Alien Nathan

30

2009-12-02T05:40:49Z

A big thanks to everybody for all the birthday wishes. I've been fairly secluded these last several months, building up my contracting and getting settled into home life at the Dreamcafe. Preparations for big plans in the future has steamrolled my social life, and I'm honestly too busy to miss it most days. It's really nice to know that despite my absence, I still have friends and family out there thinking of me.

The birthday party was a really mellow family affair spent at home. There was plenty of music, and dancing to said music by all involved, including a particular author whose style is best left undescribed, lest it confuse their fan's mental image of them. We watched a bit of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", another Aaron Sorkin show which, while not quite as on-target as West Wing, is still quite enjoyable; watching good shows with two intelligent authors is doubly rewarding, as they share my passion for deconstruction and analysis.

Reesa and I ended the night by reading to each other, which is one of the best gifts a lover has ever given me. Not only is it fun to have a sexy audio-book or audience, but as a fan of the series she can answer my back-story questions the instant they arise. It also solves the problem of not finding time to read, by turning it from a solitary and interstitial activity into a scheduled, intimate one. All of which was immediately apparent, and none of which I'd thought of until she suggested it. (Just the latest of many examples of why my girl is made of awesome.)

There's still a lot to do, and more in the coming months. If you're feeling like giving a belated present, what I could use right now are leads; having a solid client base would make so many other things easier. If you know someone looking for a website or a server, send them my way. But even if all you've got are good wishes, I still appreciate them. Knowing that being time-poor has not made me poor of friends is one of the things that makes the rest of this much easier.

temujin9 @ 2009-04-24T01:41:00

2009-04-24T06:51:03Z

"And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

Henry V, Scene IV, Act iii

'Codename: Era of the Fallen' Seeks Playtesters

2009-02-17T10:31:31Z

A friend asked me to pass this on to my gaming buddies. It was addressed to folks in Austin, but I don't think you need to be in Austin to play . . .

A new FRPG called 'Codename: Era of the Fallen' is now seeking playtesters. It emphasizes narrative storytelling, allowing for deeply immersive roleplaying, and encourages a different sort of play style centered around: character development, mature themes, ethical dilemmas, etc.

Codename: Era of the Fallen has THE most realistic combat system ever devised, which has been culled from the author's extensive knowledge of the topic and subjected to careful tuning to establish just the right balance between detail and simplicity. Dice based combat is fast paced, intuitive enough to be easily understood, and quickly results in a decisive outcome. Just like real combat. Emphasis is placed on thinking through things instead of blindly rolling dice. The combat system is extremely flexible to suit many styles and preferences: from strict dice rules, to diceless, to a hybrid between the two.

Codename: Era of the Fallen also includes an expansive, incredibly intricate system of magic, which gives the player several well defined paths to choose from, and the ability to strike out in new directions, offering complete control over the development of the character's powers. Through increasing specialization in one of 15 fields of magical study, the character gradually masters a subset of the primal powers which govern all things. A rich history rewards exploration with something new to be discovered and mastered at every turn. The numbers of ways in which the branches of magic can be combined and recombined is nearly limitless.

Codename: Era of the Fallen also has a lavishly detailed world for players to explore with a comprehensive and coherent cosmogony. It is a world of many secrets which allows for infinite expansion and encourages the players to become co-creators of their own worlds within worlds. It offers the opportunity for players to have a wide variety of possible experiences and guide their character down a path of their own choosing, light or dark within the narrative the Game Master creates as backdrop to character evolution.

More information and a stripped down version of the rules are available at: www.eraofthefallen.com

temujin9 @ 2009-01-20T12:06:00

2009-01-20T18:10:16Z

"HA! HA HA HA! You wanted to spend a million years having sex with catgirls. It only took you two years to change your mind and you didn't even have sex with any catgirls."
-- Eliezer Yudkowsky, Overcoming Bias: Interpersonal Entanglement

Another Client Launched

2009-01-17T07:22:06Z

The Brain Candy monkeys have been a joy to work with, and we've just finished launching their site:

It's been 2 years in the making, but my latest project, Runes of Gallidon,
is officially online. You can enter the world at: www.runesofgallidon.com.

Runes of Gallidon is the first offering from Brain Candy, LLC
(www.braincandyllc.com), a company I co-founded with two other friends, Tony
Graham and Andy Underwood.

Here's the summary:

User speak:
An original, online fantasy world where users create new multi-media content
for posting on the site. Users retain ownership of their Works, but they
share the Ideas in their Works, allowing the world to be integrated,
dynamic, and collaborative.

Business speak:
An online publishing site of user-generated, multimedia content set in a
branded fictional universe where users are legally allowed to create
derivative works of other users without breaking copyright laws.

Computer speak:
01010111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111
01110101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100
01101111 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01100001
00100000 01100111 01100001 01101101 01100101 00111111

In conjunction with Runes of Gallidon, I am starting a blog and signing up
for twitter (yes, I'm truly stepping into the digital age):

   Blog: www.thismonkeycantype.com
   Twitter: scott_walker

PLEASE forward to anyone you think might be interested; we're trying to get
the word out as quickly as possible.

Thanks to everyone who provided support during this journey - see you in
Gallidon!

Best,


Scott Walker
President/CEO
Brain Candy, LLC - Official Steward for Runes of Gallidon
---------------------------------------------------------
www.runesofgallidon.com
"Discover a world, forge its future."

Their credit for my work also makes me extra happy:

We honestly don't understand anything about how Nathan does what he does, but the end result is that our servers and code migrations work really, really well. We have no idea what he looks like or what he's up to when we're not bothering him, but we suspect he only uses his technical powers for good.

Publicly referenced as a mysterious guru on a gaming site? Really cool. Public admission that they trusted me sight-unseen, and are happy with the results? Approaching single-digits Kelvin, especially from a marketing standpoint.

Greenfield Geeks Guild

2009-01-06T05:19:43Z

The Greenfield Geeks Guild (working name) will band together IT consultants, apprentices, and support staff, and provide them with the legal, managerial, and infrastructural resources necessary to build *fully* open source solutions for small businesses. This will give us the flexibility and pricing to compete well in this economic downturn, benefiting not only ourselves, but our chosen clients, and the whole open source community.

I will be running a series of explanatory/exploratory meetings on Wednesday nights this month:

6PM, 01/07 @ Epoch Coffee
7PM, 01/14 @ Tek Republic
7PM, 01/21 @ TBA (Burner Warehouse?)

If you're interested, please attend. If you cannot, but would like further information anyway, please let me know.

The Ruins of Babylon

2008-12-23T07:10:43Z

I admit, I did not watch Babylon 5 all the way through. I'd tried before to get into it during the earlier seasons, but just couldn't get past the stilted acting and dialog. Jumping in at the beginning of the fourth season proved just right; I got to see several characters' crowning moments: Londo's scheming against the Shadows culminating in a wonderfully snarky speech (with a flashback to Vir's earlier crowning moment, as added payoff), and Bester's calm exposition of what had really been going on for an entire season (to paraphrase Rommel: "Bester, you magnificent bastard.").

Great plots can't fix bad acting, but they can make up for it. Especially if there's some good acting as well: half the characters (Londo, G'Kar, Garibaldi, Bester, and Ivanova, to name as few as possible) sizzled, which made the deficiencies far more tolerable. Despite its corniness, the last episode left me full of bittersweet ache, showing just how much couldn't be fixed despite the best efforts of all involved. I can only hope that Londo's fatal visions concealed a larger story which saw his enemies choked metaphorically as he was literally, at the hands of his Alliance friends.

The metaphors are fairly easy to tease out: though complex and gritty, the setting is often unsubtle (e.g. - "OBEY" signs in the PsiCorps). The one that struck me most is this: the next wars being the Mind Wars seems a worrisome metaphor for the direction of human psycho-social research. Our understanding of the mind, though still somewhat infantile, is growing by leaps and bounds. To pretend that won't be weaponized is to ignore every bit of history since simians decided to leave the trees.

Who Throws A Shoe, Honestly?

2008-12-18T05:44:41Z

You've probably seen the video of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush during a press conference. If you want to express support for Montather al-Zeidi, who is currently imprisoned and may have suffered serious abuse for his protest, I'd suggest you do two things:

1) Sign the petition to get him released.
2) Mail an old pair of shoes to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC.

A special thank you to Clovis, for suggestion #2.

Drupal Apprentice Needed

2008-12-14T05:30:33Z

I'm starting to get a fairly large amount of demand for Drupal work. Several clients have expressed interest in my bringing on a junior developer/apprentice, to bring down their costs while maintaining overall quality.

If you are interested in learning how to build and maintain Drupal CMS systems, or know someone who is, please let me know. I'll want to know relevant experience, expected hourly rate, and availability. Candidates will need to demonstrate critical thinking and communication skills: other skills are valuable, but not required.

Hybrid Hues

2008-12-10T04:55:57Z

RIP nameless grey beast. You carried me many miles, but fixing your brake lines would cost at least half what you're worth, and you've other troubles besides. So now I'm looking for a new car, or more precisely, a new used car.

Does anyone have experience with hybrids, and getting them fixed/fixing them? The extra cost up front is repaid by savings on gas (even using conservative assumptions of mpg and fuel cost), but I'm worried that the novelty will also make repairs more expensive. Given that they're at the top of my budget range already (and thus, also sure to cost more for insurance), I'd like to be really sure before I take any plunge.

On the gripping hand: Hybrid! Its officially a vehicle of the future for me, as they were more myth than merchandise when I first learned of them in college. These don't have the composite material frames of those mythical motor vehicles, but I'll take half-mythic (if it's not too tough to repair).

Dodo Rere Meme

2008-12-06T18:16:17Z

I'm starting to note an interesting trend in psychology, which I'm going to try to encapsulate in the flip rubic: "memetics recapitulates genetics, at higher speed". The reason that questions of assigning mental results (emotional stability, sociopathy, etc.) to either biological or social causes persists is due to a false dichotomy: that the same result can't have two (or more) disparate sources. Evolution tends to move populations to fill underexploited niches; memetics postulates another stratum for evolution, so most niches should have convergent genetic and memetic exploits. Their underlying functionality, however, will be as different as the structure of bat and bird wings; worse yet, memetics can build on partial genetic structure, providing shadings of important distinctions between pigeon and eagle wings.

Monty Python on Piracy

2008-12-03T02:14:51Z

Still making sense from nonsense, after all these years.

Tryptophan Troubadours

2008-11-26T00:29:11Z

My (very vague) Thanksgiving plans involve assembling a small-to-medium caravan of ne'er-do-wells, and ~~terrorizing~~entertaining the sedentary parties with wine, desserts, song, and cat-herding. If you're interested, either as a caravaner or way-point, let me know. Several of y'all have already said "come on over", but I figured I should double check before dragging an impromptu troupe through your front door.

T-Shirts of Eternal Gratitude, +2

2008-11-22T02:43:39Z

Mad props (and $100 in merch sales) to Rich Burlew, for proving (again) that even simply illustrated web-comics can tell awesome stories. I can't embed the strip that inspires this, because without back-story it lacks the weight it hit me with. I can't even title this post correctly, because it would be a spoiler for those who are following it.

But by the time I figured out where Rich was going, I was shouting along. That he managed to do that and end on a nail-biting cliffhanger which promises much future awesome is why I'm (yet again) buying expensive t-shirts online.

Moving On

2008-11-14T23:08:13Z

I'm moving. Again. No, I'm not happy about this. No, I'm not interested in bitching (more) about the reason. It's almost over: why raise my blood pressure further?

I'll be moving stuff between now and next Wednesday, though I'm taking off Sunday to meet my sweetie's mom. Morale support and light lifting would be appreciated if you're free: the move is short, the load light, and there's already been plenty help offered, so don't sweat it if you can't.

The new address is on the profile page.

The Recession Will Be Televised

2008-11-08T21:52:45Z

From "The Brief Reign of the Knowledge Worker: Information Technology and Technological Unemployment", sadly only available from Google Cache:

Whenever productivity increases someone gains, but it is not always the worker. Labor market conditions — notably the unemployment rate — , the degree of competition among firms, and institutional factors such as the strength of government will all affect the distribution of the gains from increased productivity. With sufficient competition productivity gains may be spread throughout the society via lower prices. With low unemployment rates and/or strong unions they will be spread via higher wages. Government might capture the gains through taxation and spread them to society via spending on education or health care. If unemployment is high, unions are weak, firms face little competition, and government lacks the ability to increase taxes, productivity gains will accrue to the firms' managers as higher salaries and to the firms' owners as higher profits.

If the high productivity growth stemming from the new information technologies leads to even moderate technological unemployment, it is likely that the gains will be captured by a few superstars, a handful of top managers, and the owners of the firms. The same network effects that make a product more valuable to us when others use it as well (such as email systems and computer operating systems) have the effect of reducing competition. And the very technologies that make distance irrelevant give many firms a global choice of locations which weakens the power of government.

Pretty prescient for a paper written before the dot-com bubble burst. I don't believe for a moment that this current financial crisis diminishes the power of the monied. If anything, it gives them more bargaining chips in the labor market, a squeeze I've already felt (along with countless others). I won't go so far as to say this crisis was engineered, but the reaction of "panic, therefore, panic" is definitely being encouraged by those who stand to gain.

Note, however, the "and/or" in the first paragraph. More on this in a bit.

Dammit, Where'd My Cynicism Go?

2008-11-05T23:36:36Z

I swear it was here a minute ago.

In other less well-known good politics, the FCC has approved white-space devices. Deeper analysis of both will have to wait until this rosy haze has cleared a bit.

You Voted

2008-11-04T21:27:32Z

Congratulations. Now go indulge your bad habits for free. Because nothing says "Democracy" like a donut you didn't pay for.

Overcoming Bias

2008-10-23T09:20:24Z

Overcoming Bias is a masterwork philosophical thesis, cleverly disguised as a blog about rationality and cognitive bias. I've waited to pimp Eliezer Yudkowsky's work because with the heavy groundwork he was laying, I had the feeling he was building toward something strong. "Which parts of my brain are 'me'?" does not disappoint:

This post is filed under "morality" because the question "Which parts of my brain are 'me'?" is a moral question - it's not predicted so much as chosen. You can't perform a test on neural tissue to find whether it's in or out. You have to accept or reject any particular part, based on what you think humans in general, and yourself particularly, ought to be.

Read the whole thing, and follow some of the hyper-links. And read the comments, which contain such gems as:

I'm depressed about the coming end of the human race. Got a solution for that? :-)
Posted by: MichaelG | October 22, 2008 at 03:07 PM

Yeah, shut up and save the world.
Posted by: Eliezer Yudkowsky | October 22, 2008 at 03:18 PM

Which is funnier because he means it, and already he's written several good arguments for it. Seriously: this should be required reading for the entire human race.

temujin9 @ 2008-10-21T20:13:00

2008-10-22T01:19:41Z

One of the side benefits of an overfull todo list is that sometimes you don't notice you've achieved a long-term goal until you're swimming in the consequences. I've been drafted into lead developer on a Drupal project, a "local information" site with some interesting stuff under the hood. We're going to try to soft-launch tomorrow.

"Establish sustainable contract work" - check.

You Still Have Made No Choice

2008-10-04T09:10:36Z

As Wikipedia explains:

Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. The main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party. Subprime borrowers have a heightened perceived risk of default, such as those who have a history of loan delinquency or default, those with a recorded bankruptcy, or those with limited debt experience.

. . . the decisions that resulted in this most recent mess happened in institutions far above most of our heads. Voting, while useful to remind them that we're watching, and maybe shift the behemoth a fraction, is just a tiny part of the solution. If you would really change the world, stop bemoaning the influence of the monied and start focusing on ways to make your wealth influential.

"But we are small and weak!"
"Eat. Train. Grow."

"But they are large and strong!"
"And slow. And blind."

"But we have no chance!"
"You might be wrong. It'll be a hell of a lark, either way."

Remember: they may have all the money in the world, but we still have strawberries.

If You Choose Not To Decide

2008-10-04T08:15:20Z

Once more, into the breach of "good idea vs. legitimizing The Man":

If you aren't voting, you are casting a vote-by-default for stagnation or violent revolution. Those are the only options left when you discard "change within the system". Either you plan to take up arms against a sea of camo-fatigued troubles, and get ended by them, or you sleep, perchance to dream of American Gladiators. Neither makes me interested in associating with you, albeit for very different reasons.

It takes half an hour if you do it early, and four entertaining hours if you're a procrastinator.

You can even do it drunk.

Vote.

temujin9 @ 2008-09-27T10:41:00

2008-09-27T17:20:13Z

Anyone playing Operation: Sleeper Cell? Got a team, or want to make one?

It's for research purposes, of course.

temujin9 @ 2008-09-26T16:55:00

2008-09-26T21:56:48Z

"They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control"

When tyranny comes, it will come on little cat feet.

Trudeau Finds His Barrel of Fish

2008-09-26T12:40:33Z