We will be returning to New Orleans on Sunday to live in the Quarter while waiting for FEMA trailers to be parked in Kenner.
Do I relish the return?
No.
We will need either a Lord Protector or another hurricane to spur things favorably further. Either may or may not suffice — but nothing less is likely to do.
Well, I’m occasionally concerned, in a general sense, with how research affects policy — like, for instance, how research affects when police fire the guns into an opposing "center mass."
Here’s the best I could find establishing the validity of a 21-foot knife "killing zone."
We have done some testing along those lines recently and have found that an average healthy adult male can cover the traditional seven yard distance in a time of (you guessed it) about one and one-half seconds. It would be safe to say then that an armed attacker at 21 feet is well within your Danger Zone.
"We" in the above appears to be Lt. Dennis Tueller. And here is where Lt. Tueller published his 1983 "groundbreaking research."
The conclusion to Lt. Tueller’s article: Skill at arms and proper mental attitude. that’s the combination that will make you the winner in a "Close Encounter of the Cutting Kind".
I missed that research earlier, because, for some reason, the Social Science Citation Index people chose not to include Swat Magazine in their index.
I don’t know if Lt. Tueller consulted role-playing games prior to reaching his now widely parroted conclusions, but there are lots of rules about the effective range of melee weapons.
E.g., here.
Reach Weapons: Glaives, guisarmes, lances, longspears, ranseurs, spiked chains, and whips are reach weapons. A reach weapon is a melee weapon that allows its wielder to strike at targets that aren’t adjacent to him or her. Most reach double the wielder’s natural reach, meaning that a typical Small or Medium wielder of such a weapon can attack a creature 10 feet away, but not a creature in an adjacent square. A typical Large character wielding a reach weapon of the appropriate size can attack a creature 15 or 20 feet away, but not adjacent creatures or creatures up to 10 feet away.
As in the above, ten feet is commonly considered an effective attacking range for melee weapons in role-playing games.
Just thought I’d say.
Sure, you can fire people, send them packing, and then invite the lucky rest back into the flood zone.
But you could also…
Move the University. Lock, stock, and barrel. Sell it all to Tulane and dance away. I’ve previously recommended the Big Bend area. Electricity bill gotta be lower there.
You could turn Thomas Hall into condos. Really big buck possibilities there.
You could have a really big yard sale with all the stuff in Holy Name.
If you want thinking outside the little your-future-is-the-same-as-your-miserable-past box, I’m your man.
***
Cliff doesn’t like video games…
I haven’t played video games since SEGA. I just don’t have the time to sit there and figure out some of these new things. A good game should only require two buttons. I have some friends that are 40 years old and will call in from work to finish their saved game of Grand Theft Auto. I’m not saying something is wrong with that but something is really wrong with that.
But he’s got a pretty neat blog anyway.
I think this is a good letter (from here), so I’m reprinting it…
I hold a Ph.D. I am a professor of philosophy. I have also played videogames since Pong, and have played most of them on most of the systems over the last 30 years. I still adore them and spend too much time playing them. I am about to play one now. But to call them art along the lines of literature, architecture, dance, theater, movies, sculpture, photography, or any other generally accepted art form is risible.
The level of writing and number of solecisms in the letters of the defenders of videogames (VGs) should serve to as a prima facie vindication of Mr Ebert’s view. Moreover, the defenders of VGs doth protest too much, methinks. But we can say more.
Videogames may be difficult to make, requiring great thought, skill, planning, and care, but so is an armoire made of okra. That doesn’t make either one art. VGs may be entertaining, escapist, enjoyable, and absorbing, but so is masturbation, and that doesn’t make either one art. What art does that VGs do not, and probably never will, is edify and ennoble (even in the form of subversion). Moreover, and as a result, art endures. We are reading Cervantes and Goethe, performing Shakespeare and Moliere, and listening to Mozart and Beethoven hundreds of years after their works were created, with no end in sight. We aren’t playing NES games 20 years after their creation. Indeed, they weren’t being played 5 years after their creation. My garage is full of old videogame systems that will never be turned on again simply because new and better systems have come along. By contrast, when you buy a Chagall painting, you don’t throw away your Van Gogh.
Videogames, as the name vaguely suggests, are GAMES. Games are not art, unless tennis, chess, bridge, and Monopoly are art as well. So why don’t we just enjoy the great games out there and not try to make them into something they’re not just to assuage the guilt we feel for letting them take up so much of our time, or to aggrandize ourselves for engaging in such a putatively lofty pursuit?
Best regards,
Dr Barton Odom
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX
…mostly to avoid talking about Civilization IV, which encapsulates and exemplifies all current game industry problems with content, reviews, marketing, and the tyranny of graphics. Or, in other words, CIV4 is a professional, well-made disappointment. The Civilization series — and 4 will be the last one, believe me — now clearly documents the accelerating evolution of computer games toward television and the crutch of the pseudo-narrative.
But I’m not talking about that, because Dr. Odom has the floor. He and I do disagree about the subversion thing, however.
And to consider games as art is clearly not risible; for then there would be no need for Dr. Odom to present his argument. Considering games as art allows us, if nothing else, to consider games as aesthetic objects — like, for instance, a sunset. From this consideration, further arguments can interestingly be made.
Sometime, in roughly the 1920s or so, formalism and reason were overrun by a cultural revolution that left us with No Good Idea.
And, now, from little misguided acorns, great ugly oaks grow.
From here.
Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, whose district includes Algiers and the French Quarter, said she has fought for trailer parks in her district to be in locations that "don’t intrude on our lifestyle."
Where and when, I’d like to know, has Ms. Clarkson’s culture and lifestyle been a good thing?
The New Orleans culture and the New Orleans gumbo and the New Orleans jazz and the New Orleans "lifestyle" — most particularly the lifestyle of the professional politician — are what messed us up in the first place. Along with all those actors and posers and politicians who believe Perception is Reality.
Sooner or later, history, nature, and the terrible swift swords say Reality is Reality. For let us not forget how the Ship of Life ultimately settles on the Hard Rock of Death.
So welcome back to Ms. Clarkson and the Big Muddy, where you can run but you still can’t hide from the inevitable forms.
Oh where oh where have my little elections gone?
***
Christmas in Laurel and Jackson.
Here’s why the LA congressional delegation should be forced to have ANWR indelibly tattooed on their foreheads:
Maura Wood, with the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club, said the $6 billion that Louisiana would share in as part of ANWR revenue is "extremely speculative."
She said that Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, has suggested that the governor of Alaska sue to insist that the state continue to get 90 percent of oil and gas royalties, as mandated under the law that helped establish Alaska as the 49th state.
But Vitter said he isn’t worried about that threat "one bit," adding that Congress is always free to modify legislation. "That’s just Law 101," said Vitter, a lawyer.
Hey, Vitter: Here’s the prerequisite for Law 101.
***
Megan got through the transit strike to Laguardia. Sarah should be picking her up in Atlanta and driving to the dial-up-internet-hinterlands of Laurel for Christmas at my mother’s house, where Susan and I are headed soon.
So, Merry Christmas to all.
And to all a good night.
$20 million. Here.
Rough chance of winning: 80 million to 1. Here.
So, should we trust in the ability of our mayor and local and state and federal government officials to dispense those billions to the people who need it… or depend on winning $20 million in Powerball?
Hmm.
Competency and foresight in government — or 80 million to 1.
Blanco sets politics aside –or 80 million to 1.
Nagin does the right thing — or 80 million to 1.
***
Best advice at this time: Buy Powerball tickets.
(Or, alternatively, get struck by lightning.)
Well, I was gonna post about this…
Monday, December 19, 2005
The Internet Is Broken
The Net’s basic flaws cost firms billions, impede innovation, and threaten national security. It’s time for a clean-slate approach, says MIT’s David D. Clark.
By David Talbot
This article — the cover story in Technology Review’s December 2005/January 2006 print issue — has been divided into three parts for presentation online. This is part 1; part 2 will appear on Tuesday, December 20 and part 3 on Wednesday, December 21.
…and say something about the Internet only being broken in terms of the U.S. (and related commercial interests) being unable to CONTROL the Internet, since, once you read the article, you’ll see that all the supposed broken parts and all the proposed improvements concern Internet SECURITY.
But then I was thinking about our current government, flood relief bills, earmarking, and this.
If nonviolent resistance is the tip of an iceberg, then it’s the violence beneath the water that strikes the boat and sinks the ship. It’s the violence below the surface that floats the nonviolence into view.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy
Now let’s change it to "That which makes peaceful revolution impossible…" and consider "that which" makes peaceful revolution impossible is Nature itself — or the lack thereof.
Baudrillard
Baudrillard
Some French winger
Clever tricky
Hard to pin down
Said that everything is
A copy of a copy of a copy
No such thing as reality
But when I watch Pele
I know I am watching
The original that no one could
Copy
http://www.footballpoets.org/p.asp?Id=8251
First learned about somewhere in the past versions of here.
The posts may look funny. They haven’t been displaying properly for me inside IExplorer. Will try to fix when I have time.
***
Travis sent this. It’s funny too. Except that I think I’ve spent $49.95 for an awful lot of similar games.
Twitter: dmyersloyola