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A journal by NCommander the other day got me thinking (I know, dangerous but I was bored) and what we need here is a Gamer's Corner for fellow Soybeans users to post what games they are playing, build teams, trade in game items, etc. I think this would help build unity and community while at the same time helping the users hook up and do better in their games.

Anyway until one of the admins gives us a true gamer's corner section I figured we could use this post as a starting point so feel free to post what games you are playing you'd like to have others join, in game gear you'd be happy to give away/swap, basically anything to do with games and gaming feel free to post it here.

Allow me to get the ball rolling with a little gift for the fellow Soybeaners...if you recently picked up Borderlands II GOTY off the Steam sale and haven't maxed your character yet? I have plenty of orange items from the great loot hunt last year, lvl 50-70 and I'll be happy to work out times to hook up in game and dole out the loot. Drops will be limited depending on how many folks respond and will go on until the loot is gone, I don't have enough of each weapon to take requests for specific guns but feel free to ask and if I have it its yours, also have some sweet blue and purple weapons like the Morningstar sniper rifle I'll be happy to drop and if you prefer a particular type of weapon, like say shotgun or rifle I'll be happy to look and see what I have.

I'm having a math and physics problem: math and physics is getting in the way of the plot in Mars, Ho!

I originally thought it would be a six month trip, but math got in the way since they were getting gravity from propulsion. So I shortened it to a two month trip, and to do that I had to have Earth and Mars on opposite sides of the sun -- but orbital mechanics makes waiting shorten the time.

The best bad way around it I can see is a little hand-waving, with the captain wondering why the company didn't wait a week to launch. But I'm not satisfied with this. Does anybody have any ideas?

Once in a long while, I post something that is beyond the ken of mere mortals. Unfortunately, mere mortals take this as a disagreement of opinion. But in fact, it is not. I am right, and they are wrong. You may think I am being conceited in this, but I assure you, I have grounds for my position.

So I am wondering why, in the grande scale of things, I am disturbed when some ill-advised comment of mine is appropriately modded down. Yes, I probably had it coming. Yes, it is probably justified. And if I had just waited half a day, this would not have happened. But can't you see that I have gone from a karma rating of 50 to just a paltry 49!! Oh, really, not a big deal. We are all after the same thing here (except for those libertarian free market fucks that are trying to pump the site for all it's worth and then sell us out down the river to some corporation niced.).

Yes, I mod down posts, especially if they are ethanol fueled and full of racism, misogyny, and ignorance of too many categories to be categorized. Or Republican. We need to stand up for reason, science, evidencem and logical thinking. Any religious stuff is right out, and any libertarian/Republican economic ideology is on the same level. No bias, no prejudice, just that bullshit needs to be called bullshit, and not allowed to pass as polite conversation.

We are the last best place on the internet. We are People, we are soylent. We have to act like people, people who can think, reason, argue according to the rules of logic. That is all I ask. I hope it is not too much.

Junk
        I felt pretty good the next day when I woke up. Destiny was still asleep, so I started coffee, told the robot to make breakfast and no robot coffee, damn it! And took a shower.
        Huh? Bacon, eggs, and hash browns for two. Destiny would be awake by the time I got out of the shower. Huh? Why? Over easy. Christ, guys! What difference does it make how the God damned eggs are cooked?
        She was just waking up as I got dressed. "Hungry?" I asked. "I made coffee and the robots are making breakfast."
        "I'll probably be hungry when my stomach wakes up. What time is it?"
        "About seven thirty, we have a half hour before I have to go to work."
        "Is the coffee done?"
        "It should be by now, I started it before I got in the shower."
        "Well, I guess I'll get up, then," she said grinning, and got up.
        She put the news on the video... or is that "olds" since it's the same old shit? There was something on it about pirates, they had arrested thirty after a firefight on Earth, and fifty pirates and twenty policemen died. Hell, I killed hundreds of the bastards just throwing rocks at 'em. And only the bad guys died.
        Stupid news.
        Destiny I weren't paying attention to it anyway. Five 'til eight I went to the pilot room to make sure we weren't going too fast or too slow or the wrong way and started my inspections.
        There was arguing coming from the commons, damn it. I stopped and called Destiny. "Hon, could you call Tammy and have her handle these crazy women?"
        "Sure, what are they doing?"
        "They act like they need drops."
        "Okay, I'll call her."
        I decided to inspect the commons last. I didn't need a dropless whore.
        For once the cargo didn't give me any trouble in inspection; they were all asleep and the doorbells didn't wake them up.
        Odd, what with the commotion in the commons.
        When I went into the passenger section there was a funny smell in number eighteen. Burning insulation, it smelled like. I got out fast and pulled out my fone; systems should have seen that and fixed it already.
        "Computer, fire in number eighteen."
        "There is no fire in cargo eighteen."
        "PASSENGER eighteen you stupid computer!"
        "There is no fire in..." There was an explosion in eighteen! Shit!
        "Computer," I said as alarms went off. "Report."
        "Fire in passenger eighteen" it said as the door light flashed red. "Fire suppression technologies in play."
        Damned computer. "Cause of fire?" It had smelled like an electrical short circuit to me, ozone and burned plastic. They don't make these boats like they used to. This was the third damned fire on this ship! It wasn't a brand new boat, thank God, or the damned robots would talk. But the ones with three generators, the old ones that got retrofitted with fusion generators, almost never had electrical problems.
        "Unknown at this time," the stupid computer said. Stupid computer, something shorted out and a fuse should have blown but didn't. Same as the port generator, it should have shut itself down before it caught fire and melted lots of the parts.
        I decided to investigate later. "Computer, do not repair until ordered by me. Continue fire suppression and keep the door locked.
        "Acknowledged," it said. Why do them damned things talk like that? I'm glad my robots are old, I hate talking robots.
        Well, except that the old ones catch fire. That's never any fun.
        I inspected the good generator, the ion engines, and the messed up generator. One robot was working on engine One Thirty Two and I noted it in the log.
        Back at P18 the light was no longer flashing, so I went in. Yep, a burned up panel. I opened it, it was fried; something had shorted. I logged it.
        This shit didn't use to happen on old boats.
        I went to the commons and finally inspected it. The commotion was over.
        I went home and had lunch with Destiny. "What was going on in the commons?" I asked.
        "Thieves. You read Tammy's book, most of these girls had criminal parents and stealing is normal for them. Well, there were about fifty of them that had all their drops stolen and were in the commons accusing each other of stealing, when the thieves were all asleep. Tammy took care of it."
        "I'm sure glad we have her," I said.
        "Me too," she agreed. "Do you have to work this afternoon?"
        "I hope not. Not unless something breaks or the whores act up or pirates attack or..."
        "Okay," she said laughing. "I get it. Want to watch something?"
        "Sure. Pick something."
        "How about..." she started before an alarm went off.
        "You jinxed me," I said, grinning. "Damned dropheads!"
        It was another fire, this time in P19. Why in the hell are unoccupied quarters powered? It don't make no sense. It's a fire hazard, especially the shitty way they build boats these days, glad I didn't get a brand new one. I'll bet they're even worse than this one, and it's only ten years old.
        But it wasn't a real fire, just a drill, there only to waste my free time and annoy me. I have enough real emergencies that I don't need no drills. The company's programmers are idiots.

Golf
        "You've been practicing, boss."
        "Putting," the CEO replied. "Been practicing putting, that's where I'm weak at this game. First time I ever beat you, Bob."
        "Well, Charlie, I was a little off today. And you only beat me by one stroke," Bob said. "That was a great hole three, you eagled that one."
        "I got lucky on the initial drive. Bartender, two beers. Guinness draft, please. Bob, you're paying for a change! Oh, bartender, a couple shots of your best scotch, too."
        Bob laughed. "Well, that was the deal. Maybe we should try some zero G golf sometime."
        "Zero G? Damn, Bob, I'm not twenty any more. That's a young man's sport. Besides, I hate space."
        "Really? You run a shipping company and hate space?"
        "No, I just hate traveling in it. You did pretty good on number two or I'd have done even better against you. How are we doing on the sabotage front?"
        "Come on, we're just starting. You can't just solve a complex problem like that in a few days. Did you finish that report Knolls wrote?"
        "No, I got sidetracked by the book Doctor Winters' wrote that Knolls mentioned in his report. Damn, we need to check cargo closer, that book was horrible. I'm sure glad the charity sent her, it might have been catastrophic otherwise.
          "Then I read the report she made to her charity. I'll finish Knolls' report when we get back from 'lunch'."
        "How did you get Doctor Winters' report? She works for the charity, not for us."
        The CEO smiled. "Don't be stupid, Bob."
        "So, how much of Knolls' report have you read?"
        "Past where he saved her life. You know, Bob, you have a terrible taste in literature. Knolls couldn't write his way out of a paper bag and you enjoyed it? Damn, man."
        Bob shrugged. "We were sure lucky the charity sent Doctor Winters."
        "Yes, we were. Like I said. And Knolls was even luckier, and is probably glad he had her and the whores, he'd have been a dead man, and probably Kelly as well. Nobody expected what happened."
        He continued. "Have you talked to Human Resources to see about training a replacement for Knolls?"
        "Of course. I hate to replace him, especially with a greenie. Some of the maneuvers and weapon use he displayed in his second encounter with the pirates should go into our training manuals. "
        "Yes, he was a damned good captain. The company will miss him."
        "Well, I intent to try and talk him out of retirement."
        "Good luck with that! If you succeed you're the world's greatest salesman. I'm taking the afternoon off today, Charlie, I want to be refreshed and rested for the board meeting Monday. Do you want to shoot another nine?"
        "Sorry, Bob, I can't. I should have gotten back earlier, I want to finish reading Knolls' report, and I have a meeting with Richardson from engineering. I'm that close to firing that dumb son of a bitch. That was a hell of a boner he pulled, and I'm sure glad you brought the matter to my attention."
        "Hell, if I hadn't we should have both been fired!" the underling said, smiling, as if that was ever likely; between the two of them they owned 63% of all company stock.
        The CEO laughed. "Yeah," he agreed, "we should have! Look, Bob, enjoy the afternoon and I'll see you Monday morning. Like I said, I have to get going."
        "See you, Boss. Bartender, can I get another beer?"

I was yanked three and a half decades back today, and Rority had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Two things from the past reached thirty five years into the future and snagged me for their apparent enjoyment. They were books.

The first was Pratchett's Strata. I'd ordered a hold at the library over the internet, and when the librarian handed me the book, my reaction was "wow, skinny book." It was no longer than Nobots, which is only 2042 words past the line between a novel and novella.

The story itself didn't yank me back in time, the actual book itself did. It was old. The pages were even yellowing. It was obvious they had purchased this book when it was first released in 1981; at least, that was the year the copyright was registered. I found it odd that Pratchett didn't hold the copyright.

There was the then ubiquitous envelope glued to the inside cover that you just don't see today, because today they're not needed; they're anachronisms. See, those of you younger than thirty can't possibly fathom what it was like, any more than I can fathom the wonder and excitement my grandmother felt when she saw her first airplane at age eight. Grandma was a few months older than powered human flight, being born in 1903.

The envelope was necessary to hold the card, and to tell the truth I don't clearly remember how it worked. But it made me think of the card catalog, and how computers have changed everything. They used to have a card for each book on the shelf in a smallish wooden filing cabinet (this was every library I was ever in, and I was in a lot of them; I'm addicted to reading, particularly nonfiction) and a slip in the envelope contained the names and/or card numbers (you need a library card to check out a book, even today). When you checked a book out, and like I said I might be misremembering this, they would keep the slip and store it with the card from the catalog in a separate case only librarians could access.

Today, of course, there is no card catalog. It's not needed, computers are so much better. Also, as far as I know there were no interlibrary loans. At least, that I knew of then.

Either losses from theft were horrendous, or people are a hell of a lot less honest today because back then, they didn't have those things that scream when you walk out of a store without paying, that they also use in libraries today.

When I returned it today I noticed the ISBN on the back had no bar code. I could have sworn bar codes were older than that, but I guess I was wrong. Just wait, you millennial who is laughing. What was it like when you were two years old. Can't remember?

They were having their annual book sale today, I noticed.

I had reserved another Pratchett title over the internet the day before yesterday, but it wasn't behind the desk yet. So I wander over to the new science fiction, hoping to see Nobots but knowing I wouldn't because I just looked in the "card catalog" on the internet and searched for it by ISBN. But I did see the magic name Pratchett. Along with a co-author named Stephen Baxter. The title was The Long War. Copyright last year. I haven't started reading it yet.

I went up the elevator and had a polite discussion with a young man on the third floor about the two copies of Nobots I had donated a month ago and was assured would be cataloged and put on the shelf, and I walked outside. The books for sale were dirt cheap, two bucks for hardcovers that looked brand new, a buck for full sized paperbacks and fifty cents for smaller paperbacks. One caught my eye, a big, fat paperback book. The illiterate in Wagons, East! who asked the gay bookseller to sell him a "big damned book" would have been pleased with it. It was titled The Writer's Manual and looking at the chapters listed on the back, it looked helpful. So I gave the lady a dollar, went home, and started reading.

The first chapter concerned the tools of writing. These tools included typewriters, carbon paper... WTF? I looked at the copyright date: 1979. This thing must have been in a warehouse for the last three decades. If I had taken a writing class in college, what I had learned would have been completely obsolete by the time I would have needed the knowledge; it's as useful as the vacuum tubes and analog circuits I learned as a teenager. Which is no use at all.

What wasn't obsolete was, as they would say across the pond, bleeding obvious.

How times change... it spoke of publishers' budgets, and how publishers wanted shorter books because printing was expensive and spoke of "one 80,000 word book, or two 40,000 word books?" with the assumption that the publisher would rather publish the two smaller, and trying to publish a big novel wasn't a good idea at all.

Baen won't accept anything shorter than 100,000 words.

Oh, well, it was only a buck. I wonder what I should do with it?

Several chapters ago I decided to see if I could do what James Patterson did (badly IMO) in that one book of his I read, mixing first and third person. A few months ago I figured out how to do it with this book, and wrote a new chapter one that goes before the posted chapter one.

I was on a roll yesterday, adding 3000 words, some scattered through the entire existing book but most at the end, past where we are now.

I wasn't going to post chapter zero, but if I don't, then chapter 22 will make no sense. Chapter 22 is a continuation of "chapter zero", the third person chapter before chapter one. Here it is. I hope to have chapter 22 posted in a few days.

        "Come in, Bob. Did you bring Knolls' report?"
        "Yes sir, here it is."
        "Did you read it?"
        "Yes, sir, I did. It's interesting. Knolls could be a writer if his grammar wasn't so atrocious, it was actually a good read. These reports are usually pretty dry."
        "Well, he's just a ship's captain. It's not like he's been to college or anything. How detailed is the report?"
        "Heh, too detailed in places. I didn't really need to hear about his bowel movements."
        "How much did he leave out?"
        "Nothing important. At least I don't think he left anything important out."
        "It says he saved her life? Is that correct?"
        "Yes, sir. He apparently kept a cool head, kept his wits about him and did everything right. It looks like he saved Kelly's ship and cargo as well."
        "Yes, I read the investigation report. Sabotage to Kelly's ship during the Mars overhaul so they could get his ship and ores. One of the workers was arrested, he'd been paid a huge sum of cash to do it. It wasn't hard to catch him, they just looked at spending patterns to find who was living beyond their means. He confessed, we need to figure out how to prevent that from happening again."
        "yes sir, we're on it already. If Mark Johnson can't solve it, it's insoluble.
        "It had better not be. What were damages to cargo?"
        "One specimen was severely injured but recovered before reaching the port on Mars. A few of the specimens got into physical altercations but there was no real damage to them. Not nearly as bad as we'd anticipated.
        "Other damages?"
        "One of the ship's two fusion reactors was ruined, as well as three of its ion drives. The other fusion generator was damaged but easily repaired. One battery incinerated. Minimal damage considering the dangerous cargo it was carrying and the problems Knolls encountered. May I ask, sir, why you allowed her on board with such a dangerous cargo?"
        "No, Bob, you may not, but I will say she's going to do whatever the hell she wants no matter what I think. I'm just glad it turned out the way it did."
        "Sorry, sir. Anyway, I hope you read that report. It answers a lot of questions the investigators didn't."
        "Don't worry. I will, you can be sure of it. Afternoon open? Want to shoot nine holes?"
        "Of course. But please, sir, read the report first."
        "Don't worry, I've been looking forward to it, especially considering... get the hell out of here, Bob. Let me read this thing. I'll see you on the golf course."

"In space. no one can hear you scream like a little girl." -Mark Watney

I'll be succinct before I become verbose: This is the best book I've read in years, including the ones I wrote.

If you like my stuff, you'll love this book. This guy writes like me only a lot better. Seriously. What's more, he looks to be half my age so damn it, you'll read more of his books than I will, I'm ageing.

This is his first book. I want a second.

I went to the library to return a couple of books and see if Nobots was on the shelves yet. Nope. Damn, they're slow. I'd reserved a Pratchett book I hadn't yet read that morning and didn't expect it to be ready (it wasn't) so I looked at the new science fiction section. I read the back cover blurbs but usually don't take any stock in them, but two caught my eye, one by one of the greats and one of my favorite authors, Larry Niven, who was quoted as saying "Gripping. Shapes up like DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe as written by someone brighter."

But the one that caught my interest was Chris Hadfield, and if you don't know who he is, what are you doing here? He says on the back cover "It has the rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters, and..." what especially caught me eye, "and fascinatingly technical accuracy."

I had to read this book, and damn, it was good. Pratchett and Adams good, I laughed all the way through it; Whitney's sense of humor is his biggest weapon against the hostile Mars that's trying to kill him.

Whitney gets stranded on Mars and survives (oops, spoiler alert?) against all odds and with... well, very little.

RTFB. It's a damned good book and is at his website.

This book's history is interesting, too. I wanted to see what other books he'd written because I want more, but there was just the one. But the one, according to wikipedia, had a history. He'd submitted it to publishers and been rejected (much like Rowling and her Harry Potter) and released it on his web site in HTML and as a 99 cent Amazon e-book, which soared to the top of Amazon's charts.

So a major publisher has given him six figures for the rights. Lucky (and talented) guy. Wikipedia says that Ridley Scott will direct the movie, so fuck. The book made me laugh more than once, I can't see a Ridley Scott movie making me laugh. "Blade Runner, the Comedy?" Can't see it.

Once upon a time, screens were 4:3, video equipment produced 4:3 video, YouTube videos were 4:3, and all was well.

Then the industry said: Let there be 16:9. And there was 16:9. And the chaos began.

It began with 16:9 TVs which deformed 4:3 material to fit the 16:9 screen, and players that allowed to configure a 4:3 screen for output, but deformed 16:9 material to fit the 4:3 screen instead. But not only that, even TV stations did deform 4:3 material they used in 16:9 broadcasts (like old 4:3 recordings showed in new 16:9 news). It continued with pure 4:3 broadcasts no longer being broadcast in 4:3 (although still technically possible and understood perfectly by any 16:9 TV), but 16:9 with black bars left and right, which on a 4:3 TV causes a black frame around an image that is much smaller than necessary.

But at least those were professionals, so while their decisions were not always what you would wish, what they did was at least halfway sensible. But on YouTube, you'll find an even worse situation: 4:3 material converted from 16:9 to 4:3. What this results in is a square image surrounded by black bars left and right, and certainly again the ugly distortions which non-proportional rescaling brings.

In short, since the advent of 16:9, there are masses of terribly distorted videos. And strangely, I've not even seen a single comment about that terrible distortion (but maybe having a minimal sense for aesthetics is strongly correlated with having no desire to get an account with Google — which actually is the main reason why I didn't leave such a comment on such videos).

OK, granted, I no longer see any comments on YouTube, so I can't tell if it has changed (I guess it's related to Google+ integration). But I'd expect such comments to have been made early on anyway.

Space-X Dragon

I found this article fascinating. This new space craft is way farther advanced than anything now in operation. It will hold seven astronauts, dock with the ISS without the need for the Canadian robot arm, will land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter, and has emergency parachutes that deploy automatically if the landing rockets fail to deploy. And unlike the shuttle, which had to be rebuilt after every flight, this one can be refueled and take off again immediately!

Scheduled for use in three years, Musk unveiled it yesterday in response to Russia's threat that the US would need trampolines to get to space. "Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that @SpaceX has been working on w @NASA. No trampoline needed."

Random Scribblings
As mentioned, I hit a brick wall with Mars, Ho! Nonetheless, I did write another chapter. However, it takes place two weeks before they reach Mars (and involves pirates again). I need a few chapters before it, however, unless the end of the story really stretches out.

The reason is, I enjoy the hell out of writing but publishing is a pain in the ass. So I'm going to submit it to Baen when it's finished, and a few more when they reject it; self-publishing this one will be a last resort. Baen needs a minimum of 100,000 words, and I'm only 20% of the way there.

I hope to finish it this year, but if not I may assemble and self-publish a book called Random Scribblings, a collection of articles I've posted on the internet over the years; I think long-time fans will enjoy it. There may be more than one volume of that one.

Android music
I wrote and was going to post a rant about Winamp on Android, but wisely googled first and found that what was missing was indeed there.

Maybe I should rant about Google. They've spent the last week automatically updating Google's apps for the last week, each one taking days, and it messes my phone up, especially at Felbers.

My computer has no problem with the wi-fi (what a stupid name for a transmission/reception technology/protocol) there, but it drives my phone crazy. If bluetooth or wifi is on and in use and you shut the other on or off, the phone crashes and reboots itself, especially when some app is updating itself. Like the Google apps that take days to finish.

I suspect that their wifi somehow is interfering with bluetooth, or the other way around. But the phone still acts up there even when I shut wi-fi off (and the damned phone turnes it back on by itself and then crashes, who programs this garbage, anyway?).

I have a suggestion for Google's Android programmers: don't update any damned apps on my phone unless it's charging, because it charges when I'm not using it.

On the U of C Tragedy
People, including one especially pissed-off parent is blaming the tragedy on idiots in the government, and I kind of agree; crazy people should not have access to firearms. However, it must be remembered that half of the dead were killed by blades, not bullets.

Rather than blame guns and stupid legislators, I blame America's foremost religion.

No, not Christianity. America doesn't worship God, it worships money. The bible rightly says that "the love of money is the root of all evil," and money is what most Americans worship (i.e., love above all else).

Have you seen any of the weirdness he wrote? This disturbed and disturbing young man was brought up to love money, to believe that money solves all problems. His divorced parents had rich friends, and he hated his parents because they weren't rich.

He was also obsessed with the sex he could never get. Of course he couldn't get laid; girls don't get turned on by needy, crazy guys. Being needy alone will turn them off, let alone needy and crazy, even if you had Bill Gate's money. Yet, he thought that money would buy love and happiness.

Some might say that a Christian upbringing might have kept this horrible tragedy from happening, but I'm not so sure. I know an athiest (IRL, fellow Felbers patron who once punched me out of my barstool for accusing him of homosexuality) who was brought up in a very strict evangelical Kentucky family, who had spent ten years in prison for murder. Not exactly a good reference for Christian upbringing.

But it wouldn't have hurt.

If you consider yourself a Christian, you should talk to yourself about money. Don't worship the shit! It's merely a tool, and only a fool worships his tools. "He who lives by the weapon, dies by the weapon." And make no mistake about it, money is a terrible weapon, far more dangerous than firearms.

He who lives for the dollar dies for the dollar. Fools, all.