My Theories On Everything.

Almost there.

ECAC CHAMPS.

Goddamn Diablo III… SO SOON. 7 days baby.

http://www.houseofpaincakes.com/

I will say that the deep I go into the 40K blogsphere, the more distracted from my work I get. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Opinions on Opinions: Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.

This article recently posted in the NYT’s opinion section really got me interested. I feel like there is a lot of hate and animosity towards government organisations like the FBI when it comes to counter-terrorism. Entrapment seems to be a growing source of discontentment among critics.

My thoughts on these sting operations? It’s easy to criticize them, just as easy as it is to praise them. Looking from the most basic level you have people with potentially bad intentions that only need the means to carry out an attack. By providing them with the means it’s an easy conviction. The positives; you take out a future threat. They may have carried out their ideals, they may not have. But it’s irrelevant when they’re already in jail. The negatives: one can argue that these people were never going to carry out illegal activities, rather just harboring ideas. This in and of itself is not illegal, and thus entrapment is bad.

I think that the arguments against these actions just don’t have the strength and validity to dissuade me. Just because someone is either providing you with the means or pressuring you to do something illegal doesn’t mean that you’re forced to do it. A little personal responsibility and reason is required when thinking about this. If I was to be approached with someone that had a flawless plan and means to rob a bank with minimal risk I wouldn’t be upset if I accepted, went along with it, and then ended up on the losing end of a sting set-up. It’s a risk one takes when partaking in something illegal.

My final thoughts on issues like this? We live in a high stakes world where a few people with a relatively small amount of money can cause a lot of damage. People that don’t abide by the same set of morals or laws that the average US citizen does are not going to shy away from something because it is “bad” or “illegal” or “immoral”. Naysayers say that it is leading us into a world of authoritarian control and the death of freedom etc etc. The fact is, if preventative and preemptive actions are not taken, we’re looking at a serious threat in domestic security and safety.

TL; DR - We live in a dangerous world, hard choices must be made, deal with it.

- J

Lodi - CCR

Looking to get some photos of my recent works up.

Title says it all… hopefully I can borrow my friend’s camera tomorrow or maybe Friday.

- J

Might as well take a chance to plug one of my favorite streams. Great for background noise when I work/paint/etc.

- J

Opinions on Opinions: The Republicans are the problem

I just read a really interesting piece on the WP’s opinion section that I’d like to talk about. The name of the piece is call Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

Every time I wade into the mess that is the opinion section, I like to arm myself with a grain of salt, as most pieces are a load of biased crap. But I really found this one interesting. Let’s dissect the better parts.

Let’s be honest, the Republican party has a lot of members that say flat out crazy shit. It’s true, more-so than the Democrats. In my mind, crazy remarks like this really undermine the power of a party. It is hard to give an ear to people that don’t believe in things like evolution, social benefits, and take things like The Onion seriously. While I’d like to say there is even amounts of stupidity between the two parties, that’s just not the case.

The link provided by the author (warning, to another opinion section) only helps to confirm my suspicion, Republicans tend to run a bit on the stupid and ignorant side. The article cites that only 43% of Tea Party members accept mainstream scientific theories (for all purposes these should really be considered truths, something for another time perhaps). Do we really want our political leaders being dumbasses? Not to say that the Dems are completely innocent in this regard, there was a fair share of this during Bush’s reign as well, just a lot less… well stupid.

The thing that bothers me the most is this idea that Republicans refuse to compromise. What is the point of a two party system if one of the parties wants to deal in only black and white? It seems rather counter-intuitive. I don’t even disagree with all their ideas, but many of them are downright ridiculous, and in many cases the voters supporting them don’t know what they’re even fighting for (the classic “keep your government out of my medicaid” quote).

Oh well. I feel like this country’s politics leave me thinking more and more of one of my favorite LotR quotes: “What can men do against such reckless hate?”

- J

Metagaming? (Part 1)

I think the idea of metagaming is quite interesting. It’s a hated phrased, used and misused more than anything in gaming communities. Pros and Joes alike have their opinions on it. But how do we think about metagaming in a critical light? Let’s start by defining what metagaming is.

Meta means (to my understanding at least) an abstraction of an idea… and gaming has to do with gaming. So metagaming is an abstract idea relating to a game. Let’s put it in perspective with an example. I’m playing some custom games with my friend in SC2. I’m playing Protoss and he’s playing Zerg. I have noted in the last 4 games we played, he went ling/infestor every single time. So I open with a FFE into 8 gate chargelot/archon and stomp him. So I metagamed him by using abstract knowledge obtained outside of my ingame scouting from that match to gain an advantage. I noticed a trend outside of the current match and used it to influence my strategy (blindly I might add).

Let’s use another example that I think is closer to pure metagaming. You play IG in the bay area and you tend to play a lot of 5th edition mech lists. So naturally you take lots of melta guns. A sample list:

Imperial Guard “Steel Lions” - 2,000 points

Company Command Squad w/ Chimera - 4 x plasma guns - Chimera w/ heavy flamer

Troops

Veterans w/ Chimera - 3 x meltaguns - Chimera w/ heavy flamer

Veterans w/ Chimera - 3 x plasma guns - Chimera w/ heavy flamer

Fast Attack

Vendetta

Hellhound - heavy flamer

Heavy Support

Manticore Missile Launcher - heavy flamer

Total: 2,005 points

This is classic mech vet taken off of Mercer’s blog: http://www.imperiusdominatus.com/2010/09/army-lists-imperial-guard-plas-melta.html

You do well because you gaming group plays mech often. But you move to the southwest which is dominated by hoard armies and get stomped. The metagame here is different and you must adjust accordingly.

Pulling out to the bigger picture, let’s say you’re in the same situation as you were in the beginning, but you’re playing ladder against strangers. You use this Chargelot/Archon build against all Zergs you play. Currently that wouldn’t be as effective as it was a few weeks ago when most Zergs were going Ling/Infestor. We see a lot of 12 minute maxed 3 hatch roach pushes, which do pretty well vs. 2 base charge/archon. You can see how keeping up with current strategy trends can lead to easy wins/losses.

Even football is based on abstract trends. The plays that have been created are based on past games which were based on past games which were originally based on trial and error, just following the rules. If we were to play SC2 with no knowledge of SC1, the game would be very different right now. How long would it take Terrans to wall-in vs Zergs? How long would it take for the 4 gate as we know it to be created? How many months until 2 basing becomes the norm?

For more extreme examples of “purer” metagaming, I would suggest reading about how Magic can play out at higher levels. Truly complex and terrifying. You could spend years and years playing Magic and still struggle to understand the complex trends and mingames that go on at higher levels.

Let’s bring this all back and think about how this can help us be better gamers. We know what metagaming is and we know some good examples. Does it make you a better player? Should you metagame your opponents? Is the metagame always right? How do we create builds and armies that stray from the beaten path and completely dominate the current metagame, yet still are considered “bad”? I’ll cover my thoughts on these points in part 2.

It’s Tuesday! How to manage?

Probably my least favorite day of the week culminating with 5 classes and a hearty helping of cardio work.

How to manage this?

Get up early. I mean I’d have to get up at 5:50 for practice anyways, but if you have a busy day it doesn’t pay off to spend an extra 30 minutes in bed. Get the blood pumping and get some food in your.
Prepare the night before. Bags packed, homework printed, snacks prepared, etc. This is common sense but seldom practiced. It’ll save you time in the AM.
Space out your meals… you really shouldn’t be eating 3 times a day unless you’re a farmer. I do 5 smaller meals a day and it helps cut down on time spent eating and time feeling full and useless.
Drink coffee. It makes you feel alive.
Avoid backtracking. Don’t go back to your room/car unless you MUST and there is no other option. Unless I have a 2+ hour break between classes I just stay in the library or in a cafe and work. Don’t waste time.
Pack snacks, you’re not in middle school anymore but that doesn’t mean you don’t need the quick pick-me-ups.
Drink lots of water! Do this everyday anyways but especially when you have a lot on your plate.

There are a lot of little tips that help a lot with managing time when you’re busy. It’s a great way to get an edge over your day.

- J