Do to the sudden blanket censorship on LiveJournal, I may be moving my blogging entirely to here. This move may include removing this blog from MystBlogs. There are aspects of my life that, while I do not hide them, and am in no way ashamed of them, I don't feel the need to go flag waving about them, either.

What's the deal here?

Given the server issues yesterday on MOUL, someone made the suggestion to bombard the GameTap suggestion box with "fund better servers for Cyan" This was the partial response:

Also, any hardware issues URU may be having with the servers they rent are due to the type of servers they are willing to rent from us, and is there responsability to upgrade to better hardware.

Thank you,
GameTap Associate

If Gametap is funding the game, why is Cyan having to rent servers from Gametap? Why isn't providing adequate equipment part of the deal? That's Gametap putting their own money back into their own pockets!

This really really bothers me. The implications of it are very disturbing. "We'll promote your little game, offer it through our service, but only if you rent all your equipment from us, and we get to decide if it makes us enough money."

As much as I love Uru, and would be heartbroken to see it go, is Gametap scamming Cyan worth it?

Winter of our discontent

I figured out why I'm getting so pissy at the forums. It's the Not Good Enough mentality that I'm seeing out of some people. Nothing Cyan is doing is Good Enough for them. They have to analize the quality and quantity of every little aspect, and they just won't sit back and let it flow.
They bitched there was no story...and now the story isn't being done right...
They bitched there was no new ages...and then the ages weren't complex enough...
How this is implemented is lacking, how that is going is the wrong direction...

It's like being a food critic... they can't just enjoy a sandwich, they have to examine the mayonnase ratio and the texture of the bread and the thickness of the fillings, focus on every little minutea that might lower the sandwich's worthiness in their eyes.

It might be a perfectly good, enjoyable sandwich, but they can't stop themselves from looking at it under a mental microscope.

I had a boyfiend (not a typo) who was like that about movies. He couldn't just watch and enjoy a movie, every movie had to meet certain criteria he had for what made a 'good' movie...and if it didn't meet that, he would spend huge amounts of effort picking apart all the movie's flaws.

That's what I'm seeing on the MOUL forums, completely aside from the whiners, it's the "this is nice BUT..." crowd. They're so busy poking at flaws, that they can't just relax and enjoy themselves.

OOC in the midst of IC

It's always been a big debate in URU... who has more right to a space, the IC or the OOC people. The pub in the city is a hotbed of PLANNED story activity right now. It is where THE story is happening. And the last few times I was there, there was a whole lot of OOC conversation going on.

Setting asside the discussion of OOC vs IC and how to be immersive and all... being blatantly OOC when the story is evolving right in front of you strikes me as really rude.

It strikes me as even ruder when it starts to appear that the people who are being the most OOC are just there in the city, taking up a city slot, for the sake of saying that they're in there. They don't really have a care for the story, they just want to be in on the action.

That bugs me. There are people who have a real IC reason to be there (take me, or any of the former Liaisons; Michael is, for many of us, a friend. Or the people who have spent time with and talked to Wheely. They should be there), who aren't able to realisticly play out their bit of the story, because of people who don't care.

contradiction

Emilio's mother, Catarina Gonzales, on the other hand, is fighting to keep her son on the ventilator, allowing him to die "naturally, the wayGod intended."

A VENTILATOR is not natural, lady. That tech is ARTIFICIALLY keeping your child alive. If you wanted your child to die "...naturally, the way God intended." then you would quit fighting the hospital, unhook him from the life support, cuddle him up in a blanket, and sing softly to him until he slipped the bonds of the body that is unable to hold his soul.

Caffinate the Cyantists!

Another Goodies for the Team fundraiser

Hacked Uru Files rantrantrant

I know people do it, check into the game files to see what's new, or what might be in an area. And I know some people will use those game files to solve puzzles, or figure out what is/isn't going to happen...

To my mind, that's cheating, with a big ol' C, and an exploit to boot. Not to mention it completely steps outside the spirit of the game, and it can screw things up. Look at all the hubub about Neghilan animals, from a hacked file that didn't even exist anymore.

It makes me snarly, but until Cyan figures out a way to block those files...*shrug*

What makes my blood boil though, is when people start posting the information they've gotten from hacked files. "Well, it has to be this, because I found XYZ in the game files!". Worse, when they do it without spoiler tags.

Uhhhhuh. Why not just slap CHEATER across your forehead and have done? Guarantees I won't ever believe you solved a puzzle on your own.

Look, you wanna hack the game, go right ahead. No one can stop you. If you wanna say its OK to do, a time honored MMO tradition, you keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel justified.

But quit trying to sully and soil the gameplay for others. It doesn't make you look smart, or clever. it makes you look like someone who's too lazy to actually play the game, and enjoy it.

AfuckingMEN

A little bit of sillyness

Get your own valentinr

Can I get an AMEN?

How about instead we pass a constitutional amendment that defines a family as a group of people who love one another and don't do harm to each other. That way it would be unconstitutional for people to verbally and physically abuse their own.

Hmm

http://www.komotv.com/news/entertainment/5334051.html

A movie, that through peicing together of scenes, you understand that a young girl is being raped. The move doesn't portray it in a positive light, it's a scene, in a move, that's described as dark and Gothic. I suspect that the scene in question is just one of many things that happen to highlight the suffering of the character.

People are decrying it as 'child pornography'. It seems they'd be much happier shoving under the rug even the implication that this happens to our children.

I could name, with a small bit of thought, a good dozen movies where children die...but imply that someone can violate them sexually, and suddenly it's 'porn'. Sheesh.

Wow

This is a quote from someone who grew up a religious fundamentalist:

As frustrating and pathetic and dangerous as fundamentalists can be, please rememember that they are afraid. For them, God's love is conditional, and his punishment is collective. I know that it is no excuse to deny civil and reproductive rights to others - but what they really need is to know that they are worthy of love, and have love to give, no matter who they are. That is something that they say, but do not really believe. God(dess) help them.

Olbermann for President

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

You say you want a revolution...

A freind of mine is a very devout Christian, and where we diverge on beliefs, he doesn't beat people over the head with it. His idea of Christian is one who follows a Christ-like life.

So I have a habbit of emailing him links to what I tend to call Stupid Christian Tricks. You know the ones, like what the Phelps morons are up to lately, or why the park service can't talk about how old the Grand Canyon is.

So he asks me "Why you send me this stuff - just so I don't want to call myself a Christian anymore?"

And my honest response was "No, so you will. Your faith is stronger than a hundred of those goobers, and it's people like you who will make things like this fade into obscurity, by reminding the world of what real Christianity is."

I wanna see all the non-freaky Christians of the US start standing up and telling the hard core fundamentalists, the so-called Christians who'll stop at nothing to see that the US becomes their way or the highway, that they are Sick and Tired of the "religious reich" being the public face of Christianity. I want to see them stand up and show the world that the extremists are not the soul of the path.

Why Uru Live Matters

I think Uru's power, and the reason the gaming industry should stand up and take notice is twofold:

First, it got brought back to life on the power of the concept, and the enthusiasm of the fan base. This has never happened before, usualy once a game gets killed, especially if the boxed bversion is on the shelves already, it stays dead.

The only real analogy out there is the Browncoats and Firefly. Uru Live is the Serenity of the gaming world.

It took GameTap's willingness & vision of reaching out to smaller companies, rejected by the Big Name Publishers, to make it happen. David Reid of GameTap mentioned this in his PAX interview.

If GameTap does continue in this vein, it will (Gods Willing), bring back unique and innovative game designs. No more cookie cutter, barely different concepts and gameplay, because that's all the big publishers will pay for and produce. Smaller companies will be able to push boundaries, because there's a place for them.

Which brings me to the second item:

Uru pushes boundaries of what people expect a multiplayer online experience to be.

The first question Joe Gamer asks is "What is there besides PVP and collecting loot and leveling?"

Gamers have been conditioned to expect nothing else out of their MMO experience. Nothing. Check every single MMO out there right now, and they are ALL the same concept in different packaging. They are fun, enjoyed by the people who play them, visually stunning, but they all follow a basic framework.

Uru doesn't, and that confuses people. They can't wrap their brains around it. Is the world ready for an MMO where the story and interaction is the focus? It better be, because it's about to get it.

(feel free to link to this, or C&P it with my name)

thoughts from the VaxJedi

Often, he says things I was thinking, much better than I ever could:

... RWAs [right wing authoritarians] are angry with us because they've been told to mistake our tolerance and flexibility for moral unseriousness.
- From Orcinus, a liberal blog

This is really the key to a lot of things, including the perception of polyamory. What a lot of people see in polyamory (even many of those who take a 'hey, if it works for them, I guess that's okay' stance) is permissiveness. Too often, the argument that "people should be free to do these things" is not seen as a choice borne out of ethical behavior, but rather a laxity of moral character - "yeah sure that's okay - it's not a big deal." The same with non-traditional families, gay marriage, etc.

The point is that polyamory needs to be described as a choice that is rooted in ethical consideration. By and large, poly people are poly not because they can 'get away with it.' They are poly because they feel that this is the best choice - because they feel it's the right thing to do. That's the key. For poly people, being poly is, in their life, not a loophole, but a moral imperative. This imperative tells us that things like love, family, intimacy, connection, shared joy and shared resposnibility, these are the moral high ground, even when their form falls outside of societal norms and common definitions. I refer to the phrase "God is love" a lot - I find it an incredibly concise description of what I believe. And thus, I do not deny God when he comes knocking at my door - even if he is dressed funny.

This goes for larger liberal/progressive ideals - tolerance, flexibility, relativism are not ethical shortcuts. They are definitive moral stances. I think that even liberals forget that sometimes.

Best Quote About Homosexuality Ever

From Tom Smith:

"And the only difference between them and other people is, they prefer romantic and sexual partners of the same gender rather than the opposite."

That's it. That's the only difference. And yet that one tiny, insignificant thing has become an excuse for some to treat them like less than human. Like they're less worthy of having rights than others. How sad.

Buh

The world is...fucked up. And it has nothing to do with religion. It's not messed up because more people are X, or not enough people are Y, or people Z are creeps...

It's because we're forgotten how to treat other human beings with dignity and respect, no matter who they are.

ATTENTION US MILITARY PERSONNEL

Reposted with permission fron the Making Light blog. Clarification and comments are there.

ATTENTION US MILITARY PERSONNEL

You are not required to obey an unlawful order.

You are required to disobey an unlawful order.

You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The Constitution states (Article VI):

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Here is article 3, the common article, to the Geneva Conventions, a duly ratified treaty made under the authority of the United States:

Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is straightforward and clear. Under Article VI of the Constitution, it forms part of the supreme law of the land.

You personally will be held responsible for all of your actions, in all countries, at all times and places, for the rest of your life. “I was only following orders” is not a defense.

What all this is leading to:

If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, it is your duty to disobey that order. No “clarification,” whether passed by Congress or signed by the president, relieves you of that duty.

If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, this is what to do:

1. Request that your superior put the order in writing.

2. If your superior puts the order in writing, inform your superior that you intend to disobey that order.

3. Request trial by courtmartial.

You will almost certainly face disciplinary action, harassment of various kinds, loss of pay, loss of liberty, discomfort and indignity. America relies on you and your courage to face those challenges.

We, the people, need you to support and defend the Constitution. I am certain that your honor and patriotism are equal to the task.

Healthy People 2000 initiative from the CDC, Item 14.8: "Reduce the cesarean delivery rate to no more than 15 per 100 deliveries" (15%) (having failed to meet that goal in 2000, the Healthy People 2010 initiative merely says "reduce cesarean amoung low risk patients", but still sets a goal for first time mothers of 15%. However, it fids a repeat cesarean rate of 63% acceptable)

The World Health Organization states: "There is no justification to have a caesarean section rate of higher than10 - 15 %. Vaginal deliveries after a caesarean section shouldbe encouraged."

Babies Delivered by Cesarean More Likely to Die
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed over 5.7 million live births and nearly 12,000 infant deaths over a four-year period.

Now, compare those to the 2005 Cesarean Rates for Seattle Hospitals