I got my first chance to play the Battlefield 2 Demo (download) last night after work. I noticed several big changes from Battlefield Vietnam and Battlefield, as well as the Desert Combat mod. Graphically they’ve added some bloom to the video to make everything have a slight haze, which adds to the realism of the game by making everything hazy as if you were outside in too much sunlight. Your field of vision is also affected by a concussion effect when you get hit by grenades or tank rounds. I spent about 30 minutes just using the anti-air weapons to kill planes. There is a neat radar lock where if a vehicle approaches you can lock onto its heat signature and launch heat-seeking anti-air missiles at it. The target can throw off some flares to prevent getting hit. It is very cool.
General
14
Jun 05
I want to live!
I think I broke something from laughing so hard while reading tBoCL…
- I want to fight a Vegan: “Condition 2. You must be an all-out-level-three-Vegan (for at least three years). This means no honey in your herbal tea, not even on Spring equinox! No leather shoes, and please, don’t be a sell-out by having a sorry ass job at a conventional Café that serves low fat Tuna Club sandwiches.”
- Pregnantish? Take my extra Clearblue Easy!
- Goodnight Austin
- Nervous Wreck Seeks Domineering Bitch for Rebound Melee – 33: “Please be able to completely annihilate any residual faith in humanity, delusions of happiness, and sense of self worth. Depigmentation of my hair is not fully complete at this stage – and I am looking for you to finalize the process. Bonus points for initiating enough stress to drag me down the path of premature baldness, or inducing permanent stress-related gastrointestinal damage.”
- I ONLY had to take a leak. You didn’t need to scar me emotionally
07
Jun 05
Unwitting eugenics
Via Kottke: The high intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews may be a result of their persecuted past:
Why a failure of the DNA-repair system should boost intelligence is unclear—and is, perhaps, the weakest part of the thesis, although evidence is emerging that one of the genes in question is involved in regulating the early growth of the brain. But the thesis also has a strong point: it makes a clear and testable prediction. This is that people with a single copy of the gene for Tay-Sachs, or that for Gaucher’s, or that for Niemann-Pick should be more intelligent than average. Dr Cochran and his colleagues predict they will be so by about five IQ points. If that turns out to be the case, it will strengthen the idea that, albeit unwillingly, Ashkenazi Jews have been part of an accidental experiment in eugenics. It has brought them some advantages. But, like the deliberate eugenics experiments of the 20th century, it has also exacted a terrible price.
01
Jun 05
Felt’s motive: Money
We now know why W. Mark Felt, the “American hero”, and his family came forward with their secret: money and book deals. To safeguard their scheme, they had to scoop their own co-conspirators: Woodward and Bernstein. This is outlined in the Washington Post: Deep Background:
The problem for Vanity Fair, Friend said, was that O’Connor wanted the magazine to pay Felt and Felt’s family for the story — a condition the magazine would not agree to.
O’Connor — who had become acquainted with the Felt family through Felt’s grandson, a Stanford classmate of O’Connor’s daughter — decided instead to publish Felt’s account as a book. But after a year of trying to find a publisher, Friend said, O’Connor was back at Vanity Fair’s doorstep.
31
May 05
Leeeroy! World of Warcraft soundboard
Leeroy Jenkins, of World of Warcraft fame, now has his own soundboard.
31
May 05
Questions you may only hear here: On “Deep Throat”
Although I’m far from being a close observer of politics I was surprised as anyone at Mark Felt’s admission that he is the mysterious Watergate source known as “Deep Throat”. I thought about this a lot, as I’m sure many people around the country are now doing. When I heard the family’s reasons for coming forward now it sounded calculated. I wince whenever I hear anyone talking about themselves or a family member as a “hero”. After all, if you’ve kept the secret for 33 years why not just keep it until you die? It seems strange unless you desire some sort of fame or celebrity while you still draw breath.
The revelations are not that surprising given Mark Felt’s position within the FBI at the time. As a deputy director, he would have been privy to the findings of the original Watergate investigation. Still, the entire affair begs a number of questions:
- Given that the now public Mark Felt is Jewish, does this effect in any way the widely held negative perception of Nixon as a paranoid anti-Semite? Clearly, his suspicions about Felt we now know to be justified.
- What was Felt’s motivation for the original leak? Moral repugnance? Patriotic duty? Personal gain? We know that Felt was passed over by Nixon for the directorship of the FBI. Nixon’s removal or defeat as president could have changed his own fortunes. As for moral or patriotic sentiment, Mark Felt was convicted in 1980 of authorizing FBI agents to secretly break into the homes of Weather Underground members without a search warrant. Searches both he and Nixon regarded as legal. Nixon even appeared at his trial as a defense witness. In light of this, Felt should not be regarded as a champion of civil liberties or democracy.
A lot of people have had to lie to conceal the truth of “Deep Throat” and things are never as they seem. We will probably never know everything as it happened then for what it really was, but there is one thing I do know. Few villains and heroes of history are quite as villainous or as heroic as they appear.
31
May 05
“Devoid of Content” by Stanley Fish
NY Times: Devoid of Content by Stanley Fish. Found while reading Metafilter, the best group blog. I couldn’t agree more, although in college I hated anything associated with grammar:
31
May 05
Funny World of Warcraft video: Leeeeeroy!
There’s a funny video that’s been going around that shows a group of World of Warcraft players about to go on a guild-organized dungeon crawl. Check it out here.
Edit: See the comments for more information. The original file was removed from the server for bandwidth reasons, but there is now a bittorrent available here.
31
May 05
Cultural Creative
Took this quiz on my worldview (via robotwisdom). Results:
You scored as Cultural Creative.
Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.
Somewhat surprising, but true. I am spiritual in a very pessimistic fashion. Second highest ranking was for Postmodernist, which I still don’t understand the meaning of.