This place could use some work! (Contact me if you know how make this trash blog not look like trash)

Monday, February 26, 2018

Friday, February 23, 2018

MM/DD/YYYY vs DD/MM/YYYY Episode II

Actually, I've got way more to say about this than just that the American way is best.

If you're describing the location of something of an umbrella that's a bit to the left of a bookshelf in your room to someone over the phone so that they can retrieve it for you, you wouldn't start by saying the umbrella is a bit to the left. If you started there, the now frustrated person you're on the phone with would ask you what the umbrella is to the left of, still unable to even act on any of the information you've given them, since it could be to the left of anything.

You might then tell them that it's to the left of a bookshelf, and they'd still be frustrated with that answer because they still can't determine anything from what you've told them. Which bookshelf? You'd tell them that it's the bookshelf in your room. Now, finally, after 10 frustrating seconds of back and forth confusion, the person on the other end of the call can finally retrieve the umbrella a bit to the left of the bookshelf in your room for you. Wouldn't it have been easier if when they asked you where your umbrella was, you responded first by saying that it was in your room?

If you do that, then they can immediately start towards your room, as you tell them that there's a bookshelf in your room. No sooner than when you have finished telling them about the bookshelf, they will have laid eyes on that bookshelf in your room, and you can finish by saying that the umbrella is to the left of it. This way, the person on the phone finds the umbrella without any trouble and is on their way to bring it to you before the alternate universe version of them who is receiving the umbrella's location in the reverse order from you has even gotten you to finally divulge which room the bookshelf is in.

Here's another example. Suppose you have a big pile of sticks of varying sizes and you want to lay them out so that, while using the least amount of sticks, you place them in an unbroken line from where you stand to a point six feet in front of you. In order to accomplish this, you wouldn't start by laying down the small sticks first because you'll probably find that you use up all those small sticks before the end and the next smallest stick could overshoot the 6 foot mark. That approach would be inaccurate and inefficient. What you should do is grab the stick that looks just a bit shorter than 6 feet and lay it down first and then use the small sticks to do the fine work of getting very close to exactly the 6 foot mark.

The point is, when you're trying to get to or describe something in space, you shouldn't start with the small details and work your way to the large ones, because the smaller ones are usually useless without the context of the larger ones.

So it is with these dates. 23 February, 2018. What does the 23 tell you on its own? Nothing. Nobody has any idea what date you might be referring to by saying 23. Compare that to February. That tells you a lot. A lot of things happen specifically in February. Most Februaries have things that happen during them that are similar to other Februaries, so you can start inferring things about this date right away if you start by saying February. That's because February is the room, or bookshelf, or large stick, to the 23's a bit to the left, or small stick.

In the MM/DD/YYYY format, you start with the big important part which immediately tells the reader something about the date, and then follow it up with the specific day which clarifies exactly to which day of the year the date refers. Thus, the American format is better because you can immediately interpret the meaning of the date from the first part of the full date, meanwhile the other way puts a number first that is meaningless until you read on.

I think that's case closed!

Here's some extra thoughts I had about describing specific times and places though. I don't think it's a coincidence that there are parallels in describing times and places. After all, time and space are technically one thing, apparently. I guess one way of seeing that they are at least inseparable from each other is by thinking about how you would universally describe your location right now. If there were 3D coordinates that could address all of the universe we could use them to pin down exactly where you are right now. However, if at a later date we looked at those coordinates and went to where they said you were, we'd run into a problem. You were on Earth, and Earth is moved since then! In fact everything in the whole universe is constantly moving; that's time after all. So if you really wanted to accurately describe where you are right now you have to not only say the location in space, but also the location in time. It's like this for anything you're trying to describe if you try to very precisely and in universal terms describe where it is. I think probably the only reason we don't need to usually add a time to things' locations is similar to why we don't need to worry about relativistic effects on a daily basis: that sort of hard physics just doesn't effect things as small and relatively low energy and slow moving as us human beings.

Heck, speaking of rime, I'm tired, I should go to bed.

MM/DD/YYYY vs. DD/MM/YYY

You: what?

Me: I'm talking about date formats.

You: Oh!

Me: Yeah, as in like February 23, 2018 vs 18 February, 2018.

You: Got it, go ahead.

Me: If you insist. The American way is right. The end.

You: Cool and good. I have no objections to this

Me: Yeah case closed, eh?

Friday, February 9, 2018

Tweets from the Past

I've been going through my old tweets a lot recently—mostly to delete stupid political ones mostly—and it's been pretty fun. I've come across a lot of old gems of wisdom and neat snapshots into the past couple of years. Here are two of them:
These tweets from July in 2016 are a interesting to look back on now, not just because of my fond memories of that crazy summer, but also because I still often think about how it's easy to lose yourself in the details of a game or activity and miss the bigger picture. Also I reference the creation of the bombass 100 subs video.
 
This one's a bit more edgy. Or, at least where I live, it veers far enough from the dogmatic acceptable stance on the current president that I felt it necessary to delete these tweets now, lest they should be used against me in the future. I tweeted this in October of 2016, a solid month before the election, at a time where the current president's chances of winning were regarded by most prognosticators with any real authority to be remote at best. And yet, what I tweeted here turned out to be absolutely correct, which I think is pretty impressive. I posited that we might see a Brexit-style surprise turnout, and you know... that's exactly what happened (that link's just an ironic 4chan election night video).


Pokemon Go and politics were hot topics in the summer and fall of 2016. It was a crazy time!

So what about you? Do you have tweets you regret tweeting, or maybe even some like these that might have been good but you still shouldn't have tweeted? Do you even have a Twitter account? Well I do, and it's pretty neat. I tweet there all day long and recently I've even made a concerted effort to improve the quality and reduce the quantity of my tweets. It's a learning process, but heck, if you want to follow me I'm @sports_in_space on Twitter. 

Monday, February 5, 2018

Psychic Photosynthesis

Sunlight at all times, please, thanks.

I've been feeling a distinct lack solar energy recently. Solution? Probably just need some more sun, but why don't we overthink it!

As I write this it's 12:41 a.m. on what is technically Monday, but whatever it's still Sunday night to me. I'm getting the same nostalgic yearning to sit out in the sun and listen to music or just be still that I've gotten every Sunday night for the past like five Sunday nights. Maybe it's a night anxiety thing, or maybe I really do need to get some more relaxing done in general, but either way it's been making me sad.

Maybe this is my body's way of telling me that I need more vitamin D or that I'm missing some other intrinsic physiological benefit that can only be gained by being in sunlight. It's definitely possible that I'm not getting enough of it, but I doubt that makes up the entirety of the issue. After all, I know what it feels like to just lie in the sunlight for a long time; it feels like a damn sunburn.

I don't think I'm dealing with a physiological need, at least not primarily; I'm dealing with a psychological need. That presents a whole host of other questions though, and to be honest, I've got no idea what's wrong with me at all. Where would I start in diagnosing how I am possibly unwell mentally? Would I go down a list of disorders and ponder which ones of them I might have and how each of them would manifest themselves in me? That'd take forever and be boring as all hell. Literally, all I know is that at night on the weekends I feel like I want to be in the sun again.

Tomorrow, after I'm all through with my classes, I think I'll find a nice place somewhere to sit and absorb some energy, both solar and psychic. If doing that a couple times this week doesn't right my mood or at least have a small effect, then I'll know that there's something else at work here. I'll post again this coming Sunday (the 10th) and let you know how I feel, since I know you care so much.

A moment ago it was 12:51. Thus, I'll leave you with this:


Saturday, February 3, 2018

Adventure Games Aren't Really Adventure Games

I don't really like adventure games for two reasons. One, they're mostly boring B+ (at best) grade stories with no real gameplay, which doesn't make for a great game. Two, they stole the genre, adventure, from the type of games that I love, games like the Legend of Zelda games.

The games I love the most, games like Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, Hyper Light Drifter, Dragon's Dogma, games that really present you with a grand adventure, don't have a clear term to describe their genre while point-and-click games are parading around under the guise that there's any sort of "adventure" happening in them (there isn't).

I'm definitely making an issue of something from nothing here because we get on fine calling Telltale games and Myst clones adventure games while anything with a sword in it that is difficult is called the "Dark Souls of [sub-category/series of games]" but I'm pissed. I think that we're actually really suffering from the English language's lack of a descriptive word for this genre of games from which I'm saying adventure games stole the term "adventure."

What I'm saying is: with this lack of a good word for the genre of games that Zelda games fall into, we're like a person who isn't color blind, but knows no words to describe color. We can perceive how these games are different from other games, but we can't easily talk about it or even easily group them all in the same category because... well what is that category? What's its name?

Obviously, action-adventure immediately is the reasonable answer, but that category is bullshit. Action-adventure describes probably way more than half of all games ever released. And just action has its own problems. Why is it that when we say a game is an action game we mean it's a clone of Devil May Cry or God of War? Because English is a language for crazy people that has no rules.

Once again I've got not real answers here, just thoughts. I think that the unnamed genre of games I've been talking about should reclaim the term "adventure" from point-and-click games and all the crap that shows up when you search Steam for games with the tag, adventure. Whatever though, I'm gonna stop writing about these games and go ahead and actually play them. Have you ever played Dragon's Dogma? You should, it's good. Here's a trailer for it:


Friday, February 2, 2018

Car Musings

You know, it's a lot easier to contemplate which car I'd get if I were going to spend like five hundred thousand dollars on one; it's a lot harder when I constrain my musings to at most about fifty thousand.

Four hundred thousand dollars of literally superfast automobile.

I've actually been thinking about this for a pretty long time and it's neat because, assuming I don't go ahead and drop out of college (which is always an enticing option) in two or three years I could be making a pretty significant amount of money.

What would I get for myself? I wouldn't have to worry about hauling around a lot of stuff, the car's just for my own transportation and enjoyment. What would be a really neat car under fifty thousand dollars (maybe well under that) for a 23 to 24-year-old?

Recently I've thought an M2 would be perfect. The ol' M3  may be the obvious choice, but I've driven both the current M3 and M4 and they're not really the same car as an M2. They both feel significantly more performance oriented. It feels like you're not doing them any justice if you haven't scheduled several track days at Laguna Seca for you to go and wring them out and eat some tires. The M2's far more of a normal driver's car that just happens to also be perfectly tuned for zipping around some winding roads. However, more recently I've actually started to doubt whether an M2 would be cool enough, something that's a significant concern if you're spending forty to fifty thousand dollars on a sports car. I've only ever driven in one other person's M2-like car (it was a 1-series) and it seemed kind of hilariously small for a grown-ass man. The owner was also gay, so maybe an M2 would be perfect for him, but I'm not trying to send that kind of message.

So I started thinking about the Chevy SS, a sort of American M5. It's got a Corvette engine in it, and I hear they all come equipped with GM's crazy magnetic suspension that apparently makes any car with it ride better than if they'd made the chassis out of Tempurpedic mattresses. So it's fully equipped, fast and it probably isn't going to make you look gay. The problem is, it's going to make you look like a Chevy Cruze owner, because the styling is so plain and even tacky (it's got several fake vents) that it could easily be mistaken for something far tamer.

"Look dad! A Chevy Cruze!"
Pictured: a Chevy SS

The exhaust note and cloud of smoke you leave behind as you fly away thanks to the SS's ridiculous V8 won't leave any room for doubt that it's anything but ordinary, but for almost the same price you could just go ahead and get a Corvette. I know there are plenty of other connotations that go with owning a Corvette, but even despite them I'd buy one over an SS any day, and I wouldn't likely get a Corvette as my only car. So, logically the SS is out.

Then my dad sent me an image of an Audi RS3 and I was off thinking about it for several days, but  it's got the same problems that the M2 has and we're really getting quite far from the forty to fifty thousand dollar range, even if I were to buy a certified pre-owned model.

I really don't know what I'll do, but it's fun to give the whole endeavor some real thought. No real answers here or conclusions. We'll see how the market for cars marketed toward 24-year-olds with more money than sense looks in a couple years.

Things I Learned about Leopard Seals and Killer Whales Today

I don't know about you, but I love learning about animals. It turns out, they're pretty routinely incredible and very interesting. Sometimes it's the small one's like jumping spiders, sometimes it's the really small ones like... I don't know, zooplankton, but most of the time the animals I end up reading about on Wikipedia are big predators. Today I learned about leopard seals and killer whales (orcas), and they're pretty neato. 

Leopard seals are cool!


A leopard seal is this giant blubbery seal that lives in Antarctica. That description alone should be enough to pique the interest of any zoophi-(oh shit, why they gotta steal that word!? I just wanna say I love animals not I LOVE animals!!) person who really likes animals. Antarctica is a hell of a place, It's basically Mars (in fact that's a topic for a later day), and yet these big bastards just chill out there all their life eating penguins all day.

They're pretty damn good predators. They eat everything from krill to emperor penguins and even other seals, and they need to eat a lot too because they can be over 12 feet long and weight 1000 pounds. Here's an image of their skull:

Yikes!

Look at those teeth! They actually don't have teeth that are very well suited for slicing, and there isn't really any solid ground for them to brace against to rip the juicy meat off a penguin since they hunt them underwater. So instead, they chomp onto penguins' feet and then violently just trash those birds. They slam them against the surface of the water to knock them out and rip them apart, and then they just go ahead and gulp up the bits that fly off without a care in the world. They do it a lot too. Apparently they're able to really easily catch penguins so they'll sometimes just play with them, I guess they do that when they aren't hungry.

Penguin: "fuck."

They're definitely dangerous. In 2003 a woman was killed by one of them when it dragged her down 200 feet below the surface of the Antarctic sea. During one of Shackleton's adventures in Antarctica one of his men was chased by a leopard seal and it didn't stop until another guy shot it. Apparently they made good use of the seal and fed it to their dogs or something. Too bad for the seal but that's just how it goes sometimes with humans; you scare us and we shoot you.

Still, there aren't that many recorded incidents of leopard seals attacking people. In fact there's even one well documented case where a female leopard seal tried to feed an underwater photographer some penguins. Clearly, beneath that nice coat of theirs, through the blubber, and beyond their terrifying skeleton, lies a heart of gold.

Eminently huggable

Killer whales are killer dude!


How often do you think to yourself "I wish there was a cool animal in the wild that was smart and had friends and didn't want to eat me, also it should be 25 feet long and live in the ocean." I certainly at least ponder the first part of that wish pretty often. It'd be neat if there were a bunch of other animals like dogs and cats and horses that were even smarter than any of those pets yet was more majestic than all of them combined (I'm imagining a dog-cat-horse right now, that's a low bar tbh). 

Whatever, you already know orcas are up next, it's in the title. Here's a picture of an orca jumping right the hell out of the water because it feels like it:

Current depth: -3 feet. Hell yeah

I'm sure I bored you with all the neat facts about leopard seals in the previous section so I'll cut right to the interesting thing I learned about orcas today. Nobody's ever been killed by a wild orca, ever! These 25 foot long predators will kill sharks, seals, tiny whales, and all kinds of fish, but every time in history that a human has ever interacted with one in the wild they've just left the human alone. 

In captivity, orcas are actually pretty dangerous. They've killed some trainers over the years and it makes me wonder whether those murderous orcas were actually really unhappy with how their trainers were treating them. They're really smart animals, after all, smart enough to mimic words people say, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did hold a grudge after their teeth have been filed off and they've been made into an actual freak show. Yeah, the conditions that captive orcas live in are not very great. In my opinion, it's animal cruelty to just keep an otherwise healthy orca in captivity at all because there's no way you could build a pen large enough for them to live in comfortably. 

I'd really like to get the chance to meet some orcas in the wild, I think it'd be a great experience in any event. If they decide to attack and kill me after all, I'd go down in history as the first person to ever be killed by an orca in the wild and perhaps future generations will study my life to try to determine just what I might have said or done to the orcas I met that would provoke them into committing such an unprecedented assassination. In the far more likely scenario in which they simply pay me no mind or even come my way and say hi, I'll get to see an orca up close in its natural habitat and that's really cool. Maybe I'd even get to bop one of them right on their funny snoot.  

"You could try, but you won't get your hand back."

Anyways that's what I learned about leopard seals and killer whales today. Come back soon and I'll tell you all about Jaguars and how they bite caimans right in the skull to crush their brain! YIKES!