This is a very good summary of the practical reasons I enjoy using Linux as my primary desktop environment.

After work today a co-worker and I played a few rounds of OpenArena, a new playable game derived from Quake3 that is fully distributable under the GPL.  The company that produced the original game Quake3, ID software, released the game engine but not the rights to the graphics.  So the fine folks at OpenArena combined the donated Quake3 engine with their own graphics… and the combination makes for a very enjoyable game!

They have a game client for both Linux and Windows, and seems like maybe something for OSX too.

I am now pro in Tennis, Boxing, and Bowling. New bowling high score: 205.

UPDATE: 208

• qwantz.com, the finest internet comics bar none. And I mean it, none.
• zefrank.com/theshow, the only video blog I watch. Because it’s awesome.
• digg.com, where I find silly links to videos and pictures.
• slashdot.org, because I’m a nerd and like Linux and such.
• [redacted].com, because it’s a fun internet hangout not connected with my regular life.
• bbcnews.com, because US news is ad-infested crap that can’t be arsed to hide its own bias.
• cbc.ca, just in case something happens in Canada that the BBC doesn’t report.
• reader.google.com, where I catch up on the websites not listed here (gnome, friends, nintendo, politics)
• worsethanhitler.org, the most exciting place to surf the tubes

This is like the time when I played zoo tycoon and let the lions out in my zoo to eat all of the visitors. Except a million times better.

read more | digg story

My wife got an iPod nano for xmas, 2nd generation (pink).  I think it’s one of the most beautifully engineered products I have ever seen, in your hand it feels like it should be worth 5x the price.  I don’t really need one for myself as I don’t listen to music much, but Apple has sure done a wonderful thing with those.

But this is crazy scary

.

Meh.  I don’t find hallucinogenics very appealing, and apparently I don’t find them very interesting either.  The rotoscoping technique used was exceptionally pretty and I think added to the effect that the director was driving at, but I couldn’t find myself to care about the plot much.  Maybe I’m getting jaded but the plot twists were all very obvious and the pacing seemed erratic.. sometimes too slow other times much too fast.

Maybe the book was better, but the film is a miss.  Unless you think that a bunch of hallucinating idiots babbling is interesting or funny or whatever.

Watching my 70+/80+ grandparents play wiibowling was nothing but spectacular. They were pretty skittish at first but got the hang of it really quickly, scoring as high as 130 on their first effort!

Other wii-related news:

• My parents both love bowling. Surprisingly they don’t really like tennis but my dad also quite likes the golf game.
• I turned pro in wiiboxing, woo! Nearly there in Tennis too.  The AI get really tough as your skill level increases!
• Got Madden 07 Wii for xmas. Don’t usually like football games but this one is a blast! The controls were a bit too complex for my dad though so I had to play this one solo. After a few games I started to get the hang of the basics and really started to get into it.
• I nearly got a great entry on wiihaveaproblem.com as my mother chucked her wiimote at their large hdtv lcd, but it bounced off with no apparent harm done.
• My arms are really, really, really sore.

I just posted this from my Wii.

• Playing Wii Sports, Excite Truck, Rayman Raving Rabbids
• Work: exciting and frustrating at the same time
• Attending my step-grandfather’s funeral
• Sleeping in
• Watching: Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Lucky Number Slevin, An Inconvenient Truth

It’s been a long time since I last shared my thoughts on this here humble weblog.  And I know what you’ve all been thinking: what does the venerable Worse Than Hitler weblog think about Iraq?  Well fret no longer, because that’s the topic of the day!

There has been much ballyhoo about the troop levels in Iraq.  Two of the most common trains of thought are either “we should increase troop levels to increase stability” or “we should decrease troop levels as they are a destabilizing force”.  Both of these positions ignore the reality of the effect that the presence of US troops have in the region.

The enemy that the US faces right now is one that uses “terrorist” tactics.  That is to say they use suicide bombs, hit-n-run, attacking civilians and anyplace vulnerable no matter how incidental they are to the actual target.  These are the tactics of an enemy who has very little strength or real power, it is a misnomer to conflate this type of activity with a full out civil war.

It seems to me that the reason these people are acting out of a position of weakness is because of the presence of the US troops.  A traditional civil war could not happen right now as it would be crushed in infancy by the obviously more powerful US forces.  So instead they lay back and snipe at each other and retreat into the darkness, creating martyrs to repay the actions in kind on another day.

Increasing the troop levels does nothing to address this fundamental nature of the existing conflict.  Throwing more people at the existing problem just means that the murderers on either side will resort to killing more and more incidental targets.  They really don’t seem to care, hitting mosques and bus stops and red crescent agencies.  It would be impossible to actually affect serious change with more troops unless they install the same sort of authoritarian police state that they are nominally trying to replace in Iraq.

So it seems to me that the existing troops are probably preventing a massively destructive full out civil war, but that they are unable to realistically curb the sort of violence that occurs on a daily basis in Iraq.  Would a short but devastating conflict be any better than the long protracted period of smaller scale random violence the current strategy is provoking?

I’m glad I don’t have to actually be the one to decide how to fix this, and can just smugly sit back and say “I told you so” to the morons who thought going into Iraq was a good idea to start with.  Though, it’s not really all that much comfort.

I concur with geekpdx’s assessment, whiteboard stop-motion is wicked cool.  Also it’s his pi entry, congratulations dude!

I just had to…

1. I just read an article by some loser trying to sell people ideas on how to blog.
2. Todays tip is about getting a Wii.  I suggest getting to the store at 6:15a in the cold.
3. We’ve outlined many of these steps in red permanent marker, sorry about your car.
4. There are a lot of ways to query a database.
5. What I like about our industry is that we get free soda in the fridge.
6. Most of what Ive written hurts the brain.
7. For those who don’t know already, playing the Wii can make your arms very sore.
8. I’m thoroughly impressed with myself.
9. Do you really want to make a difference?  Because you can’t.
10. We have an exciting new announcement: I like cheese!
11. There are many proven and time-honored strategies, but a shot to the head is of course still the best.
12. Thought it would be fun to share, why are you arresting me?
13. An interesting thing happened recently, or so I assume.
14. The older I get the more I realize that time passes.
15. Sitting out here by the sea tac airport, I am waiting for Joh3n to arrive.
16. One of the best ways to write a blog entry is to make fun of others.
17. Ouch. Not really even a fight, more like a flight.
18. There’s a tremendous swell of interest in that giant meteorite coming to crush us all.
19. More often than not, you will not cut off your arm with a butter knife.
20. In case you missed it, I finally got a blog.  You’re reading it.
21. Have you ever tried to figure out why that guy tried to eat your brains?  You look pale.
22. Here is a different twist on the nipple.  Oops.
23. You’ve heard me say that I am not a fish.  In fact, I am not a fish.
24. It looks like there is no hope and we’re all going to die from ebola.
25. Knowing what it means to GeekPDX, I’m still going to make fun of him for not having a Wii.
26. One of the earliest lessons I learned about riding a bike is to not crash into a wall.
27. Entering the mind of a tadpole, I start wanting to swim and become a frog.  Weird eh?
28. Are you looking for a change?  Or just change, because I’ve got four quarters if you got a dollar.
29. Every so often, I talk with clients who would like to stop paying me money to shoot at them.

Fluffy reminds me just how great Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is.  It might be near time to dust it off and spin it back up.

Wii are doing just fine, now that wii are in from the cold after waiting outside of Target for 2 hours to get a Wii this morning.

I was #18 out of 42… if I had got there 30 minutes later I would have been too late.  But I wasn’t.

I have a Wii!