Fuck Everything!!!

I remember when I was a kid I would go to my cousins house or my cousins would come to my hose every day (this is when we weren’t simply living together) and every morning my mom would call up my aunt and say "Alex in a ninja turtle today" or maybe robin hood, or an Indian, or a super hero, it was different every day, then we would hop in the car and drive over there (or they would come over here) and Reid and Chris would all ready be all decked out with blankets for capes or mixing bowl army helmets, by the time we made eye contact we were already being chased by aliens.
Real life sucks ass!!!

Just call me sensei.

I know it's a little weird but I’ve been thinking lately about writing a math curriculum, yeah really.
Imagine a math class that only happens twice a week and it works like this.

Class 1: you come into class, the teacher takes care of all of the preliminaries, names, course schedule, etc. then he hands you a piece of paper and you leave.

Homework 1: On the piece of paper is a complicated real world applied math problem that to solve requires all of the concepts and equations that need to be learned in the first week, at the bottom of the page there is a list of resources where you could find the information you need to answer the problem and a notice that tells you that there will be a optional class taking place in three days if you need extra assistance. The assignment is to solve the problem showing all of your work, not all of your notes and scratch paper, a neatly re-written representation of what steps you took to solve the equation. Then you turn it in at your next class.

Class 2: You come into class and turn in your solved equation, of you don’t have it the teacher the teacher gives you the homework and you leave, then half a letter grade (5%) is removed for every day that it is late. For those who did turn it in, the rest of class is used in explaining the solution, fielding questions and discussing the application. Then you are given your piece of paper with the homework and you leave.

Homework 2-end: On the paper is another real world applied math problem that to solve requires researching new mathematical principals in addition to applying concepts learned in previous weeks
Semester End: Up to this point all of your solutions have been graded taking into account the process, the answer, how easy or hard it is to understand your process, and your understanding of the application. In the end all of your scores are averaged and that is your final score.

In this system you never hear “How are we ever going to use this”, you get to experience a little taste of different math/science fields and the information is cemented in your brain better because of the research aspect. I would love learning like this.

SUPER MEGA ULTRA AWSOME GUNDAM RANGERS vs. MECHA TURDUCKEN ep.1

Back by popular demand... realy

Episode: One, The beginning of the end.

We begin our story in a small costal town in Vermont, everyone is out and about at work or school when suddenly, OH NO, SUPER MEGA ULTRA AWSOME GUNDAM RANGERS, HURRY, THE CITY (town) NEEDS YOUR HELP, THERE'S A GIANT RAMPAGEING MONSTER WREAKING HAVOC AGAIN!!! (which makes no sense at all because this is a small insignificant town in a state that people often forget exist), SAVE US!!!
So the Super Mega Ultra Awesome Gundam Rangers put on there power suits, (by the way, why are the power suits made of spandex that's so tight that you can tell that the blue ranger is Jewish just by looking at him) jump into their Super Mega Ultra Awesome Gundam Ranger Megazords and dash into town to fight the giant evil robot (at which time sky scrapers magically appear all over town for the sole purpose of looking cool being knocked down during the battle).
The Super Mega Ultra Awesome Gundam Rangers arrive on the scene, "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!" "It's a giant mechanical turkey." "So... do we just kill it or what?" "What do you mean?" "It's just a freaking turkey." Then suddenly *(ZAP!!!) a giant death ray comes out of the turkeys mouth (BOOM!!! then all of the rangers throw themselves backwards as if they were blown up even though the explosion was twenty feet in front of them and composed completely of colored sparks)
"OH NO!!! Jimmy!!!" "Jimmy are you all right?" "I think I’ll be okay, but i cant move, you must save the city!" "Okay Jimmy, we're on it." "And guys" "Yeah?" "Please... Beat the $#!% out of that mother @&=#~$ for me will ya?" "For you Jimmy, and your sacrifice" "MEGAZORD POWERS, ACTIVATE!!!" (Then over the next minute and a half all of the megazords connect into this huge superzord while the monster sits there and DOES NOTHING!!!)
"Ha! we'll get you this time you, you turkey you" "Super Mega Ultra Awesome Gundam Ranger gun, activate" (Then the ultrazord magically pulls a massive bazooka out of its @$$ ) "Come on everybody, super gun power activate, FIRE!!!" (Then the monster just stands there for thirty seconds while the rangers lock on, charge up and fire.
"Yeah, direct hit!" "We got it!"
Then it happened, the smoking turkey stood there when suddenly it split open and out came... A CHICKEN!!!
"Everyone look, it wasn't a turkey it was a... churky." "A churkey?" "You know, half chicken, half turkey." "Wouldn’t is be a tricken or something like th... Hey look at that."
Suddenly the chickens eyes began to glow red, then it violently blew open and out jumped... A CRAZED SABER TOOTHED DUCK!!!
Oh my God, it's not a churky or a tricken, all of my worst fears have now been realized in this hour of truth, that is, THE MECHA TURDUCKEN!!! EVERYBODY RUN!!!"

But he was to late, with a single rumbling QUACK, the entire state crumbled to dust, the era of the turducken has come, the end is near.

To be continued...

Start playing games with my head Episode: 2

I've played a lot of video games in my time, some are satisfying and some just aren't, so I’m trying to think from a developers point of view to try to find out what makes one of those really satisfying games so good. I will touch on this subject several more times in the future but today I’m going to look at personal player physics.
I can't stand a game with bad jump and fall dynamics, I’m sorry but the days of super jumps and double jumps are over, it was fun while it lasted. You may be thinking "what's the fun in having a four foot maximum jump height", but that's not what I had in mind at all, it would just be great if these rules applied.

A = 9.81 m/sec^2

Df = Do + Vo T + 1/2 A T^2

Vf = Vo + A T

Vf^2 - Vo^2 = 2A Df

I never said that Vo (Initial velocity) had to be realistic.
Imagine your character pushing off of the ground at an initial speed of 251mph turning the ground below him into a crater as he flies into the air along with his enemy, battling all the way up. Then, a full twelve seconds later you and your adversary land softly at the tip of a 2250ft tall building overlooking the carnage of what was your home town. You fight atop the building performing amazing acrobatic feats that would totally work I real life if you had limitless strength. Finally your adversary knocks you off of the building then jumps after you, you two battle during the decent until the screen starts shaking as you approach terminal velocity, you land on your feet and the pavement shatters beneath you and you are suddenly lost in a cloud of dust and debris. You throw up your sward arm just in time for your enemies landing, when the dust settles you find him impaled not only on your sward but on your arm, his corpse now resting around our elbow. Yeah Sweet!!!
As a rule, I think that sub consciously, man is more drawn to hyperrealism than surrealism, to the guy who defies gravity rather than the guy who simply lives with less of it. That's why Final Fantasy VII Advent Children was so much cooler than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

The Handwriting on the Wall

The final words of a graphite death camp prisoner.

I believe my time is coming, all of the forward detainees have already been transferred, to where, I’m can't be sure, but nothing can be worse than this wooden prison, opressing body and mind. I’m not sure, but I don’t think all of my fellow prisoners are going to the same place, most of them seem to going to similar rectangular white cells, you start to get a little loopy when your time is coming, so I assume that what I saw was the psychiatric wing, I can't be sure, I only got a glimpse. Every once in a while they transfer large groups at one time, first they’re there, then there suddenly gone with a deafening snap, never to be seen again. When this happens they bring in a machine they call “The Sharpener”, they tell us that the machine makes us sharper, stronger, and better as a whole, but I know the truth, it’s a death machine, the grinding, the snapping, I know what it is. Even worse than all of this, worse than the constant fear of the unknown, worse than endless wondering of what will be your end when you reach the point of no return, worse than any of this, is the executioners constant smirking glare. He sits there all day and night, his grinning pink face smeared with the filth of his last execution, we all know he can‘t get us as long as we‘re in here, but for some reason, that doesn’t make it any better. The wooden prison of Ticonderoga, we have no names, just a number, #2, they say they need us for tests, it seems that they’re simply testing how long it takes for our wills to break. It doesn't take long.

The end has come, the sharpener is calling for me, but stand strong my brothers and do not break, for if you do, your words will never be heard.

This is the happy thought that helps me fly

I have seen every Peter Pan movie known to man, Hook, Disney’s Peter Pan, Disney’s crappy sequel, Finding Neverland, etc. but there is one thing I haven’t seen in any of those movies, you know it’s there, you just never see it.
Where is that old man that Captain Hook pays to sit in the corner an repeat “I don’t believe in fairies, I don’t believe in fairies, I don’t believe in fairies” over and over again all day on the off chance that one of those times Tinkerbell will fall over dead.
I can totally see it playing out in my mind. Captain Hook is all like, “Arrrrr, come down here and fight like a man Peter Pan!”, then Peter Pan is all like “You’ll never catch me Hook, HA HA HA, come on Tink, let’s get him…Tink?… TINK!!!” then Peter and Wendy lose there flying magic and fall forty feet to the deck of the pirate ship and die on impact. That’s my kind of Peter Pan movie.
Believe it or not I used to like Peter Pan, I think Michael Jackson ruined it for me.

Start playing games with my head Episode: 1

Read: "Start playing games with my head Episode: 0" first

I was thinking, I wonder how it would work out if the standard polygonal object system was replaced with a building block/ adhesive system.
Example:
Imagine a large block of cement, this block has been rendered using a building block/ adhesive system. You drop the block off of the back of a truck, it breaks into several smaller blocks with random shatter patterns. One of those smaller blocks is thrown against a wall and it breaks into even smaller pieces. You hit one of those blocks with a sledge hammer and it crumbles into dust and rubble.
The first break was created by a relatively low kinetic energy collision, then the energy of the collisions increased until the block became dust. This is because the groupings were held together with a stronger and stronger adhesive effect as the groups became smaller. This system could be used in several different applications, like with wood it would be programmed to fall apart in a splintering pattern rather than a crumbling pattern.
Like in real life the extent of the destruction would coincide with the amount of energy supplied to break the adhesive. This could also come in handy with the destruction of complete structures, in this system the destruction of important architectural supports on a structure would cause stress to the bonds of the structure in question and it would crumble to the ground.
Pliable bendable metals and plastics may be in issue, there would need to be some way to create a distinction between pliable and rigid adhesive bonds. Also I don’t know how it would effect texture mapping. It may not be possible to apply in a game situation in the near future because it may over tax the CPU.

Start playing games with my head Episode: 0

So I was watching Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (best movie ever!!!) the other day, again, and when it was over I reacted the same way I have all of the other times I have watched it, the ending credits roll and I scream to the heavens “Why not me!!!”
For those of you who don’t know, I plan to pursue a career in game development when I’m finished with college, and every time I see a piece of 3D animation I cant help but think “When’s it going to be my turn?!?!?!”.
It’s all part of my obsession with creating things, I realized this obsession the first time I created a list of things I wouldn’t mind doing as a career, the list included, artist, musician, writer, cook, architect, I wouldn’t even mind being the worlds only ladies clothing designer who actually likes ladies (If you know what I mean).
By this time I had developed a love of physics, so I thought “What do you get when you cross physics, art, music, writing, architecture and clothing design, then make it interactive?… VIDEO GAMES!!!”. Ever since then I look at the world and see numbers, polygons, physical properties, lighting, texture mapping, camera angles, etc. and because of this my mind is constantly pummeled with ideas with ideas to communicate realism, surrealism and hyperrealism to the 3D interactive matrix. In some of my following notes I plan to communicate some of my graphic arts ideas to you guys and hope for input.

HOLY SHIT!!!

Emotion is the fuel of life; no matter how much people want to deny it, emotion is the driving force that dictates peoples actions. Negative emotions often carry the most influence, emotions such as greed, hate, fear and pain. Fear is particularly powerful due to the fact that it has so many complicated dimensions. Fear is connected to many different emotions and feelings; fear is connected to pain, which is in turn connected to death, which is the gateway to the unknown, God and ultimately eternity.
All fear can be traced to pain, not only physical pain but emotional pain as well (“Fear“). Some common fears include the fear of heights, which is the fear of falling and getting hurt, the fear of dogs, which is the fear of a dog hurting you, and the fear of fire, which is the fear of getting hurt by a burn. Each of these fears is the result of a fear of physical pain. Most fears are quite rational, such as driving fast, or working with electricity, because it is quite likely that pain or even death would be involved if either of those things were done incorrectly. Many fears are irrational, such as the fear of beards, tables or any other random harmless objects, but even with those fears the fear is somehow connected to a fear of physical pain, like a person that is afraid of chickens may have been hurt by a chicken as a child. Another type of pain that is just as, if not more, feared as physical pain is mental or emotional pain. Some may ask, “If all fear is connected to pain, then why would someone be afraid of being burglarized when they’re not even at home?”, because if someone has something stolen, he may be afraid of the burglar returning when he is home, that is the fear of physical pain, but what is more likely is that he is afraid of the emotional pain of loss, anger, hate and helplessness that come with being victimized by theft. Perhaps if the rather uncomfortable feeling pain brings was not accompanied by a fear of death, we could ignore more of it, but it is, fear is woven together with this mysterious thing called death.
As seemingly simple as death itself is, it comes in multiple forms and is connected to different forms of fear, physical and emotional. The most easily recognized and accepted form of death is physical death, which is connected to the fear of physical pain. When someone is unexpectedly pricked with a needle or has a hair pulled a fairly normal reaction to that sensation is a yelp or a small scream. That scream is probably not a reaction to the pain but a reaction of fear, the body feels the pain and the subconscious automatically goes through a list of possible causes of that pain (DeBecker 13). A pinprick could mean the injection of an unhealthy substance or the opening of a wound that could potentially become infected; a hair pulled could mean the prescence of an unwelcome person or thing that could potentially cause more pain. With proper warning, most people will have a much smaller reaction to the pain because they would recognize that there is no risk of death or continued injury because they know what’s going on. If there is still a reaction it’s probably because the amount of pain caused was more than the recipient expected and the brain is calculating what that could mean. So when the body reacts to the pain in fear, the cause is that the body is calculating the risk of a fatal episode due to that pain.->
(Illegitimate Content, my apologies)
<-The danger sensor of a person are programmed during childhood, a baby is born with several warning signals hardwired into their brains including fears of discomfort or sudden changes in surroundings. As a child grows the original warning sign begin to change and increase in complexity. A child will develop fears based on observation, like a child will see someone fall and get hurt and may develop a fear of heights, or will watch a scary movie and develop a fear of the dark. At some point the child will stop developing as many new fears and will begin rationalizing some fears and discarding others, a child will realize that falling from a high place is not common and will lose their fear of heights or will relize that the reasons for having a fear of the dark are chiefly fictional; the amount of fear connected to certain things are given their place as one grows and calculates the probability of that thing or situation being harmful. Most irrational fears are developed because a fear will be developed that would usually be considered highly frightening it usually means that as a child that person probably witnessed that particular thing performed safely enough times to be unaware of the danger (Gillham).
Another form of death that is not quite as widely accepted and realized as physical death is emotional death. People fear emotional pain because it can seriously injure their emotional stability. If someone experiences too much emotional pain, they may have the risk of having an emotional breakdown. In the event of a severe mental or emotional breakdown, a person can experience so much emotional pain that they wish for physical death, suicide. Even though the emotional pain did not physically kill the person, it might as well have, therefore emotional death. Man fears pain because pain warns man of death, but why does man fear death so fervently, what makes death so scary?
When someone walks into an unfamiliar dark room, he is always a little frightened. There could be something dangerous hiding in the darkness of the room, or there could be a stool near the door that he could trip over, or it may just simply be an empty room, the fact is that he really does not know and can not know until he flips the light switch so he can see the contents of the room, and at that point his fear will either be relieved or greatly worsened. Death is like the light switch, everyone is afraid of when it will be flipped because they can never tell what will happen when it does. Death, eternity, the ultimate unknown, there are many ideas about what eternity is, many believe in heaven and hell, others may believe in reincarnation, while others doubt that there is any existence an after life of any kind. With heaven and hell comes God, the ruler of the known and unknown and as such He is the connection between life and eternity. God is feared for many reasons, some fear Him because they do not know Him, and do not know His power and therefore fear Him because he cannot be controlled. Many fear, not God, but the question of weather He exists or not. Those who do know him fear Him because they know His power and it is human nature to fear absolute power (Holy Bible, Matt. 10.28). On the other side of eternity there is Satan and hell. Hell is the ultimate fear, when people are worrying about what eternity is, no matter what they call it, hell is what they worry about. The big question that is asked by all man kind is what to believe: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, New Age? That question has driven men to madness and entire nations to war but God tells us that that love and faith overcomes all fear (Holy Bible, John. 5.18).
Fear is man’s warning of pain, pain is man’s warning of death and death is man’s way into the next step of existence, so it seems that man is afraid of taking the next step. All fear can be traced to pain, both emotional and physical. Both physical and emotional pain are warning signals to alert the body of the possibility of death. Death is man’s passage to God and eternity. It appears that the reason that man is so afraid of death is that he simply doesn’t want to take the next step.

GUTS

So, the other day I was sitting at the dinner table eating a bowl of multi-grain cheerios when I was quite suddenly struck with a revelation, "Boy do I feel sorry for the small intestine!!!". I mean, seriously, think about it, the glory of the small intestine is always stolen by the stomach and the large intestine, what the hell! okay, what is the job of the stomach? it sits around all day EATING!!! SLOVENLY WHORE!!! it doesn't even need to chew, it's just lets its acid break it down, and to top it all off, it gets the occasional entertainment of cranking out a good burp, lucky.
Now let's think about the large intestine, what does that do? It spends all day turning everything it gets its hands on into shit and secreting an odor to rival a pile of rotting corpses, seriously!!! That is one lucky organ, if it's on a woman it's got a hot party going on next door on a regular basis, and if it's on a gay guy, the party's at his place. And to top it all off every once in a while it kills someone with appendicitis, WHAT A BITCH!!!
Now, let's think about what the small intestine does, it works all day to absorb all the nutrients from the your food then spoon feeds it to your body so you don't die of malnutrition, now that’s an organ that deserves a cigar and a handshake!

Frankly My Dear, I Don't Give a Damn

Human emotions are a funny thing, especially when it comes to the subject of death. I remember after the "Virginia Tech tragedy". I went to school the next day and there were people who were all broken up about it and there were all kinds of Facebook and Myspace groups dedicated to it and signs up around school saying "not only is this a tragedy for our brothers and sisters at tech but for colleges everywhere", and my response was "NO IT'S FREAKIN NOT!!!". My first response after the "tragedy" was that I called my friend, made sure his sister wasn't dead, then I went about my business and didn't think about it again until I saw some people crying about it the next day, I came up to them and I talked to them for a little while; after talking to them for a couple minutes I came to find out that neither of them had any direct connection to anyone who was even in the building where the shooting took place. What the hell!!!
Why does man have this obsession with death and being sad about it? When I was a small child I was going to my great grandmothers funeral, and while I was in the car on the way there I said out loud "cool, I've never been to a funeral before!", my entire family looks at me in horror and my older sister says " Alex, we're going to a funeral, grandma died", I knew that, it had simply never crossed my mind to be sad, I barely knew this woman, I had no real connection to her and even though I was directly related to her I saw her death as nothing more than a way to go see my first funeral, cool! Even when I saw her body in the open casket my mind simply thought about the difference between American and ancient Egyptian burial practices, I had no connection to this woman, and that's the bottom line.
People are obsessed with creating false connections to people they don't know during "crisis" and/or "fatal " situations in order to... ummmm... I don't know... feel included?
If you look at it from a logical standpoint people should never, NEVER be sad about death. Let me explain, if man was simply sad about death alone, the entirety of humanity would immediately become stagnate and incapacitated by a deep depression over the millions of people who die every day. The sadness created by death is a reaction to severed connections, both real and manufactured. On September eleventh I watched the TV as the buildings fell, killing thousands of people; not once did I feel even a little sad, all I thought was "Wow, I wonder if those buildings were specifically engineered to fall straight down like that in order to minimize damage to the surrounding buildings, cool" and this is because I had no connection to anyone who died in there, if I did have a connection to someone who had died I would be heartbroken, if a friend of a friend had died I would be sad because someone I have a direct connection to is heartbroken, other than that I go "Well this should be interesting." I'm not going to be sad for some person somewhere being sad, I simply don't care. I don't want to sound like Scrooge, but there is a surplus population and if people don't die in large numbers on a regular basis it's just going to be that much worse for the people who are alive now and will be alive in the future, there is no open season for humans, how else are we gonna go, people die to old these days. If you look at the big picture, it's best for the general population if the mortality rate equals or exceeds the birthing rate. So don't let the natural and necessary progression of life and death cripple mankind with pointless depression. PEOPLE DIE, IT'S A GOOD THING!!!

Failerscates?

yes, that's about right.