HDDVD vs Blu-Ray : Epic Duel

The format war as told in gif form:

Apparently we’re ready to revolt – No one told me.

So, cruising the net today, I found yet another interesting concept posted by Warren Ellis. Which was originally posted here.

In a nutshell:

“The author stresses the point that all of these preconditions have now been met to one degree or another in the current U.S.:”

1. Soaring then crashing standards of living
2. Rising class war/disillusionment
3. A generation of abandoned intellectuals
4. Incompetent government
5. Failure of leadership
6. Fiscal Irresponsibility
7. Inept and inconsistent use of force

Which to me reads as fuck all. The concepts ring true. But the fine print is in “these preconditions have been met to one degree or another“. In other words, in real corrupt governments, these concepts occur in such overt and troubling ways that there is no other recourse for the public than to bring about violent revolution. In the case of Bush, these have only taken place in such fashion that the same people who claim to promote peace and tolerance wish there was a violent reprisal. Because it’s just fucking politics. It has been since day one. Every four – eight years we get someone who is so diametrically opposed to everyone else that people flip out and have wet dreams about revolution.

The truth is this : We’re still not in bad shape. We’re still comfortable and well fed. Political extremism is nowhere near the mainstream, and we’re about to have an election that will pit a moderate Republican against two socialist Democrats. If we get one of those Democrat, I could see a swing of the same sentiments from above flipping to the right of the spectrum. If we get the other we’ll have a solid leader in place who – despite his political leanings and beliefs – will probably bridge the gap between the aisle.

So it appears there’s a new chance to get in the WAR beta

By buying:

Essentially this is coming out of Wondercon this week:

Each copy of WARHAMMER: CONDEMNED BY FIRE #1 contains a scratch-off which reveals a code giving readers a 1-in-5 chance of entry into the WARHAMMER ONLINE beta test.

More info should be coming out in the next newsletter. But word is approximately 20% of codes submitted will be invited to participate in the beta test. Also, the promotional code must be activated by May 31, 2008 to be eligible for the beta test. Which means that we’re almost entirely guaranteed to see a June release if they’re stopping all beta apps at the end of May.

Meanwhile…

I’ve been bored out of my mind waiting for my beta invite. That is, I did the above before I closed my WoW account about a week after WAR beta opened. I’ve been making due with the PS3 and BF2142, but COME ON, MYTHIC. I put in a beta invite minutes after it opened.

So I’ve taken to helping out with editing HammerWiki.

You’re never taking away my Marlboros

Warren Ellis mentions a chart of states in the US that are still beautifully pro-smoker.

I still find it amazing that after all of this effort to kill smoking, it’s still hugely alive and well.

Will video games become cultural slumming like comics?

Level Up fights that horrible thought:

 And while the report’s summary does not specifically cite videogames, it’s likely that interactive entertainment has picked up some significant, um, market share among young people. Based on this trend alone, even if there were no changes in interface or accessibility, it stands to reason that videogames would become more pervasive simply because videogame “literacy” is becoming more widespread.

I other words, comics are hard (said with the same sort of whiney distaste that a twelve-year-old would use to avoid doing chores) . And video games are easy (one would assume, like that girl who had a leather jacket in high school.)

It’s Called A Victory March

Something I crapped out. I am utterly pissed that I try to actually use MySpace for the first time in fucking ever and the god damned thing is erroring like crazy.

“This is how you break people.” My hands tensed on the podium. “How you get them to curl up and die. This is how you get people to quit washing. Quit shaving. Quit getting dressed. Quit. People are easily broken, and it doesn’t take a lot to do it.” Everyone in unison stopped looking at me. Everyone knew that I blamed them, and everyone knew they blamed each other.

Behind me, Jennifer laid nicely in her mahogany casket. She once made me watch a show on the Science Channel about casket making. They talked about building the unit, and the difference between wooden and metal coffins.

An airtight coffin fosters decomposition by anaerobic bacteria, which results in a putrefied liquification of the body. A container that allows air molecules to pass in and out, such as a simple wooden box, allows for aerobic decomposition that results in much less noxious odor and clean skeletonization.

“I don’t want to be goo, Dexter.” She said, “I want to be a skeleton. It’s only right.”

I cleared my throat. I’m not sure if it was a smoker’s cough or if I was choking back anger. “So when you pull someone seven different ways, and they’re a known fucking mess, you’re doing more good than harm. Especially when no one asks what’s wrong.” The Father shot a crooked eye at me, visibly annoyed at my use of the greatest word ever conceived in St. Potamiana’s. My Narcotics Anonymous sponsor sat in the front row worriedly watching for signs of lack of sleep, suicidal tendencies, anxiety, toxic psychosis, seizures, angina, “zombie demeanor” or any of the other side effects that would lead him to believe that I was back on Adderall. I was fucking with the skinny little bastard, though, by taking ether from the silver silk hankerchief in my jacket pocket.

I quit using Adderall six weeks ago. That’s a bold faced lie, but I live with it.

Jennifer’s mother sobbed meaningfully just opposite my sponsor, loud enough for all of the important people to hear her. Anna-Maria James, ex-wife of the late Senator James sat behind her glaring at the body of my best friend making sure she was dead. Brockton Moore, director of “Defamation of Character” and “The Leap-Six Story” sat in an expensive black suit, with his expensive black hair cut, wearing expensive black sunglasses working over his speech to the media about how we’ve lost another “Great mind of our time”.

I think there’s an ant crawling on my neck. I scratched at the side as I leaned in closer to the microphone. My voice deepened and became clear.

“You’re all cock suckers. Every last one of you.”

I pushed back from the podium, straightened my tie, and held up the two biggest middle fingers I could muster. I walked forward, off of the dais, and reached in my pocket for my pack. I pulled one out as I walked cooly down the aisle, slowly and calmly pressing it between my lips. The gawkers, the media hounds, rubbernecked as I walked by. The fuck-ups who passed for Jennifer’s friends sat stone frozen, fearful that I might come back for them.

As I came out of the church, the lesser things – the journos who couldn’t get in swarmed for the story. I stopped and light my cigarette, and took the most satisfying drag I had taken since my last cigarette, and rolled the Marlboro between my thumb and index finger. I exhaled and leaned into the first TV camera I could find.

“Yes. My name is Dexter Wilgefort, and every single one of you watching this is a cock sucker.”

US Congress Get Balls, Votes to Secure Future of Human Race

Senate Votes to Add $1B to NASA Budget

Thursday, October 04, 2007

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The Senate decided Thursday to add $1 billion to NASA’s budget as both Democrats and Republicans voted to further break President Bush’s budget for domestic programs.

The money would replenish NASA accounts tapped to make improvements to the space shuttle program in the wake of the crash of the Columbia shuttle. The space agency has tapped non-shuttle accounts such as science and other space exploration programs for about $2.7 billion for safety upgrades and other costs identified after the 2003 disaster.

“NASA is being starved,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., adding that without the money, the next-generation Constellation space flight program wouldn’t be able to launch astronauts into orbit until 2015. The last shuttle flight is slated for 2010.

4.54 billion years from now, we might have local neighbors…

Astronomers have spotted evidence of a second Earth being built around a distant star 424 light-years away.

Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a huge belt of warm dust swirling around a young star called HD 113766 that is just slightly larger than our sun.

The dust belt, which scientists suspect is clumping together to form planets, is located in the middle of the star system’s terrestrial habitable zone where temperatures are moderate enough to sustain liquid water.

Scientists estimate there is enough material in the belt to form a Mars-sized world or larger.

“It Is Our Destiny, Certainly, To Imagine Our Future In Space”

I find myself rereading Beyond Earth : The Future of Humans In Space again…for what feels like the eighth time. One of the things that I enjoy so much about the book is the fact that it’s so easily digestable. Split into 36 short (no more than three or four pages) essays about different facets of Humanity in space, the book finds itself meandering all over the map, extolling the needs and benefits of a future for us in space.

I have to say that the biggest on my mind right now is essay number eight, Stage Three Leadership : From Good Ideas to Unified Action, which discusses in detail the needs of a one world government, and a one world culture to grow and allow us entrance into the void. It discusses the first culture to present itself as a unified Earth culture, The United States, and resistance to that eventual outcome.

(I remember briefly hearing on some TechTV show a few years back that we would most likely be absorbed bny Japan’s culture and morality. I chalk that up to people growing up in the eighties and fearing the great Sony take over of the US government. I wasn’t really aware in the eighties, so I often laugh at this for many different reasons.)

It’s almost like looking at the future. Knowing what’s going to happen. I’ve never really cared about spoilers in books, movies, comics, and tv shows – Because it was the ride that mattered. That, and hoping I could figure out how it would all fit together in the end. That’s why I’m enjoying the global climate right now. Things are so…fractured. It doesn’t look like it will ever happen, but here I am – trying to figure out what the next chapter will be.

Warren, you’re wrong…

This is the greatest title sequence in TV history.