lawyer representing the teacher.

    "Jane Doe," who agreed to be interviewed by phone on condition of anonymity, says she does not want to be viewed as an "Annie Oakley." Trying to extricate herself from an abusive relationship led her to buy her first gun just a few years ago, she says. Prior to that she had not been an activist in defense of the US Constitution's Second Amendment provision regarding "the right to keep and bear arms."

    But as a veteran teacher, she has come to believe strongly that having responsible armed adults on campus could have prevented tragedies such as those at Columbine High School in Colorado, Thurston High School in Oregon, and Virginia Tech University last April.

    I'm for it. It would behoove any institution, not just one of learning, to make the safety of those people entrusted to it a high priority. Better yet, allow people to defend themselves. "Gun Free" zones are gun free only if people abide by the law.

  • Orem man shoots attacking pit bull.
    If John Erickson hadn't had his gun with him when a neighbor's pit bull attacked him, there's no telling how bad things might have been.

    Erickson, 22, was walking up to his house on 400 South near 700 West in Orem on Wednesday when a neighbor's pit bull bit him from behind. As he rode his scooter to his house around 8:30 p.m., Erickson saw the dog sitting calmly while a neighborhood girl petted it. Then he parked and took three or four steps toward his house when the dog bit him.

    "All of a sudden the dog grabbed my leg from behind," he said.

    He swung his scooter helmet at the dog, which backed off for a moment. But when the dog charged forward, Erickson, who has a concealed weapons permit, drew his 9-millimeter pistol and fired at the dog's head. Erickson said he worries about what would have happened if he hadn't been armed.

    "There's nothing I could've done. I couldn't run. There's no way I'm going to outrun it. There's nowhere I could go," said Erickson, a student at Utah Valley State College.

    At Erickson's request, no charges were filed against the dog's owner, said Orem police spokesman Lt. Doug Edwards. Vicious animal citations and letting dogs run free are misdemeanor offenses.

    "You can't allow your dog to run at large. It doesn't matter how they get off the property, whether it's a hole (in the fence) or a broken leash. Dogs can't run loose," Edwards said.

    CCW is all about being prepared. This just goes to show that it isn't always the human attacker you have to be on the lookout for.

2007/09/20

The 5 Most Kick-Ass Apocalyptic Prophecies

#5.Judgment Day
#4.The Coming of Gochihr
#3.The Return of Pahana
#2.Nahui Ollin – The End of the Fifth Era
#1.Ragnarök


Personally, I think it will be some sort of biological zombie apocalypse. That's why I would want to buy an abandoned, underground missile base. That would make the perfect place to hole up and wait for the end of humanity.

Things aren't always as they seem


Dick Doodles - Watch more free videos

2007/09/18

Prosecutor sought sex with 5 year old girl

An assistant U.S. attorney from Florida was arrested in an Internet sting operation after flying to Michigan to have sex with a 5-year-old girl, authorities said Monday.

John D.R. Atchison, 53, was arrested Sunday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after several weeks of Internet conversations between the prosecutor and a detective posing as the mother of a 5-year-old girl, authorities say.

He was charged with using interstate communication to entice a minor to have sexual contact and traveling across state lines with the intent of engaging in illicit sexual contact. If convicted of both charges, he faces up to 40 years in prison.

According to court records, Atchison initiated an online chat Aug. 29 with an undercover officer posing as a mother interested in letting men have sex with her daughter.

At one point, Atchison said: "I'm always gentle and loving; not to worry; no damage ever; no rough stuff ever ever," according to an affidavit filed in court.

This crime is the reason I support Florida installing an express lane to the electric chair.

Hand drawn Zork I map



I had Zork I on the Commodore 64. The first game I got that needed the 1541 floppy disk drive. Wow, some good memories with that machine. Of course, getting one that worked was a different story. I think my parents took me to about five different department stores. Each one had mass quantities. Each one but the last wouldn't function. Each one but the last was returned. I guess quality control wasn't a strong suit back then. Ah, the memories. Makes me want to find the Apshai trilogy...

2007/09/17

Team Fortress 2 is coming


Team Fortress 2: The Engineer - Watch more free videos

Something squirrely going on here.

Why like the NFL? Because men can play dress up

There are three reasons the NFL packs in fans: violence, beer and the ability of grown men to get away with dressing up in stupid costumes.

Without those three items, all intertwined, the only people who would go to NFL games would be the corporate stooges in their tax-deductible luxury boxes and club seats, the ones not cheering because it interrupts their networking.

Otherwise, why pay the outrageous ticket price (average seat — $67) for the privilege of paying hefty sums for parking, drinks and food and then sit in the parking lot afterward, waiting for traffic to crawl out? Why kill so many minutes viewing the down time for those TV commercial breaks?

It would be a lot easier to watch the game at home, and if you wanted a crowd, invite family and friends over, then charge them semi-outrageous prices for parking, drinks and food. They’ll thank you for giving them such a break. And they don’t have to deal with parking.

That is the NFL’s real power. For all that violence and beer supply as a fan’s release, the freedom to dress however you want is the ultimate sign that this is a sport different than others. Sure, people do this at college football games, but not anyone over the age of 22.

People sometimes wonder why soccer hadn't caught on here in America. They have violence, alcohol, and people dressing up in the stands. Ah well, as long as there is a Pop Warner game around, there will be a training ground for NFL fans.

2007/09/14

Misc. Friday Ramblings...

Lawdog:
"An amateur practices until he gets it right. A professional practices until he can't get it wrong."

Friday FIREPOWER!
  • Gamma-ray annihilation lasers.
    Di-positronium, as the new molecule is known, was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science.

    Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons.

    The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultrapowerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers.

    "The difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion," said Dr David Cassidy of the University of California, Riverside, and one of the authors of the paper.

    "It would have an incredibly high power density."

    As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor.

    No word yet on if sharks will be involved or not.

2007/09/10

Radio frequencies help burn salt water.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."

Why stop at running machines? Why not build radio weapons that can destroy salt water installations or ships? Why not build one that creates a chain reaction to destroy all of the oceans? Gives me the chills too.