More on ripping...

Alright, so ripping apart isn't all that simple and probably should have been given a little more attention. 

Scientists have playing with making their own miniature black holes for a little bit now with some success.  Ripping apart space and time is well within our grasp and we just have to get better at it.  Dangerous?  Yes. 

The tiny little experiments that we are doing now pose little threat as the tears in the fabric are microscopic.  Pinholes that don't weaken the overall strength of the universe.  At most, a few atoms can slip through the hole but what happens if we need a hole big enough to fit a ship through?

The best case scenario is that the universe wants to stay together.  If we poke a finger into a bowl of gel then pull it out, the gel settles back into the space our finger occupied.  If the fabric of space works like this then we'll be alright.  The hole our warp drive makes will seal itself after the ship passes through.

Now, there is another scenario that isn't very appealing.  If the universe is more like Jello then we have an issue.  Poking a finger into Jello leaves a distinct channel where our finger has been.  It does a fair job of resealing itself but the damage has been done.  If we keep poking at the same piece of Jello, it begins to fall apart and we're left with a delicious yet sticky mess.

If our warp travel through the universe leaves these little tunnels where we've been then eventually we're going to make a mess of things.  Every trip will make a wormhole that will leak energy and matter from one end to the other.  More and more wormholes means more and more leakage.  Eventually the wormholes criss-crossing through the universe will make a mess of the universe.  Matter and energy will slip about in the universe at random and if the wormholes start to grow then we could see entire solar systems swallowed up and flung about the universe.  Scary.

The problem I see is that I don't know if we'll be able to tell which scenario it will be until it's too late. 

Snowplow / Warpdrive

Good morning!

Yesterday we ended talking about aerodynamics and snowplows.  Today we will use them in space.

On Earth, making an object so that it travels easier through a medium is simple.  Basically we just make it pointed or sharp.  Knives slice through butter because of it's thin leading edge.  Airplanes are long and thin so they encounter less resistance when they they fly.  This is an easy concept to test and observe on Earth because we are dealing with matter.  When we want to improve our speeds while traveling in space, we have to deal with energy and that makes things complicated.

In order to increase our top speeds we need an energy snowplow of sorts.  No longer are we concerned with thin edges and pointed nose-cones because now we are dealing with a medium that is made of pure energy.  We need a warp drive.

In Star Trek, the warp drive is a device that creates a sub-space bubble around the ship and allows it to travel at insane speeds because it is no longer part of the regular universe.  In the real world however we don't really know anything about sub-space but we can use the concept as inspiration.

What we can do is rip the fabric of the universe apart.  The fabric of existence, the neutral base energy we talked about, can be manipulated.  If we introduce energy at the right frequency and amplitude into space we can excite the NBE and cause it to contract.  When it contracts, a soft spot is made in the universe and we can travel through it, at amazing speeds, without having to deal with energy displacement.

 We travel in a bubble of pure nothing.  Actual nothing.  This is the dangerous part.

...which will be explained later.

Warp Drive Continued

Not sure what happened to the formatting of yesterday's post.  Sorry about that.  Anyway.

Foam!  Space foam!  Yesterday we started talking about how energy displacement in the black of space is like trying to push through a big block of foam.  If we had a spaceship with an engine that could put out an unlimited amount of power we could let it loose and attempt to hit the speed of light.

First things would go pretty well.  Our powerful engine would provide us with enough energy to tip the balance in our favor and we'd accelerate with ease.  As we continued to accelerate however, we would now be passing through more and more energy at any given moment as the foam around us begins to condense.  Since we have unlimited power in our engine we just lay on a little bit more and keep going.  When we approach the speed of light, the foam becomes thicker and thicker around us as we compact it before us. Eventually it becomes so thick that it begins to become hard to push through.

We keep laying on the power with our super engine but we are no longer accelerating, the amount of energy in the in the foam condensed in front of us begins to equal the mass energy of our ship and the engine's energy output.  Our engine may have infinite power but space is infinite as well.  As the equation comes into balance another problem begins to arise.  Our engine is putting out infinite energy and pushing against the back of our ship while condensed infinite space in front of us is not letting us travel forward anymore.  We are a tin can trapped between two infinite energy sources.  Since our ship is not made of infinite energy it is crushed between the two.  The force is so great that even the atoms of ship are crushed and all mass is released as pure energy.  This energy cannot go anywhere since the infinite pressures on either side are still there.  It becomes a sphere of pure energy, something that really shouldn't exist.  It goes without saying we'd be dead.

So how can we go faster than the speed of light if energy displacement will never allow it?  We build a snow-plow.  A cosmic razor snow-plow.

If the buildup of foam in front of our ship slows us down and eventually kills us, we simply have to push the foam to the side as we travel to decrease the amount of energy we have to deal with at any moment.  It's the same principal as a V shaped snowplow on a truck.  Without the plow, snow builds up in front of the truck as it travels until it becomes so heavy the truck can no longer move.  With the plow however, we do a neat little trick with physics and some of our forward energy is used to move the snow aside as we travel, reducing the buildup and allow us to continue forward.  We're cheating at energy displacement!  This is of course just aerodynamics and what we use to streamline vehicles so they can go faster.  Nothing special really.

Time's up!  Sorry kids.  More later.

Warp Drive

We've covered the idea of Energy Displacement so let's look at how the warp drive works.

Traveling through space allows us to achieve incredible speeds with very little effort.  Simply throwing a ball in space will propel it at speeds considered insane if you were on Earth.  As fast as we are able to travel, we have an issue because the distance between objects in space is vast.  Traveling from Northern Minnesota to Southern Louisiana is about 1,500 miles and would take you about 23 hours to drive.  The Earth to the moon, our shortest trip in space, is 238,900 miles.  Traveling around the Earth is only 24,901 miles.  When we start looking at places not in our neighborhood things get farther fast.  When things are lined up the best, traveling to Mars is around 36,000,000 miles.  That's quite the jump.

New fusion engines being researched for Mars jumps are estimated to get us to Mars in sixty days.  That's a huge improvement over our current travel time of over twice that.  That's not very good if we want to start colonizing Mars.  We need to go faster.

The problem with going faster is that even in space, we have to contend with the Energy Displacement which limits our speeds.  Now, you might be wondering what there is to actually displace in space.  My last example dealt with grass and air, neither of which you would have to deal with in space.  Space is empty; right?  No.

This is why we have to think of it as Energy Displacement and not Matter Displacement.  Matter is energy and there is a lot of energy in space.  Solar radiation, photons, space dust, hydrogen and helium are out there for us to run into.  Plus, we have to deal with the neutral base energy of the universe itself.  I know, I know, that doesn't actually exist you say.  Neutral base energy?  That's not a real thing!  Well, it sort of is.

Neutral base energy is the stuff of the universe that allows everything else to exist and travel.  If there was nothing to travel through then it wouldn't have to travel.  You can't have distance if you don't have something between two objects in space to take up the space between.  Neutral base energy is theoretically just unformed proto-energy that never bothered to condense to form radiation or particles.  It is the fabric of the universe that everything else is painted on if you will.  The amount of energy it possesses approaches zero but there is still enough there to have to overcome when we start to look at being able to travel faster.

The faster we travel, the more energy we have to displace at any given moment in time because we are squishing the medium we are traveling through in front of us.  It's like punching foam, it's easy at first but once the foam is condensed it becomes more solid.  The foams energy becomes tightly packed in front of our fist, resisting displacement and preventing us from traveling any further.  Neutral base energy is much like the foam.  As we travel faster and faster, the NBE in front of us begins to condense as we travel through it.  The faster we go, the greater the condensing effect becomes until it becomes so dense we can no longer pass through it.

It seems I am out of time for this morning...I will continue later.

Displacement Part II

I wanted to expand a little on the idea of Energy Displacement.

Matter is energy and quite a bit of energy at that.  Although an atom is mostly empty space there is still a large amount of energy and according to our models of atomic structure that energy is constantly moving.  Thus we have a spherical field of energy (electrons) around a center mass of condensed energy (protons & electrons) that can be represented by a ball.  Any ball will do really.

This ball has mass which is just a grouping of energy large enough to create a gravitational field.  I think we'll hold off on gravity for another time.  Anyway, the ball.  Much like an atom, our ball has energy passing through it constantly.  Radiation in many forms can travel through the ball as if it wasn't there.  The waves and particles travel through the ball because they can find the tiny gaps in the energy structure and do not have to deal with displacement.

If we move our ball we have to expend energy.  We push the ball and the ball rolls.  As it rolls, it displaces the air around it easily as the mass of the ball is much greater than the mass of the air.  We can start to understand the total energy equation of the ball.

Y=M+E

Y is the total energy of the equation where M is mass energy of the ball and E is the energy applied to make it attain motion.  If Y is greater than the total energy acting against this motion, the ball will move.  Gravity must be taken into account down the line but I'm not getting into that mess now.  The energy acting against the mass energy of the medium it is passing through and any energy that is affecting that mass as well.  This would be the same equation basically but we'll label it X instead. So:

if Y > X then movement is achieved; if Y< or = X then no movement is achieved.

It is energy versus energy in the end that concerns us most.  Remember, mass is energy.

Our ball will increase in speed if energy is applied constantly or increased.  It will slow down when applied energy is decreased and Y gradually approaches equality with X.  Kinetic energy is the equation coming back into balance over time when applied energy is ceased.

So that's the basics of movement.  Energy Displacement becomes clearer when the mass of the medium increases in the middle of our balls journey.  Say we were to roll our ball across a concrete sidewalk and into a grassy yard.  Across the concrete part we are dealing mainly with the medium of air, which is easily passed through.  When the ball enters the grass, it encounters a new medium of air and blades of grass.  Suddenly the mass energy of the medium shoots up significantly and the equation balances quicker because the total energy of medium increases.

This is the 'stopping' force that the grass imparts on our ball.  The energy of the ball fights against the energy of the grass it is moving through.  The energy used to move the ball is lost as the medium absorbs the excess energy in the equation and eventually the ball comes to a stop.  If we wanted to keep the ball accelerating when it moves into the grass, we would have to put more energy into it's side of the equation.  Simply walking over and throwing it again would suffice.

These are the basics.  I refrain from using what we consider traditional physics terms for these things because we will be dealing more in the quantum level later which of course plays by it's own rules.  Eventually we will get to warp travel.  I promise.

A few notes on speed...

The speed of light is considered to be the fastest that anything in this universe can travel.  This has remained true for all of history but perhaps we can do better.  The warp drive might actually be the key but we are still a ways off from making it happen.  How does it work?  The concept is simple.  

The speed an object travels is determined by the amount of energy the object has dedicated to it's motion.  This can be object generated energy such a human being walking or energy imposed on an object such as the effects of gravity on a rolling ball.  This is the simplest way of looking at it but there is another important factor.  Energy displacement.

Energy displacement could also be called matter displacement since mass is energy in a different form.  This is an easier way of understanding how it works.  When we travel at speed, we are traveling through a medium.  On Earth, the typical mediums traveled through are air and water.  

Air is a medium that is easily moved through by humans and their vehicles.  Despite our freedom moving around in it, there is actually quite a bit of matter that has to be displaced when traveling through it.  In water, there is even more matter that has to be displaced to allow us to move and thus slows our progress. 

If we are to expend the same amount of energy moving through water as we would air, we would travel at a slower speed.  There is more matter that needs to be displaced to allow our matter to occupy the new space.  So not only does the energy expended determine our speed but also the medium in which we are traveling.  Seems pretty sensible.  

If we travel in space, things become a little more complex but the general idea remains the same.  In space there is very little mass or energy that we have to displace when traveling.  This allows for much greater speeds with little energy needed to be expended.  Light traveling through a vacuum is considered the fastest that anything can travel.  It makes sense since it is pure energy traveling through a seemingly empty medium and the photon itself has basically no mass.  It is the perfect vehicle for achieving speed.

If we are to attempt to travel at that speed we run into a problem.  We have mass, which is energy trapped in a tightly packed ball that interacts with other energies in a problematic way when you want to go fast.  In space, as well as on Earth, that much energy must displace the majority of the energy it comes in contact with before it can move forward.  A photon can slip past the miniscule amount of energy in the universe because it has little to no mass and rarely interacts with other energies.  It barely exists.  It displaces almost nothing and thus achieves an impressive top speed.

A human wishing to travel at those speeds would have to be expending a huge amount of energy to attain those speeds because we would be constantly displacing energy we encounter.  The faster we go, the more energy we are encountering at any given moment which leads to more energy needed to increase our speed. This eventually leads to a balance problem when the amount of energy needed to overcome the energy displacement is unimaginable.  Our mass can no longer displace the energy in the medium and we are considered to have 'infinite mass'.  It's like hitting a brick wall while running flat out.  This problem kills our ability to travel the stars with any efficiency.  Unless you have a warp field.  

More on that later...

Soon?

The base ship sketches for CosmoViking are all drawn and inked now.  I'm not sure how long it will take to get them scanned and finished on the computer.  I hate scanning things.  It's a slow and terrible process that involves not doing very much.  Next week I plan on getting it all done if possible since I am taking a little time off of work to catch up on various projects.  Go CosmoViking!

Yes, vacation.  It's not a proper vacation by any means but it is time away from work.  It's been nearly a year since my last vacation and that was when I moved into my new house.  As fun as that was, it was still a hectic activity and not really the sit back and relax type of vacation I need right now.  The real trick of course is staying motivated on this stay-cation as they call it.  I could easily burn through a few days doing nothing of importance but that wouldn't be very good at all.  

Big things to get done:  

- Basement.  I have to get that thing finished up and then the room cleaned up.  Sadly this means boxing up all of my Warhammer stuff.  So sad.  I just worry about them when they're not safe on their shelves.  

- CosmoViking.  Sketches need to get done.  This will be a nice first day of Vacation project I think.  I'll set up the scanner in the living room and watch bad movies until they're finished.  That sounds like a perfect Monday.  

- Prep for the gig.  Yes, I have a show next week play with The Seasonals.  Friday, May 3rd at the legendary Bridgid's Pub, downtown Bemidji.  It's going to be a fun evening and I encourage everyone to get out and enjoy the spring air by walking around downtown taking in the local culture.  I need to brush up on some songs but overall I feel good.  More than anything I need to get used to the new bass pedal.  It's just so solid and well built it feels weird under my foot.  It's going to take a little bit to get the feel for it.  

Well.  That's about it really.  I'm sure there will be some partying and all that as well.  Hopefully some gaming at some point.  Woot.

Have a good day kids.

Spring?

Snow!  Yes, there was snow yesterday but a quick check of the 10-day forecast was a little surprising.  High temps in the fifties at the end of this week.  Yes, fifties.  Amazing.  I think it's finally coming to a close, this winter of everlasting.  Highs in the forties for the majority with partly cloudy skies and no sign of snow.  Glorious.

If this is the case, I look forward to a pleasant and productive week.

Another Friday...

Another Friday and thus begins the month of events.

It's going to be a fairly exciting few weeks here as spring seems to possibly coming our way finally.  Tonight is gaming night, hopefully, where the lads will face their most hated enemy to date.  Will they live?  Will they have their revenge upon him who betrayed them?  Always a good time and I hope it goes well.

Roller derby starts up again tomorrow night.  I'm pleasantly surprised by the increased interest in getting me help for the NSO crew this spring.  There seems to have been a real push to get the staffing issue under control.  It will still be a frantic affair but I will actually pull it off this time without too much issue.

After that there is a little bit of a break in the action as the weather starts to warm up and I get cracking on house things.  I still have a little interior patching to get done and get some much needed spring cleaning done.

Then, after that is done I'm thinking of taking a few days off of work for a mini-vacation.  If the weather holds, I'll be cleaning out the garage and enjoying some much needed head clearing time.  Work is being quite the pain in my brain lately and it would be good to worry about Minecraft rather than garment orders.

That would be capped off by my triumphant return to the stage.  A wild and crazy evening with The Seasonals at Bridgid's Cross on May 3rd.  It's a Friday.  Bigger energy now with me punching things up a notch and bringing my signature louder is awesome style.

After that it's back to derby action training and then hopefully Out of the Hat coming up mid-May.  May 18th as I have heard.  I think there was something on the 11th too that was pretty important but I have forgotten now.

In the middle of all of this I have two very special projects to be working on.  First, the sketches for all the regular ships for CosmoViking are finished.  Huzzah!  Now to get them scanned, colorized and stuff.  That will be fun.  Secondly, my new book idea is really taking off.  Things are bouncing in the brain and after purchasing a ridiculous sketchbook to use as idea journal, I'm not losing my ideas anymore.  Notes I'm jotting down at work are transcribed into the tome of awesomeness at night and saved.  The plot is coming together and I would expect I can start putting some actual words down soon.  I just need some character studies and then I can get writing.  It's very exciting.  I owe it all to Froyd and his wonderful whiteboard for making that little idea explode and become a real story.

Anyway...time to get to work.  Just a few hours and this crazy weekend will commence!  Good luck to you all.


(Edit) P.S.  The Wi-Fi card is working again...sort of.  It will work fine for awhile then randomly disappear for a few then come back after it's shut down for at least a half an hour.  I'm wondering if there's a heat issue or some sort of incompatibility issue with something else that only pops on randomly once in awhile.  Unknown.

Ups and downs

Tuesday turned out to be a day of ups and downs.  On the upside, went to my first band practice in over a decade and it went rather well.  I'm a bit rusty and having trouble remembering how certain limbs move at certain times but overall it was fun.  I need to do some studying before gig day but I think it will be a good show.

On the downside yesterday, the wi-fi on the wife's laptop crapped out a day after I finally got it working right!  It wasn't long after we got the thing that the internal wireless just wouldn't connect.  It would see networks but never be able to connect.  I pulled the card, checked the antenna connections but still nothing.  I checked the drivers and such but nothing seemed out of place.  We had a USB Wi-Fi adapter sitting around so she just used that until that got damaged.  So I ordered a new half-card, mini-card wireless adapter for five bucks and dropped that it.  What happened?  Perfectly connected up, no problems, top transfer speeds across the board.

That worked great for an entire day!  I came home last night, picked it up and connected to a minecraft server and played for an hour.  No issues whatsoever.  I put the thing down to eat some toast and watch some IT Crowd and when I picked it back up the card was gone.  

Yup...the card was no longer listed in the device manager.  Poof....gone.  I popped the back off just to make sure it hadn't been stolen by pixies but it was still there physically.  Odd, I thought, it's still there!  I restarted and now the computer is trying to tell me I have a unrecognizable USB device attached to the computer.  What the heck?  Somehow, in the span of making toast, the system decided that the wireless card wasn't a wireless card but rather a mutant USB device.  I am a titch angry.  If I can install it manually rather than relying on the plug-and-play awesomeness that is modern computing maybe that will clear it up.  It's a fix I will try tonight.  

Sadly though I fear it's a bad port and never repairable.  I guess it's back to USB adapters.  So sad.  

At least Bioshock: Infinite downloaded the day it was working. ;)

Coffee

There's coffee all over my shirt now.  I hope you're happy.  

I really have to get the brain working again.  I think we all expected to be hopping rain puddles and putting away the winter wear by now.  This snow stuff really has to end soon.  I keep doing little things to keep me feeling like I'm being productive but it's a bit like shoveling out a ditch with a spoon.  I need a backhoe to get caught up.  

Things to do:

- Get my room back in order!  I'm almost there.  After some rearranging I need to seal up on more crack and then I shouldn't be needing that damn dehumidifier anymore!  Priority level:  Half a year late...

- Music Music Music!  I need to write a few more tracks for the dominant species project.  I don't know if it's even being worked on anymore.  You know what though?  I'm finishing that damn project!  

Priority level:  Pretty important...at least for the ego.

- DRAW!  Cosmo Viking will be released and if I don't get off my ass I'm going to hold that whole project up.  Priority level:  Go Team Venture!

- All the other things on the plate!  Seriously.  Derby, new band, new dance album, work, housework, learn to golf better as to not embarrass myself at golf weekend this year, make cookies, build a wood box, build garage shelves, flush and fill my transmission, get oil change, get my marriage officiant paperwork approved by the state...an more!  F.

Grumpy Friday

There is so much talk right now about the marriage stuff that it's making my head spin.  I would write some articles explaining the craziness of it all; but who has the time?  Also, what would it do?  Seriously.  On a topic such as this, your mind is probably already made up on the issue and little is going to change it.  People throw up articles on Facebook not so much to convince others but rather to stir up trouble.

So many of the articles are the same anyway, rehashed and retold by somebody new to appeal to another demographic.  Old man, young girl, married couple, college girl, gay man, straight man.  It's like they've all been handed a list of points they have to make for their article by some central mastermind that isn't that good at being a mastermind.

I guess the only thing to really do is stop trying to convince people through two-clicks worth of effort linking some article that you probably only skimmed anyway.  Things are happening and effort should not be wasted on fighting skirmishes in the digital alleyways.  Instead, concentrate your efforts pushing others into action in the real world.  Rise above and all that.

I'm going to go look at cats...

Thursday...right?

Facebook equal sign day is over and for me it passed without much drama.  Browsing a little reddit I found that it became quite an enlightening experience for some facebook users.  Apparently plastering your beliefs all over the internet can cause tension between people who don't share them.  Who knew?  

It's all a bit like high school.  It seems like the biggest thing in the world when you're in it but in reality it's very silly and unimportant.  We can make huge social change through social media!  That's the mindset and it's really quite incorrect.  If the actions you take only exist within the social media world than they will stay in the social media world.  People talk about how social media is helping candidates win elections and influences voters to make a difference.  That's true in a sense but it's actually not quite right.

What is actually making a difference is that you are connecting with people who already share your opinion and notifying them to go out into the real world to do something.  Essentially you're doing a quick and far reaching text message.  It works and works well but it's not doing what people think it does.  People who use it to accomplish their political goals like to say they accomplished so much with social media.  However, it was a combined effort through rallies, door to door campaigns and social media that made things happen.  The social media aided a real life event and made it better.  Changing your profile pic and blasting some opinion on your wall accomplishes little. Opinions are rarely going to change in a social media setting.  

Say you're in a stadium with thirty-thousand people and you're hanging out with your closest friends.  You're going to mainly be hearing what they have to say because their in close proximity.  The remaining thousands having conversations will just be an indiscernible rumble.  If it's "wear your most politically charged t-shirt day", you're probably wearing the same or similar t-shirts as all of your friends.  Now, say a person from the fringe of your friends group walks by on the way to the hot-dog stand wearing a different t-shirt.  You'll exchange some words, maybe argue a bit but you're not going to sit down and have a debate about your views in the middle of the noisy stadium.  Especially since you have ten to twenty of your friends there to pitch in their two cents on the matter.  In fact, you'll probably both say some dumb stuff because it's chaotic and uncontrolled to begin with and possibly tell that person to go stick his head in the toilet.  There won't be any sudden changes of opinion.  There won't be really any change at all.

Now, say you're in that stadium and someone puts a message on the jumbo-tron that everyone who thinks cats are awesome should go out to the parking lot for free kittens.  A giant chunk of people will leave and go get a kitten.  That is the power of social media.  It's not to be underestimated but it's not the miracle working thing that people have grown to think it is.

</end rant>

Facebook

I did a quick buzz through my Facebook feed this morning and it was terrible.  I'd say about 70% of all the content was people linking pictures or videos.  The rest of the posts were uninformative and gave little to no sense of what people are actually up to in their lives.  I just don't understand it anymore.  It's especially bad a the moment with the supreme court looking at marriage laws.  Everybody has the same profile pictures!

I do love Ace Hardware though.  I picked up a new hammer and a chisel last night for working on the basement.  Man toys.  Can't wait to get going on that project, chiseling out cracks then filling them in.  Screw you water!  You're not getting into my basement.  :)

One more day...

I'm so relieved that the end of the week is here.  It's been a tough two weeks and I'm happy to be able to get back into my regular routine again after today.  It would really help if the weather would start it's warming trend tomorrow as expected.  I would see my mood improving greatly then.  

I have the weekend to myself and I plan to get a few things done.  Mainly cleaning up but also get some ships sketched.  If there's enough time...hopefully play a little Minecraft.  Should be a good weekend.

Ships!

It's been a productive evening!  In a burst of drawing madness I got 10 ship sketches done tonight and they are looking pretty good.  There is a good consistency across the board and some good defining features for each class.  There's still 10 more to go but I'm feeling pretty good now that I know I can get 10 done in an evening.  Woot.

Of course I still have to scan them in, add some finishing touches and add colour.  Work to be done but things are going well.  Feeling good about things though.  Bright point of the week so far.

CosmoViking!

Winter stall-out

The endless winter has driven my productivity into the ditch and buried it with snow.  Some unfortunate things last week took the wind out of my sails and the continuing bad weather this weekend left me drifting.  I could really use some warm and sunny days right now.

I tried to get back into Minecraft this weekend.  It was fun playing with the scores of new things available since the last time I played.  Fireworks!  Oh the fun.  I have a dream now of building a fantastic roller coaster that shoots fireworks and makes noises and light shows as you travel along.  I like roller coasters.

Anyway.  I'll be checked out from blogging for a day or two.  Carry on good people.  Spring will have to come eventually.

Rough Week

It's been a rough week.  Found out my Grandmother passed away yesterday.  After being sick this week I'm really turned around and a little lost.  I can't believe it's already Friday.  So that's about all I have to say this morning.

Ships!

Sat down and crunched some numbers for the ship designs last night and things are coming along nicely.  I was originally going to just draw a bunch of ships and see what happened but after realizing how many there were to draw I changed my mind.  There are a ton of ships in this game!  Wow.  

I figured by taking the various ratings the ships have in the game, convert those to cm and mm dimensions, they could be used as guidelines when drawing them.  By using these size ratings, each ship would then look appropriately sized when compared to each other on the screen.  Also, if I have the bones of the ships predetermined, the drawing will go faster.  Win!  

***

Anyway...sorry about this week and the quiz.  Being sick really threw me off my game.  I should really start thinking about getting the full website up to start showcasing the art and music work I'm doing for various games.  It would be nice if I could do a bit more of that for people once I get these projects done.  If it wasn't for this pesky job I could do it full time!  Think of the games people!  Think of all the games we could make!  

Round 2?

Alright, time for some ground rules.

I guess I underestimated the power of the internet when designing this whole trivia thing.  Also, I underestimated the ability to guess more than once per comment.  Silly me. 

Not sure how to deal with this other than to require you to submit a 2 page essay with each guess.  A right answer will not be accepted without this essay.  You must cite your sources, spelling and grammar count.

;)

Hey.

I'm back and feeling a bit better.  I've been tracking the marriage bill going through the Minnesota committees and it's going through quick.  The committees are stacked with Democratic supporters so that's not too surprising.  I wonder if it will have as much success in the full senate and house but we'll see over the coming months.  Just in case though, I went through the long and complicated process of becoming authorized to perform marriages in the state of Minnesota.  Heh.  Amazing what you can do on the internet these days.  Rev. Keith Johnson at your service. 

Short clue? Ok:

I am tall.

I used to be the tallest.

Oddly, I was supposed to only live to see 20 years old.

I am still standing.

Some considered me an eyesore.

Wicked sick.

Just so you all know, I'm sick and not blogging much.  It's a nasty flue of some sort.  Here's hoping today is better.

Friday

Friday is here and do you know what that means?  Google searchable clue help!

But first...

Nah...I got nothing today.  I actually haven't been feeling all that well the last few days.  I'm not sure what's going on but I'm feeling spacey and unfocused.  Occasionally I'm a little dizzy and I have a weird facial twitch  right under my left eye that is bugging the hell out of me.  I'm sure if I plugged everything into WebMD, they'd tell me that I have some horrible brain disease.  That wouldn't be fun.

Here's hoping a little warm weather and sunshine will help get me back into things.

FRIDAY CLUE!!!!!!!!!!

(Update:  Redbeard's prize should have gotten to him by now.  If not...I hope it comes soon.  Just to prove that you can indeed win prizes by prize blogging.)

It's not lacquer.  Lacquer is a polymer that does basically the same thing.  It's just oddly named.  Lac...funny word.  Comes from Sanskrit..."One hundred thousand"...which is neat.  

Anyway.  Let the Google racing begin.  

Hi.

You'd think with all the technology at our disposal there would be mounds of work at home type jobs.  It's wishful thinking perhaps.  Companies have to set up secure servers, ensure people have proper at home equipment and of course pay more IT costs to maintain the work at home network.  It's a daunting project to setup for work at home if you're a company that isn't very tech savvy.  There's a lot of numbers out there that says that working from home raises productivity and reduces lost work to sick days and such.  So employees think it's the best thing in the world (which it probably is) but to the company it's a major shift in operations that can be scary.  

We are on the edge of a major shift in worker familiarity with technology and mobile devices.  The mid-thirties crowd is fully digital and integrates technology into our daily lives with ease.  This first full digital generation is starting to influence how business operate.  A mid-thirties individual running a small business these days is going to have a huge advantage over an aging comparable business run by someone in their 40's or 50's.  The younger person knows how to setup an online shop because they shop online all the time.  They know how to use cloud storage and mobile devices to keep up on things when their out of the office.  They can take care of their own minor tech problems and keep their IT costs down.  Tech isn't a tool to figure out and manage like another employee, it's a friend that helps you get things done.  I guess the best way to describe it is the way each generation viewed tech helpers growing up.

Older generations grew up with robots being the height of technological assistance.  Somewhat mindless drones that had to be ordered around and were usually clumsy.  Cold and impersonal automatons.  

Younger generations grew up with artificial intelligence being a disembodied personality that is your friend and partner.  KIT from Knight Rider for example.  Jarvis from Iron Man as a recent example, or the computer from Star Trek: The next generation.  Also we play a lot of video games and become attached to certain game characters.  We connect with technology on a friendly level rather than it simply being a wrench.

Soon then, this younger crowd will push the old guard out of the top ranks of business and start breaking down some of the old traditions of work flow.  It will be a few years but I think we will see some big changes in the way we define a 'job'.  Working at home, a person could have four or five part time gigs and be more of a contractor.  Their workload would be fluid and ever changing as companies start and scrap projects.  Companies would benefit by only paying out for work done rather than paying someone to be around in case there is work to be done. It's going to get messy at tax time...

CLUE 4!

This product is natural and come from bugs!  Neat! 

What the what?

Tuesday was a crazy day.  Hugo Chavez passed away, the DOW hit an all time high and my wife thought I was dead.  Crazy day indeed.

Dead?  Yes.  Dead.  Scary really but a little funny in hindsight.  After shoveling the walks last night I was pretty worn out, then I went over to Mark B's to hang out and had a few drinks while we chatted.  I went home and proceeded to get comfortable on the couch while watching Saturday Night Live on Netflix.  Turns out I was more tired than I realized and passed out with the television blaring.  Beth got home a little later and after saying 'hi' a few times with no response she came into the living room where I wasn't moving.  I was sleeping hard apparently because I didn't wake up until she physically shook me a bit.  

After waking this morning she told me all about it and how she thought I had slipped into some sort of coma. Freaky.  I am not dead though, so don't worry.  Hugo Chavez is...not me.  

Seriously?  The DOW hits an all time high after favorable economic reports are released?  Crazy.  I thought this country was spiraling into oblivion and Obama was a dictator now.  No?  I guess certain media outlets should just settle down...or at least take a refresher civics course.

Anyway.

CLUE #3!

You most likely find it in a can...in a basement or a garage...if you were going to find it in someones house.

Tuesday.

Spaceships!  I'm very excited about this new space viking game that is in the works by my friend over at Froydlandia Studios.  ;)  Doing concept art is interesting.  A development team is like a weird body made of bodies.  Certain parts do certain things to get the job done but you can't share a brain so you have to guess what the other parts are going to like.  Even if you have some parameters, it is still difficult to know if your creations match what the person in charge had thought of.  It's a little weird.  Luckily, after tossing my sketches over last night I received no complaints.  That was good.  Now I can start cracking down on the final designs!  Can't wait.

CLUE #2!!!

Some people find it's source and method of preparation quite disturbing.  I think it's neat.

Running late!

If you're going to change your alarm to a different time on a weekend, you should really remember to set it back for Monday morning.  I made it on time to get things going at work but sadly there is no time to blog this morning.  Never fear however as I will be giving you a clue!

This weeks mystery thing is inspired by a weekend project that we worked on to spruce up our kitchen a little.  Good luck.

CLUE 1:

You've put stuff on it, maybe put it on stuff and probably even consumed it without even knowing!

Avians attack!

In a burst of inspiration last night I got the bare bones of the avian theme done.  I'm very excited because I had been lagging badly trying to get another theme done after the first ones were made so quickly.  Bolstered by my progress I decided to jump right into the arachnid theme but that didn't go as well.  

I think it's fantastic to be able to have the technology to have an orchestra at my command.  I want a trumpet part, I get a trumpet part.  It's amazing.  However, there are certain sounds and instruments that the software just doesn't do very well.  This becomes frustrating when you are working with a few instruments that sound amazing then you go to throw in a third and it sounds wrong.  It really takes the wind out of your sails when the sounds coming out don't match what you have in your head, you have to stop and decide what instrumentation to use instead that sounds more realistic.  

It's this kind of speed bump that really puts a damper on my creative process.  I have terrible sense of pitch which makes writing without the computer difficult.  I spent a bit writing down the bones of the arachnid theme the other day on paper.  I thought I was pretty close to what was in my head but when I punched it into the computer it sounded terrible.  Combine that with instrumentation that doesn't match what you want to hear and you have a pretty disheartening result.  

I won't be giving up though.  Not a chance.  It's worth it when things do mesh up right and after just a little work you have this music pouring out at you that you created.  When the trumpets and the strings sound just right and are playing the perfect notes it's amazing.  I'm not that good of a composer, my theory is terrible but there is something amazing about hearing your own work being "played".  Even more than the electronica than I write, the classical soundtrack work is by far the music I enjoy listening to the most.

Oooh.  Fun.  Hold on one sec...okay.  This is just a promo-video I made for a failed TV show but I wrote this theme in no time.  It just came out and I liked it.  Give a listen:

That's it for the week.  Congrats to Froyd for the win this week and next week I promise a better quiz!

What day is it?

It's Thursday?  What the heck?  How did that happen already?  

Last night turned out to be a good evening but not exactly a productive evening as I had imagined.  I did however get a little inspired for the ship design project for Mr. Froyd after reading an article he sent me.  It turns out my theories about space ship design back in high school were quite on the nose according to the physicist that wrote the article.  Balls.  Yes, balls.

The standard space fighter in popular culture is based on combat aircraft that we are used to.  Dogfights are action packed and make for good movies and television shows.  However they don't actually mesh up with what physics in space would allow.  The closest I've seen is Babylon 5, where the the little X shaped fighters would rotate rather than turn to achieve optimal firing position while they drifted along.  This is a good way to fight, however the ship designers didn't really make the ship the ideal shape for it.  Their ships were longer on the horizontal axis than the vertical axis.  This makes no sense because if you are using rotation to aim in a three dimensional space, you should have the craft be able to rotate to any point with the same amount of force and in the same amount of time.  A craft that isn't symmetrical along nearly every axis would then rotate at different speeds depending on which axis it is rotating on.  This is detrimental to training a pilot as they would have to learn all the various rotation rates of the craft.  If all the rotations possible take the same amount of time, the pilot can then simply deal with the disorientation of three dimensional space and will have increased reaction times.  So the best shape you can use to achieve this universal rotation time is a sphere.  Balls.

So I came up with a design in high school that was a center spherical cockpit that was surrounded by a ring connected to the cockpit on the Z and X axis.  I figured the outer ring would be the place to install the weapons and auxiliary engines.  You could then simply attach different outer rings to the central cockpit sphere for different missions or for rapid redeployment.  Also, if there was a problem, the pilot could simply disengage the out ring and fire the main engine.  The sphere alone would be a difficult target to hit and they would be leaving the ring packed with ammunition and possibly a remote detonator, essentially making it a space mine.  Neat.

Anyway.  I must go now.  Good day, sirs.  

Good day.

Froyd wins!

Sorry Lars...your prize is coming...I promise.

Wednesday of doom.

I get the feeling today that something really bad is going to happen.  I'm not sure what that will be exactly except that it will be unpleasant.  I'm not even sure why this is but it's just a feeling.  Be careful out there peoples...

No right answers as of yet, friends.  The battle continues.  

I attempted to work on some music last night but something just wasn't clicking.  I think it's the general 'blah' feeling I'm having this week that I just cant shake.  Last night I was working on the theme for the Avian faction and had a significant breakthrough.  The 'hi-line', as I like to call it when writing, was giving me troubles.  I was experimenting with different instruments to give things a dramatic tone but nothing was sounding right.  The problem of doing everything on the computer is that most orchestra instruments sound very synthetic when made on a synthesizer.  (Weird...I know.)  However, with my new keyboard with better velocity control, instruments that I had given up on before now sound perfect.  Success!  

With that bit solved I can wrap up the Avian theme and move onto a new one.  It's a little frustrating because I wrote the main theme in two days and I still think it sounds pretty good.  The Insect theme took just one good afternoon to write but the rest are bothering me.  I'll just have to get inspired I guess.  Anyone know any good movies about amphibians?

CLUE!!!!!!

Much like Notch and his Mojang empire, this company also started out as a home project that turned into a multi-million dollar powerhouse.  

Tuesday.

I'm going to have to start maximizing my time here for the next few months.  There's just so much to do!

- Head NSO for Babe City Rollers

- 3 Gaming Groups

- Write and produce a video game soundtrack

- Design and produce artwork for another video game

- Fix my house

- Work my job

- Keep up on my blog

- Finish my website

- Practice the drums

Too many projects!  Which is actually a good thing really.  I'm finding it better if I switch up projects a few times during the day to keep my mind fresh.  I find the quality of my work improves if I go in small, inspired spurts rather than long sessions.  The longer I work, the more my mind wanders to something else and my primary focus strays.  If I switch projects as my mind starts to wander then the new project gets my brains full power.  Having many options then works to my advantage in that I can switch many times and always have something new and fresh to stimulate my mind.  

Hopefully that's how it works otherwise there's going to be a lot I won't get done!  Terrible.

CLUE 2:

They helped give birth to a video gaming monster machine by taking a chance on a video game that people thought was too ambitious back in the day.

Back in Action!

Another week, a whole new contest.  First, however:  Video Games!

There is something very satisfying about doing well in a video game against somebody that usually beats the pants off you. Dai Senryaku VII is a great game and not for the faint of heart.  It usually takes a few days to even get close to deciding a winner and then it's usually decided by someone surrendering rather than being properly beaten.  After a few months of playing various scenarios, I finally had the moment where the tide was turning in my favor.  I haven't won yet, that's a ways off of course, but I am in a solid position.

Granted, I was set up in an amazing position to start with, randomly drawing America as my army.  Although my opponent got Russia, the only other well matched enemy, he did start at a resource disadvantage.  I didn't know the extent this would hurt him until the second day of playing where it became clear he couldn't afford to keep repairing his long range bomber fleet.  While he was scraping together every cent to get his fleet back in the air, I was producing waves of armor and support units with my superior cash reserves.  

I was still incredibly scared of what he had up his sleeve until I sent a recon force across the bridge to asses his full strength.  I was surprised to find the majority of his territory devoid of sentries and his out cities ripe for the picking.  His main force that I was slowly picking apart in the south was everything he had left.  It felt good.  Real good.

CLUE:

Alright.  Why don't we have a video game based week!  That will really get you guys excited I think

- 1979

Thursday.

Well the action is heating up here on the ol' prize blog with a ton of guesses but still no right answer.  Good luck with today's clue.  

Before we get to that however, let's take a few moments to think about water.  In a short time the large amount of snow we've had this year will start to melt and start the spring flood season.  I have a bad feeling that it's going to be a difficult one for many cities.  There are some that are used to flooding and others that are woefully unprepared.  I hope everyone is planning for the worst this year.

The best thing anyone can do is start preparing their houses for flooding.  If you live in a flood prone area you probably have an idea of how to do this but around here you may not.  I will be starting my prep soon to ensure a somewhat hassle free spring.  Although I don't live in a flood area, I do have a problematic foundation wall that let's some moisture through when it rains heavily and I can't imagine what is going to happen when all the snow starts to melt.  So it's prep time coming up to get the valuables to safety and do a bit of light work on the wall to prevent the worst.  

It's amazing how quickly you fill up a basement with stuff after you move into a house with one.  After living in small apartments for so long I couldn't believe how much stuff I suddenly had that could be hidden away in a basement.  It's crazy.  Alright...I've stalled long enough this morning.  Just had to torture you a little before giving you the clue.  (If nobody has this by the end of the day I will be surprised.)

Clue #4:

In October of 2012, it was announced they would be eligible as nominees for induction into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame for 2013.  

Wednesday

So many guesses...so many wrong guesses.  I guess I should do music weeks more often if this is the sort of response I am going to get.  

Is it weird that I've become numb to being numb?  The deep freeze is back in Bemidji and this time I just don't care.  I used to curse every time I had to go outside and made such a grand entrance when I returned to the warmth of a heated building.  Now I just put on my hat and walk out.  No big deal.  It's at least above -20 F.  

When spring comes this year I'm going to cry a little I think.  

Clue!  Let's help narrow this down a bit!

After breaking up, two members of this group went on to have extremely successful and very different solo careers.  

Tuesday

Right.  Clue for the day.

Originally having 6 members, the group started to break up in 1989.

New Week!

I am a drummer and this weekend I finally have a set of drums again.  If you hadn't guessed, it's a Pearl.  It brought back some fun memories of high school and a few less interesting ones.  I once went to a jazz festival when I was in school and attended a percussion workshop that was terrible.  The instructor would bring students up on stage to play a little bit and then give them some tips on how to do it better.  The problem was he kept asking students to play things that they had no idea how to play.  

Some poor kid went up and the guy wanted to him to do some fills.  A short drum solo basically.  The kid floundered.  I could tell he was probably from a very structured program where technical drumming was drilled into his poor head.  Creative expression through drums just wasn't something he could do.  He could probably play you all the basic beats and styles but asking him to depart the norm was a stretch.  That was the program, learn the core skills and worry about creativity later.  It's not a bad way to do it, it's easier to paint with good brushes, if want an analogy.  The sad thing was, that's all I could do...drum creatively.  

I was called up to play some salsa beat thing.  Now, it's an important style musically...I get that.  As a session drummer it's just something you better know.  I was not a session drummer.  I was a high school kid that was self taught and in a very old school swing style jazz band.  I floundered as well.  It was horrible.  He couldn't believe that I hadn't been taught the 'basic' beats.  Well guess what:

IT'S NORTHERN MINNESOTA - WE DON'T SALSA HERE.

Seriously.  If you go to college and start expanding your musical horizons then you can get all excited about salsa, Cubano, Brazilian beats.  Fine.  It's cool.  They're interesting and fun to play apparently.  Unless you live in Florida then nobody really cares except for other music majors.  Jazz in northern Minnesota is big-band swing, the blues and classics like Miles Davis.  That's what we know and what a kid without formal training is going to know.  

In the end I think it's a sign of how people can get so wrapped up in their system they don't step back and realize that not everyone is in the same system.  Perhaps you could have asked those poor kids what their stronger skills were before choosing crap at random that they may or may not have any experience with.  At least I a got a free t-shirt.

THE CLUE OF THE DAY!  

Alright.  This weeks category is music!  

Clue #1:  

They changed the face of a major music style during the eighties and helped shed light on a growing problem in America.  

Is it Friday?

It doesn't seem like Friday for some reason.  It feels more like a Wednesday.  Odd.  

Anyway.  This weeks challenge for the prize was to decipher a small bit of code.  I may have made this a little more puzzling than I should have.  Which brings me to today's rant.

The better we become at something the harder it is for us to teach somebody else to do it.  Sounds backwards but it's not.  I see this a lot out in the real world with job training and especially in technology training.  A single task in a job is usually made up of a series of steps.  The more we do a task the less and less we thing about the actual steps and focus more on the task as a whole.  The smaller, more mundane steps in the task are performed reflexively and can be forgotten about when training others.

Say you're training someone to mop the floor at work.  Seems easy enough.  You tell them where the mops are kept, you tell them where the bucket filling station is and you instruct them on the basics of what areas of the floor need special attention.  Done.  Right?  There's nothing more to it than that.  Wrong.  Really?  Yes.  

Because you've mopped the floor a thousand times you really think it's that simple.  Get the mop, fill the bucket, mop the floor.  You forgot something however.  The sixteen year old kid you're training doesn't have the first clue on how to operate a commercial mop filling station.  Why would they?  It's not something they're going to run into in their daily lives.  There are a few valves that need to be in the right spot and the soap won't dispense unless you have them in the right positions.  If you get it wrong you're dumping floor wax instead of soap and making a huge mess.  

You didn't even think that this was something that needed explaining.  You don't even look at the valves anymore when you do it.  A few quick flicks and a slap of the button and glorious soapy water pours forth.  Simple...now.  But what about that poor kid back there dumping floor wax on his shoes?  You have failed him.

Anyway...with Friday here I will dump on your shoes the epic clue to get this thing going:

II   -AATTEE   -NO-

There....good luck.  

Blog attack.

The day is going better than I had anticipated.  The sun is shining and I have a new plan to get the home repair bug back in my veins.  If you don't know me, I bought my first house this year and it's amazing.  It's huge...really huge.  4 bedroom, 2 baths and lots of turn of the century charm.  Yes, we bought a 103 year old house.  Normally that's a huge no-no but it was honestly in amazing condition.  Except for one thing...

I began with gusto on a few things that needed some work on the house.  I reinforced the south-east corner floor joists and cleaned out the basement.  I braced the garage door opener and bought a nice outdoor broom.  I build a custom gaming table for my war room downstairs.  I was on a roll!  Then I found out my war room foundation wall is cracked and coming apart.  What a mess!  It took three days to clean out all the dirt and mess that had seeped in through the cracks and I was left with a sad looking wall.  My heart sank, my will was broken.  Major project that I wasn't expecting.  Boo.  

As spring approaches though I can feel the old bug coming back.  After some cooling off and talking to people we've learned it's not uncommon and lots people have the same problem in this area.  Not as terrible I guess as I thought it to be at first.  Feeling better I've started a list of little projects to get done.  I'm planning on working on the basement stairway and landing area first.  A little painting, some trim work and just the right amount of creative pipe hiding.  Nothing expensive or difficult.  

I'm excited.  My Ace Rewards card is going to get a workout. :)

ANOTHER HINT!!!!!!!!

Try writing it out over and over.  Maybe ten times in a row...the basic structure is simple when you crack it.

V-Day!

It's Valentine's Day.  A great day for kids to get seasonal candy and a horrible day for teenagers to get more awkward than ever.  For us older folks it's just another day to go to work.  Lame.  

In fifth grade our class had a Valentine's day box making contest.  I'm not sure if this is something many kids do in school but we would make boxes for our fellow classmates to drop their candy laden valentines day cards into.  A few friends and I decided to go big and talked to the janitor who was happy to supply us with some giant cardboard boxes.  We taped them together then decorated it as the Empire State Building.  We were pretty industrious kids.  It was about five feet tall and needed to be kept in the hallway outside the classroom because it didn't fit anywhere in the room.  Needless to say we won the award for best drop box.  

Good times.  

Crack the old code yet?  

Hint: 

AA

Evening!

I wonder if you need a license to become a small business consultant.  Didn't see much on the Googles but that doesn't mean much.  Those government agencies are tricky and get you in the end.

Star Trek!

I watched two Star Trek movies last night during my recovery from the endless shoveling.  (See...right there...last night shoveling on my netbook was only acceptable with two l's...wtf)  First Contact with the new cast is awesome.  There are a few dialogue issues; "Assimilate this!"  "You guys are on some sort of...star trek..."  "Resistance is futile!" (Data, during climax).  Seriously?  As my wife pointed out; there were many intelligent people in that production and didn't anyone think it was too cheesy?  I think actors who have been playing a part for over five years or more should be able to edit scripts to not ruin their characters.  

One of my favorite movies growing up was, Aliens.  Great movie.  James Cameron doing what he does best.  He takes an established hit movie and ramps it up a little then injects some capital to make a fantastic sequel.  

Aliens, Terminator 2...both epic sequels.  Anyway, that aside, Aliens was well done.  There are two really fantastic points in that movie where they put in just the right dialog for the moment.

Point 1:  Vasquez and Gorman are trapped in the air duct with aliens closing in on them.  Gorman pulls out a grenade and just before they detonate it, Vasquez says:  "You always were an asshole, Gorman."  It's a little cheesy but the actress really pulled off the scene.  (Insert her IMDB link here...)  Worked well and no cheesy heroic one-liner.  "Space marines all the way..." or something like that.

Point 2:  The most epic of all time.  "Get away from her, you bitch!"  Perfect.  Just perfect.  She's pissed!  She's standing in a robotic super suit, on a giant spaceship, fighting an alien and they didn't get trapped into using some hero line.  Good job.  There were a million lines they could have put in there to make Ripley more "heroine bad-ass" but instead they stepped back for a moment.  They actually considered that she is protecting a small girl who represents the daughter she lost on Earth.  Does a mother crack a one liner when her kid is being attacked?  Nope.  Just pure anger.  Brilliant.

Tuesday

I've always loved codes.  I can't say that I'm very good at breaking them but I do enjoy making them.  I found a book in grade school that explained the basics of writing in code and gave you a few simplistic ones to practice with.  It was targeted to the very young so the codes were simple alphabet substitutions but they did cover advanced codes a little bit at the end.  It stuck with me and later on in school I came back to it in order to help pass the time in less than interesting classes.

I came up with my own basic code based on one of the simple examples in the book.  It was easily breakable but I designed it more for easy reading rather than security.  I refined and practised until I could write it as quick as I could write normally.  It came in handy since I could write whatever I want around people and they would have no idea what it said.  Devious fun.

The other night I finally cracked the design of a new code I've been working on for a while now.  An art code really.  It's strange and I like it.  I just wanted to share that for some reason.  I'm a little tired tonight...too much shovelling.  Also...I think my netbook's spell check is locked on Canadian English...which is an odd mix of British and American spellings.  Crazy.

Sorry.

It's been a heck of a week so far.  Sorry for the lack of clues.  In place I have decided to give you guys a crack at decoding a few bits of text.  See what you can do:

Friday.

So one week has passed here and despite my hopes of wrangling some participation I seem to have failed to inspire the masses.  Maybe I'll do one more contest next week and see what happens.  Maybe I won't.  It's hard to compete with Facebook, memes, Reddit and the like.  

I'm not disappointed since it was a crazy idea to begin with.  The internet is a place to escape, especially when you're at work or school and have just a short break to do so.  Diving into a long rambling blog post isn't what you want, you want comics and games.  People want to pack as much entertainment into those free ten minutes as they can, flood the brain with colorful images to reset the mind for the next task.  It makes sense to me in a way.  I prefer to browse Reddit on lunch while I eat my soup because I don't have to think and it makes me chuckle occasionally.  Is that what we need?  

We are flooded with information at a rate unknown to humans in the past.  We absorb so much from the time we wake to the time we get a short break.  Everything is at our fingertips with a few quick button taps and screen flicks.  At work or school, technology is able to maximize our time by letting us view more information faster and includes sensory data that goes far beyond simple words on a page.  Graphs, 3D rendering, movie clips and audio can all be thrown at us in one short presentation.  Be it a work presentation or a class lecture, combining all these different things makes for a dazzling data overload.  Our brain needs short bursts of useless information afterwards, like a sonic toothbrush that cleans out the bits in our teeth from our chicken soup.  

So I guess I shouldn't get too worked up about people not taking the time to sit down and read a blog entry. I really shouldn't be writing all these posts before I finish my first cup of coffee in the morning anyway.  So next week perhaps I'll build a new sonic toothbrush for everyone.  

Last and Final Clue:  Phreaking (You all know how to use Google, right?  Free book for a Google search...)

It's morning...

Hello everybody.  Nice to see you today.

I'm really starting to get annoyed by memes.  I never expected them to last as long as they have since the internet is a pretty fluid place but they're still out there.  Normally things like memes evolve and change then disappear once people become bored with them.  They have not done so...and I'm grumpy about it.  

Why haven't they gone away?  Why have they become a terrible blight on the world wide webs?  Why do I continue to read them anyway?  It's because they're easy and quick.  They are a new form of comic that is compressed and compacted into a single panel, easily read on a smartphone screen without scrolling and new ones are easily made in a short amount of time.  

The meme itself is the internet's version of the inside joke.  They are built on a single picture that was incredibly entertaining once and now with each subsequent version they become watered down versions of that original.  Even though the new text on a certain meme may not be that witty, the humor of the original still echoes in our mind and we find it pleasing.  When a new one is made it's a lot like when old friends get together and someone says, "Remember that one night where we went to Taco Bell?"  Which causes the group to bust out laughing.  There is nothing funny about Taco Bell but if you're part of the group you suddenly get the joke.  (Yes...I just explained inside jokes.  Deal with it.)  

The problem with this format is that the meme inside joke system is like having all of your groups good times archived on Wikipedia.  Now anyone can learn what happened to Frank that night and then sit down and make some awkward joke about it and make everyone chuckle uneasily.  Way back before they were really 'memes' they were just fun things people put together to share with their internet friends.  Over 9000?  Unless you were actually a Dragon Ball Z fan back in the day that meant nothing to you.  Sure you can find the clip on YouTube but it's still not as funny if you don't know the show and the characters.  The inside part of the joke was just more complex back in the day I guess.

So...I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'm a little disappointed in you internet.  I'm not feeling special and geeky anymore...and that makes me sad.

Clue #4:

Hack the Planet!  (Mathew Lillard is awesome.  SLC Punk, Hackers, Wing Commander.  Watch them.)

Wake up, it's not over yet.

Welcome to Wednesday everyone.  The clues are out but no correct answers yet. 

I had an epic idea last night that I failed to follow through on.  I was going to make a music video blog post for today but instead I learned a few things about the electrical wiring in my house.  Maybe for tomorrow?

Back to the internet!  Wait...we're on the internet...already.  Welcome back!  Aha!  I'm a little more out of it this morning than usual.  All the clocks in my living room stopped and I didn't know it had grown rather late last night.  Lack of sleep is a confusing thing.

One of the things that ruined me early on with the internet was that I grew up a big science fiction fan.  The things that people imagined for the internet back in the day were so promising and exciting.  It was a world of secret identities, epic adventure in the digital seas and a place where you could achieve greatness without leaving your room.  It was supposed to be a different reality that one could slip into and disappear from their own.  

Before the internet the big time geeks that were playing around with networks and hacking all went by code names.  They had separate digital identities and the concept was very appealing to me when the internet finally reached me.  I was the great Cokevampire, occasionally Ventola but never just plain old me.  That was boring.  The internet was a new world and as such I needed a new identity for it.  

This is one reason I am so frustrated by the current state of the internet as a whole these days.  It has become an extension of our regular reality.  There is no veil, no curtain, nothing to separate the two.  People who grew up with the internet don't view it as a playground but rather they treat it like we treated the telephone back in the day.  It's a communication device, a place to order pizza and there's no mystery to it all.  It's always on, always available in our pockets.  I miss the days of the dial-up modem where establishing a connection to the internet was like gaining clearance to an alternate reality.  You were tapping into the internet in those days but now we are just drowning in it.  

Clue #3:

Corn and Oats...corn and oats.

It's Tuesday!  

All this blogging has gotten me nostalgic for the good old days of the internet when it was still an unorganized mess.  The dark times, before the Google.  

No, it wasn't the dark times.  Actually in some ways I preferred it the way it was back in the day before business figured out.  Back when 'surfing' the web was actually a thing.  Remember that?  When there was no Facebook, Memebase.com, Wikipedia, YouTube or the like.  There were only home pages.  Useless, useless home pages.  They didn't do anything, you couldn't really interact with them but they were each a little unique slice of a persons life. 

Since you had to craft the page from the ground up, each one came out completely different.  Backgrounds, animated construction worker gifs, horrible color choices and poorly formatted text were standard.  More than that however was the information that people chose to put on those pages.  This was a page intended for the world to see, actually intended to be viewed by strangers.  It was more special that way I think.

With everything set in templates and pre-formatted structures these days we've all become the same.  We all 'like' Amazon.com; but that's not saying much is it?  We don't get a feel for a persons personality off a profile summary.  It's data, cold data and I imagine you get about the same impression about that person that an IRS tax worker gets from reading 1040's.  I miss knowing their favorite colors were maroon and pink despite it being a horrible choice for primary website colors.  There was life in those pages.

I've started working on my own, dusting off my meager web-design knowledge and playing around in an HTML editor just for fun.  One day it will go live...one day.  

Clue #2!!!!!

2600

This weeks mystery...

This is the first week trying out the mystery game portion of the blog and the first clue is up.  

"Blue and Gold is bold fashion statement..."

I neglected however to give you a category for our first mystery answer.  Mystery Thing / Person.  That's right...the mystery this week is both a thing and a person.  Just to confuse you more.  

This weeks blog posts will also have to do with this mystery thing/person.  (Sort of.)  It's not going to be easy.  I'm not giving these prizes away to just anyone.  So, get those brains working and the first to leave a comment on a blog post with the right answer gets the prize!  Good Luck.

Monday...

So today begins the journey to see who is out there. 

It's interesting to try and think of topics to write about this early in the morning when I'm still waiting for my coffee to work its magic.  Mostly I want to complain about the cold or make silly 'oh no it's Monday' type jokes but that's just wrong.  That's what Facebook is for.  

When Froyd, over at Froyd.net started blogging again I got excited.  He led the charge for us to break free of the generic existence that is popular social media.  It's great for a few things but overall I feel myself a little confused by the majority of peoples posts.  There's no meat to a two sentence long post and no personal touch.  Ignoring of course references to specifics; I wonder:  If you stripped away all the names from your Facebook feed; could you actually tell the people apart just by the few bits they've posted?  

The biggest problem is what Facebook has set itself up to be, intentionally of course, since they have to make money somehow.  They are a re-linking spot for all of the masses to 'share' content from other sites around the internet.  'Share' of course meaning 'free advertising'.  Watch this video, read this snippet, look at this funny picture.  It's like we're all digging through piles and holding up the bits of shiny to try to impress each other.  That would be fine if we put some personal opinion with it.  We tend to just grunt or exclaim a single word of praise or horror with the big, flashy picture and summary that Facebook automatically fills in when we paste the pre-formatted sharing link from the original site.  

I guess what I'm rambling on about is that social media hasn't made us social.  The moment anyone posts over three sentences of text we glaze over and TL;DR (too long; didn't read).  We don't want substance, the text won't fit on our smartphone screens.  Anyway...this is just a Monday rant and now if you've been paying attention, we come to the clue of the day:

CLUE OF THE DAY!

Monday, Clue 1:  Blue and gold is a bold fashion statement.

Morning.

Roller Derby.  Yes, it's coming back for the spring season and it's going to be interesting.  They made waves this winter by doing a pretty big tweak to the rules which I feel good about.  In the previous rule set, a skater could get a minor penalty for various little infractions which didn't do much to affect the game other than keep skaters a little more civil.  Now they've done away with those minor penalties and simplified things to hopefully make the matches run smoother.  

If you haven't checked out roller derby, I hope you will.  It's a good time, an interesting sport and just plain fun.  I could go on and on about how it's an all volunteer organization.  I could go on about how it's a way for a city to support a sport that isn't filled with scandals and over-paid crybabies.  That's a post for another day I think.  

Today let me just say that it's a sport where people get hit a lot and have lots of bad-ass attitude while doing it.  Sure you won't understand the rules...that's fine.  I've been a volunteer for two years now and I'm just starting to figure out the finer points of the game.  Go to YouTube and watch some instructional videos if you want to learn the rules or just go to a match.  By the end of the match you'll be picking out points and recognizing penalties.  There's always a neat, well designed, handsomely managed scoreboard to show you the score anyway.  (That's my department.)  

So yeah.  My plug for derby.  Do it.  Go.  Find a match out there and just go.  If you live in a bigger city they most likely serve beer at the match.  Neat.  If you live in a smaller city...well...just pre-game it at home and catch a cab.  (Don't drink and drive...)  

Well...now I'm ranting.  Your mission....should you choose to accept it.  Find me a picture of action figures battling on top of a computer tower like it was a skyscraper.  Bonus points if there's a helicopter involved...double bonus points if there's a wookie.

Chewbacca...what a wookie.  (Reference?)

Good Morning World.  

This morning I have an itch to talk about independent publishing on the internet.  This came from a conversation me and a coworker were having the other day, reminiscing about the days when Mtv still played music.  In the mid to late eighties, when a major artist released a new video on Mtv it was a really big deal.  People got excited and when it was finally released you kept the television on all day and night in hopes of getting to see it.  

You youngsters have to understand that music videos were a big deal back then, combined with America's Funniest Home Videos it was the closest thing we had to YouTube.  The best were mini-movies, often ten to fifteen minutes long.  Ever seen the entire Thriller video?  It nearly has a plot it's so long.

 Anyway, enough of the way-back machine.  The point is, the system back then told you what to watch and listen to because you didn't have much choice.  Especially in a small town.  Mtv, the radio and what was stocked at KMart was all you had access to.  It was sad really.

Now, it's all changed.  Yay!  For the better right?  Well....not really.  Yes, anyone can publish their stories and music anytime they want.  Anyone.  Anytime.  That adds up a TON of material out there that is impossible to sort through.  At least in the old system we had a vast middle ground of indie-publishers that refused the obvious crap and offered up styles and artists that were passed over by the big time outfits.  There was a filtering process because the consumer needs one.  Now there is no filter, no crap by-pass valve and it's all mixed together in one big pot.  

There is still really good stuff out there though.  Good books, good music, good art.  We just have to work a little bit harder to find it but I think it's worth it.  Skip the cat pictures today, they honestly haven't been that funny for the last few years.  Go find some self-published music or a independently published book and give it a chance.  If it's good, or even just not-too-bad, tell people about it.  Be the Mtv of the future.  Help sort the crap.  

Good morning!

The blog is up but not exactly running as of yet.  I had grand dreams of coding this blog into a finely crafted web experience but as I dusted off the old web design knowledge I found it was a bit rusty.  So...free service it is!  

Blogging for prizes?

Yes.  Not good prizes mind you but prizes all the same.

How does it work?

Each week I will endeavor to post daily something that will inform or inspire the masses.  In addition I will post a clue about something, someone or someplace that will need to be identified to claim the prize.  The first person to correctly solve the identity of that weeks mystery will receive a prize!  

Gold?  Jewels?  Rare artwork from the lost Medici vaults?

No.  Prizes will be small with little to no cash value.  

Seriously?  What a rip-off!

What?  Really?  You're getting mad about a free prize from a blog?  

Yes.  I demand iTunes gift cards!

Well screw you.  I hate iTunes.  So there.  

*sniff*  But...my iPhone...my iPad...my MacBook pro...they, they need apps!  

I don't care.  App monster.  I've got a Windows Phone and I don't get cool apps.  Just useful things like spreadsheets and Angry Birds: Star Wars.  So go play with your Temple Run mini-game in the corner and leave me alone.  

Wait!  I'm a good, open-source, free thinking Linux loving guy!  What about me?

Oooh...well then.  You get a book, or a toy.  If you're really lucky maybe you'll get one of my many hand-made craft projects!  Dice bag anyone?  

I love dice bags!

Of course you do.  

So when is the first contest?  I want a dice bag for all my d6!  So many d6....Shadowrun you monster!

The first chance to win will start next week on Monday, February 4th.  The first clue will be at the end of that days blog post.  Each day a new post and a new clue will be added.  The first person to leave a comment on  a post with the correct answer wins the prize!  It's that simple.  

Wait...wait one second.  How am I supposed to get this fabulous prize?  I live in Wales!  

You lucky fool!  Why would you need prizes when you already live in paradise?  Prizes will mailed via super-duper discount USPS mail.  If you live within my local area, prizes will be given to you when I see you at the pub.  International winners will receive something digitial via email such as an e-book or some music or something.  

Alright, sounds fun.  Let's get it on!

Whoa...not until we've gotten to know each other a little better first.  Sheesh.  Seriously though, thanks for taking the time to visit and I hope you're interested, perplexed or even just mildly entertained.  Tune in tomorrow for more details and feel free to comment on how insane this might be.  

Until next time...