Author Archives: Bob Hentges

Face it. The human race is devolving.

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Just a quote I found in Marc Lehmann‘s collected net snippets.

The links to in the quote have been added by me so as to allow those of you who do not know what Oblivion or an RPG is know how the reasoning started.

Oh, I agree completely. No game has ever let me down the way Oblivion did. I’m still hoping mods and expansions will fix it but there’s no way I’m pre-ordering the next one. I’m afraid it really will be a first person shooter.

The really scary thing is that it’s not just video games. Book sales were done last year because people just don’t read as much anymore. I’m having to dumb down my newspaper editorials because people used to want analysis they could use to make their own opinions, now they seem to just want opinions they can quote without having to think for themselves. McDonalds puts pictures of the food on the cash register instead of numbers.

Face it. The human race is devolving. In 500 years the best selling RPG in the universe will be a console game where you roleplay an ape named Fred, swing on vines and throw your own excrement. You’ll have one stat, apeness. It will effect everything you do in a subtle, yet unexplained way.

And Bethesda fan boys will be screaming “TES 504: Monkeypoo good. You go bak cave, no good rpger. Two stats bad. Made feces throw too hard. Shiney key graphic good. Make me happy.”

*shrugs* But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Note: I fixed some typos in the quote. Which means this isn’t a (sic).

Thank you Condoleeza

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Thank you for setting the world back by ten or twenty years.

Quoting Reuters:

“The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it,” she said, referring to the Soviet Union in a slip of the tongue, even as she urged Russia to abandon Cold War thinking.

For those that shouldn’t have gotten it right – I am obviously joking. Though she probably wasn’t. Have it this or that way, but such a slip of tongue in that situation is quite impressive.

Greenpeace has gone nuts

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Quoting from the german “Spiegel” from here

“Während sich die Experten des Weltklimarates den Kopf über Maßnahmen gegen den Klimawandel zerbrechen, leistet sich Deutschland als einziges Industrieland der Welt weiterhin unbeschränkte und CO2-treibende Raserei”, sagte Wolfgang Lohbeck, Verkehrsexperte von Greenpeace. Es sei ein ungeheurer Zynismus, dass Minister Tiefensee ein Tempolimit blockiere. “Er verantwortet damit Jahr für Jahr Hunderte von zusätzlichen Verkehrstoten, Tausende von Verletzten und mehrere Millionen Tonnen Treibhausgase. Da die zuständigen Politiker bisher immer nur reden, wird Greenpeace jetzt handeln!”

and

Laut Greenpeace würde ein Tempolimit eine unmittelbare Verringerung des CO2-Ausstoßes um etwa neun Prozent auf deutschen Straßen mit sich bringen. Greenpeace setzt sich dafür ein, dass Hersteller Autos auf den Markt bringen, die weniger Sprit verbrauchen – wenn keine hohen Geschwindigkeiten mehr erlaubt seien, steige auch der Anreiz bei den Herstellern, weniger auf umweltschädigende Autos zu setzen, hieß es bei der Umweltorganisation.

In essence, Greenpeace doesn’t like politicians discussing matters to long – in this instance – speed limitations and has decided to put up their own road signs limiting the maximum speed on the famous German Autobahns to 120km/h. Now, am I missing something or, are they trying to abolish democracy (and freedom while we are at it?).

Reason, CO2 emissions could be reduced by a whopping 9% on the road (note: in my opinion that’s far, far less then a 1% overall reduction) and if there are low speed limits car manufacturers can concentrate on low emissions and low fuel consumption rather then speed. Nice thinking overall, I’ve got to admit. Oh wait, it might not be that good after all. What about American Cars? In the US the speed limits are quite low, actually a good deal lower then in good old Europe and yet they are fuel guzzling monsters.

On Time

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Yet another gem:

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets’ pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine.

About the supreme Throne
Of Him, t’whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthly grossness quit,
Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.

by John Milton (1608 -1674)

Programmer Personality Test

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For whatever it is worth, though I guess it’s not worth much:

Your programmer personality type is: PHTB

You’re a Planner.
You may be slow, but you’ll usually find the best solution. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

You like coding at a High level.
The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way.

You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it’s parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.

You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We’re not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

If you’d be interested to do the test, here’s a handy link.