Many Sun signs are misunderstood, unfairly pigeon-holed, and judged on the crimes of uninspired astrologers. Scorpios are the obvious victim and poor Cancerians with their unfortunate name and wet interpretations, but every sign can at times be tarred with a reductionist brush. As the Sun has moved into Capricorn, let us commence by airing some common misconceptions about our Capri…

Capricorns are NOT BORING.
Ruled by Saturn, aka Chronos, the god of time, they express the Saturnist energy quite effortlessly. They are persistent, they are patient and they are professional.  Those who find the concept of discipline a painful distraction from hedonism might characterize these traits as boring. Others, who prefer to excel in life through luck and lies rather than grit and elbow grease might characterize these traits as ambition and power-hunger. Either way, the eclectic (and often eccentric) collection of medium-to-massive sized achievements that you’ll find by scratching the surface of any Capricorn’s cool composure is certainly not something to be bored by.

I give you exhibit A, Capricorn, Shirley Bassey…

Capricorns are NOT TRADITIONALISTS.
Capricornus is one of the oldest recorded constellations from the ancient Babylonians, and Capricorn has been there since the zodiac was named.  Capricorn is the embodiment of the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the return of the Sun, the ecliptic’s climb upwards towards Spring and Summer, the symbol of hope, the arrival of the new and Newness in all.

As the Northern Cardinal sign, Capricorns are anything but stuck-in-their-ways conservatives, they initiate change with dynamism, rigour and perplexing blind faith.  Major planetary transits through Capricorn always bring with them social upheaval, re-evaluation of out-dated practices and the establishment of a new order.

So Capricorns do change and they do it well, but it’s not the flash-in-a-pan fad-focused trendy change you might expect from a Mutable, it’s calculated procession based on the wisdom they’ve gained from all they have seen come and go thus far.

The fishy tale and fleshy front-end of the Sea-goat Capricorn symbol invokes our passage from creatures of the ocean to creatures of the land.  Nurse-maid to Zeus, parent of Pan, and attributed to both fathering and mothering more mythological mentors than you can poke a stick at, they are, literally, the Cornucopia of Plenty from which our ancient archetypes sprung forth. Capricorn’s are obsessed with history, because, quite simply, they pre-date it.

I give you exhibit B, Capricorn, David Bowie….

Capricorns are NOT ANTI-MYSTICISM.
On the contrary in fact… While they may not do airy-fairy, new-agie, navel-gazey spirituality, they feel right at home studying the classics, interpreting passages from the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Gnostic gospels, Nordic myth, praying to their own universal mentor whether in a church, a temple, a tee-pee, or a shrine. Because they are only concerned with the grand scheme, they care little for the details of the Diaspora.

Unlike all other symbols of the zodiac, the Mer-goat is the one unrecognizable in the modern world (well, ok, the Archer / Centaur of Sagittarius is pretty uncommon in native habitats, but we do have Narnia, Harry Potter and the like keeping it in popular circulation).  Half-fish-half-goat, WTF is that? It’s a powerful memory of the times when our popular icons were not sex-tape-confession celebrities but oral traditions, camp-fire mythology and an uncanny connection between the many unknowable things in our world and universe, and how they may relate to and create our little selves.  Capricorn is the cipher through which all that we have known, all that we could know and all that we will never know may meet and make manifest.

I give you exhibit C, Capricorn, Patti Smith…

And if this all sounds like biased pampering to you, just wait til I get around to stroking your Sign’s ego. And until then – head on over to astro.com and find out what part of your chart is Capricornian…

Faz um algum tempo que rola uma discussão sobre Quake III rodando no Maemo 5. Muita gente achando impossível por que o hardware não seria capaz de rodar. Outros dizendo que ia ser horrível jogar. E uma galera ansiosa para colocar a mão em um N900 e instalar logo o Quake 3. De qualquer maneira, o mito persistia: “Quake III roda mesmo no Maemo 5?”

Nem vou enrolar: confirmado de cara. A resposta é sim sem sombra de dúvida. E foi muito fácil descobrir. Muita gente que estava fazendo teste dele falou alto por aí.

Quake III no Maemo 5 (N900). A qualidade da foto está terrível, mas vê-se que é Quake III. (foto por olegpodsechin no twitpic)

O dono da foto não só disse que Quake III roda no N900, mas deu boas informações a respeito do desempenho. Mais rápido e mais “suave” que Doom no HTC Hero! (veja vídeo do Doom no HTC Dream)

Quake 3 on the Nokia N900 (not 100 as last tweeted) faster and smoother than Doom on HTC Hero http://twitpic.com/km48m

Apesar da falta de informações visuais melhores, como fotos com qualidade decente e vídeos, existem informações tão válidas quanto as esperadas que confirmam o mito. Pessoas respeitadas da comunidade anunciaram no fórum oficial do Maemo que o Quake 3 roda espetacularmente no N900 e que os desenvolvedores fariam um demo no Maemo Summit!

Estávamos esperando. Até hoje. Os desenvolvedores estavam lá e fizeram o demo esperado. Sorte (nossa) que o Quim Gil estava lá para registrar o momento. Uma galera da platéia também twitou a respeito.

Demo do Quake III no Maemo 5 (foto de qgil, compartilhada via Creative Commons)

Até o momento não encontramos nada do demo além dessa foto e dos relatos no twitter, mas já é material mais que suficiente para confirmar o mito. Assim que tivermos mais informações, avisamos por aqui!

N900 - Entrega prevista para 30 de Fevereiro?

Um dos assuntos relacionados ao N900 mais comentados dos últimos dias é o possível – ou já ocorrido – adiamento na entrega do aparelho e de sua chegada às prateleiras. Há muita confusão nesse tópico e muita informação desencontrada. Depois de bastante trabalho, digerimos tudo o que encontramos para avaliar esse mais-que-recorrente mito: “a data de lançamento do N900 foi realmente alterada?”

Antes de mais nada, um pouco de história. No início de Agosto de 2009 começaram a surgir boatos de um novo Internet Tablet da Nokia, o tão esperado sucessor do N810. Inicialmente conhecido por Nokia RX-51 (id do aparelho na FCC)  e Nokia Rover (codnome), fotos, comentários e muita especulação surgiram em torno do novo aparelho. No meio de Agosto, o interesse pelo código RX-51 atingiu seu ápice. Em 27 de Agosto, a Nokia fez o anúncio à imprensa do novo dispositivo, que ocasionou uma explosão de interesse no aparelho. E no dia 2 de Setembro, durante o Nokia World 2009 (evento que anunciamos e cobrimos), foi feito o anúncio oficial e o início da venda (em preorder) do aparelho em vários países do mundo, que nós também divulgamos.

Nessa época, ninguém se ligou muito nas datas de entrega. O frisson foi tão grande  que a maior parte da galera estava mais preocupada em garantir o seu N900 que em quando a entrega seria feita. De longe o interesse no N900 foi muito maior que nos demais Internet Tablets. Mas com o tempo a ânsia por datas de lançamento foi aumentando. E datas foram surgindo.

Wikipedia: N900 era previsto para 27 de Setembro nos EUA e 19 de Outubro em alguns países da Europa

A primeira suposta data de entrega foi para os EUA, 27 de Setembro. Essa fez muito sucesso e foi papagaiada por inúmeros portais e blogs mundo afora. Mas essa já foi, e nada do N900.

O segundo boom de boatos foi em torno de 1º de Outubro. Mas já se passou uma semana. E nada. De novo.

A data mais próxima  e provavelmente furada é 19 de Outubro, para lançamento em 9 países da Europa. Da mesma forma que as outras datas citadas já não é possível encontrar nada oficial hoje que faça com que ela seja válida. Tanto que a Wikipedia foi atualizada dizendo que 27 de Setembro e 19 de Outubro eram as datas previstas para lançamento. Não que se possa confiar piamente nos dizeres da Wikipedia. Mas como nós, mais alguém acredita que essas datas já eram. (A propósito, não fui eu que editei só para colocar aqui, ok?)

Um ocorrido que mais contribuiu para confusão que para o esclarecimento foi a resposta dada por Peter Schneider, responsável pelo marketing dos dispositivos Maemo na Nokia, a um dos posts sobre o adiamento do lançamento do N900:

@BANGBANGTECH Sorry, my news and hype friend, there is no announcement from Nokia that the #N900 shipment would be delayed.

Eu não me arrisco a tirar conclusões profundas desse pronunciamento. É mais fácil se perder do que achar resposta. A Nokia não anunciou que o envio seria adiado. É fato. Mas ela também não tinha se pronunciado a respeito do envio antes. Então… ah, deixa para lá.

Maemo 5 - Só 9 downloads disponíveis até agora

Essas mudanças de datas provavelmente são reflexos do estado do Maemo 5, que aparentemente ainda não está terminado. Dois dias atrás foi anunciada o Final SDK do Maemo 5. Na área de downloads do Maemo 5 no site oficial, há apenas 9 aplicações para serem baixadas. E no repositório Extras do Maemo 5 (aka Fremantle), vê-se a mesma escassez de aplicações. Pode ser apenas uma maneira de esconder o jogo. Mas a impressão é que as coisas não estão totalmente prontas. E nós não somos os únicos com essa ideia na cabeça.

Mas não há porque temer: o N900 não deve demorar muito para chegar. Hoje, as datas de envio do N900 giram em torno do fim de Outubro e início de Novembro. Algumas datas de entrega são nebulosas (como no Reino Unido e Itália), outras são bem definidas (como nos EUA e Alemanha). Mas o que importa é que todas apontam para o lançamento no fim do mês. Além disso, fontes obscuras confirmam os fatos. Essas datas de entrega devem (deveriam?) ser mantidas.

Datas de entrega do N900 (de cima para baixo, da esquerda para a direita) No Reino Unido, Itália, EUA e Alemanha. Em todos os casos, a data de entrega está definida entre fim de Outubro e início de Novembro

Propaganda do N900 em Portugal

Além disso, já há propaganda do N900 em alguns países da Europa.

Em suma, para quem olha hoje para as datas, elas aparentemente não foram e nem serão alteradas. Mas para acompanhou as datas desde o anúncio do aparelho, com certeza rolou muitas alterações. Como não ouve um pronunciamento oficial da Nokia em nenhum momento com relação à data de lançamento, não é possível afirmar com propriedade que as datas foram modificadas. Portanto, é plausível acreditar que houve um adiamento.

Lembrem-se: se você souber de algum mito sobre o N900, contate-nos!

Mitos, rumores, fofocas. Há um mundo de incertezas em torno do mais novo membro da Nseries. Virá com infravermelho? E vai ter como plugar meu pen drive nele mesmo ou não? Essa história de Quake III rodando nele é verdade ou só piada? Algumas dessas coisas são certas. Outras nem tanto. Mas nós vamos procurar a resposta para você e postar tudo aqui. Mode MythBusters on!

Desde que assiti pela primeira vez, sou fã de MythBusters. Adam e Jamie estão sempre desmascarando falsos mitos e confirmando os que são verdade. Sempre mostram um contraponto de vista interessante e engraçado. As vezes até sobra uma dúvida. Mas o importante é que eles sempre vão até o fim.

MythBusters - Imahara, Jamie, Kari, Adam e Tory. Com certeza não somos tão bons. Mas pelo menos somos muito menos feios )

Nesse espírito, vamos encontrar respostas para todo rumor que aparecer sobre N900. De hoje até o lançamento oficial, já que até agora o aparelho está em preorder. Ou depois, se as dúvidas persistirem. Se você ouviu algum rumor sobre o N900 e ficou com confuso, viu algum twit/post/foto/vídeo esquisito ou se você está sentindo alguma coisa (vai saber, tem gente que sente essas coisas), entre em contato conosco. Vamos investigar até termos respostas. Na pior das hipóteses, vamos saber que os mitos levantados são mitos mesmo.

Enquanto não recebemos pedidos de vocês, vamos analisando os mitos do N900 que já conhecemos e que são bem famosos. Discutiremos em breve se há realmente infravermelho e USB host e se é realmente possível rodar Quake III. Também os rumores do adiamento da entrega e do lançamento oficial do N900 e do possível lançamento de um irmão (mais pobre?).

Nos mande os rumores que vir/ouvir por aí (não esqueça dos links!). Se depender de nós, não restaram mitos sobre o N900. Vamos até o fim.

American sports are supposed to be about balance. That’s the thinking, anyway. If every team doesn’t have a chance to win it all every five years or so, there must be something wrong with the system. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and a championship are things we believe to be human rights.

It’s galling, then, when your team is out of it from day one. Ask any Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates fan how it feels, and they’ll tell you it’s downright un-American. They don’t have a snowball’s chance in August at beating the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, or Mets who toss around money without looking at the numbers on the bills.

To be fair, this works for baseball’s owners—the only people that the sport is set up to serve. Perhaps that’s why, despite record attendance and viewership, baseball can’t compete with football’s popularity. Or maybe it’s the nature of football that makes it so appealing: fast-paced and, with its once-per-week, short-season setup, well-suited to the short attention spans of the HD era. Finally, it could be the old saw that the NFL is the exemplar of “parity”—that American ideal that your team will, at some point soon, get a chance to win it all. What could be more compelling?

The problem is that the last part isn’t true: there’s no more parity in football than there is in baseball. And the problem might be even worse.

The difference is that while baseball fights over money, football teams stock up on brains. Managerially-speaking, baseball is an easy thing to master: get the best players, make sure they get along, and go. Football’s the opposite. There’s so much to know that’s exclusive to the sport that there are precious few people who have it down cold. There are rules on top of rules on top of rules for everything from the draft to the those the penalty mask penalty, and they change every year. Mastering it is a mix of game theory, attention to detail, and brute force. It’s like knowing the code for Deep Blue, or reading a map of Queens. It’s incredibly hard to do.

For all the talk of NFL parity,there have been more World Series winning teams (8) this decade than there have been Super Bowl winners (6). This year, while some new teams (like  the Vikings and Jets) have joined the traditional powerhouses (Colts, Patriots, and Steelers) amongst the league’s elite, there is a slew of teams that will be luck to win four games. The Chiefs, Browns, Raiders, Rams, Pathers and Lions are symbols of the futility of hope. What are they playing for? Not much. At least baseball’s fickle enough to give teams a glimmer of hope for a couple months. In football when it’s gone, it’s gone.

What’s the cause of this? The strength of organizations. The Steelers, Colts and Patriots understand how the game is run: they supplement star players with replaceable ones, and employ a buy-low, sell-high philosophy. It sounds easy, but it’s not, and it takes supreme know-how to pull it off at every level of your organization: CEO, GM, coaches, players. Everything is constantly in motion, and having everyone keep pace is what makes the great teams great. It’s anything but a numbers game.

That’s what makes it harder than baseball, and why football won’t even out anytime soon. In baseball, a good numbers man (or woman) can still exploit the gaps and give the little team a fighting chance. In football, it’s one giant gap to be exploited, and the people who do it at a championship-caliber level are far fewer in number than their baseball counterparts. Football’s not considered a thinking man’s game, but if you look beyond the line of scrimmage, it’s exactly that. It’s like 53-person chess. If you’re good, you’re good, and if you’re not, you’ve got a better chance hoping for a miracle at a Mets game.

Bloggkollegan Patrick här på WP avlivar majamyter på löpande band..

Först i slaktkön står denna populära myt:

Myt 1: Marijuana är starkare i dag

Om du klickar på bilden, kommer du dit…

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Ever since I first saw this shirt, I’ve wanted one for computer scientists.  It’s a less in-your-face way of saying “yeah buddy, check your biases!”  I finally went ahead, modified the linked shirt appropriately, and ordered one, and should be getting it soon.

I am so oddly excited.

When people ask me what I do, they are often taken aback when I tell them, “I’m a college professor”.  They’re even more floored when I tell them I teach computer science.  I don’t fit the type:  I’m female; I love sports; I’d rather cook or read than take apart my computer on the weekend; I didn’t grow up surrounded by techie role models.  Heck, I didn’t even learn to program until college (a disastrous experience that nearly turned me off to computing forever…but that’s a subject for another post).  So I spend a lot of time explaining myself, correcting people’s assumptions (no, I’m not a student, or the admin, or that techie’s girlfriend/wife), and trying to figure out how I fit in.

The thing is, computer science, and engineering before that….they really grabbed me.  There’s something so magical and beautiful about good engineering, good design, technology, problem-solving.  I’m really proud of what I do for a living, and I can’t imagine not being a techie.  So even though I see myself as a computer scientist, it’s pretty jarring when I (often) encounter people who don’t see me that way.

Hence the t-shirt.  Not that I expect it to solve the world’s problems or anything, but I view it as my little, subversive way of asking people to question their own preconceptions of what it means to be a computer scientist.  Which, I hope, leads people to question how we do computer science, and what computer science can and should do and be.

This is kind of how I view this blog, too.  I envision this as a space where I can talk about my teaching and my research, but also as a space to question the culture and preconceptions surrounding computer science as a field—the ones those outside the field hold, but also the ones those of us inside the field hold.  Because someday, I’d like to say to someone “I’m a computer scientist” and have them respond “Of course you are”, with no hint of irony or sarcasm.

Sometimes people treat powers like “buttons” that they just routinely mash over and over again, paying little heed to anything except for the power’s effect. For some reason, they never had a problem with this in older editions despite the fact that spells never had default descriptive text until 3rd Edition saw the release of Spell Compendium, while 4th Edition provides it for everything. On one hand I think its true that it draws you out of the immersive qualities of the game if you dont put effort into describing the appearance of an action, but thats not the fault of the edition especially when you consider that the homework was done for you.

Now, this can be especially true for players that just jot down power names and a brief rundown of the effect, or for people playing new classes. For example, its easy to know that burning hands is an area effect that deals fire damage, but what does it look like? That brief description adds an immersive layer to the game that helps spark the player’s imagination. If you’ve played older editions you can guess or assume that it looks like a cone of fire erupting from the caster’s hands, but what about more esoteric powers like life tap (artificer) or your glorious sacrifice (dark pact warlock)? In this case its a simple matter of openinig a damn book and reading the description.

Just to be clear, this is not anything new. In any edition players could roll dice and wait until the DM determines the outcome. If anything, powers and their descriptions provide narrative for the context of the action and effect. For example, in 3rd Edition and prior if a fighter makes a melee attack, you would make a roll and if successful roll damage. In the narrative, this strike could mean many things, especially when you consider the abstract nature of hit points and the fact that hit point loss does not always mean physical trauma.

4th Edition takes this concept and adds a foundation to it. If you use tide of iron, for example, we know that you try and attack your foe and then follow up with a shield bash that knocks them back. The exact details are up to the DM and/or players to determine, but at the least everyone gets a starting point to work with if you like to mentally envision the flow of combat. You might smack the monster in the face, causing them to stagger back, or they might have actually dodged your sword swing and the damage comes from the fact that you collide into them with your shield and push them back. Maybe you just charged into them and use the force of the charge to shove them away.

If you’re a player who really digs these sort of things, like myself, then really you should have a vague understanding of what it looks like from the get-go. I take this a step further and stylize a lot of my own powers. For example, I had a fey-pact warlock whose teleport effects would make it look like that he collapsed into a pile of rotting leaves and reformed elsewhere, and his eldritch blast was a green bolt of twisting energy with golden motes that looked like swirling leaves.

The problem with me when it comes to combat narrative, is that I quickly grow bored with explaining the results and effects over and over again. In 3rd Edition when Red Jason played a human warblade, it got tiresome describing him cutting goblins and the like in half constantly. I tried to mix things up a bit by having him do other things, like tearing the wing off of a chimera (even though he was using a sword attack), but in the end it was like putting Mortal Kombat finishing moves or Final Fantasy summons on repeat: they’re cool the first few times, but quickly get old.

What I do like about the powers is that they help mix things up and provide some diverse ways to describe attacks, but even after it gets old at least players have a nice default image to put into place. For example, everyone knows that when the fighter uses tide of iron, that he is somehow knocking the monster back, even if you dont specifically describe it each time. In the end I think that of all the editions that 4th Edition lends itself most easily to game narrative. You get a ready source of description to spice things up with, even if you didnt care to use it in the first place.

Sökte på 420 och upp dök denna Aftonbladsblogg som jag aldrig tidigare sett!
Inte helt fel att sansade och korrekta argument i cannabisfrågan, för en gångs skull på lite mer permanent basis, kan göra sig hörda i bloggosfären.
Klicka på vinjetten med revolutionsikonen Che Guevara, så kommer du dit!

Markus avlivar myter om cannabis på inofficiella marijuanadagen den 20 april

Läs även andra drogliberala (?) bloggares åsikter om 2000-tal, Aftonbladet, Allmänbildning, Avslappning, Bloggosfären, Cannabis, Debatt,  Drogdebatten, Droger, Experiment, Farmakologi, Forskning, Frihet, Förbud, Förändring, Hallucinogener, Hasch, Hjärnkemi, Hälsa, Juridik, Kontrollsamhället, Kunskap, Lagar, Legalisering, Livet, Marijuana, Medicin, Narkotikapolitik, Narkotikastämplat, Nolltolerans, Opinionsbildning, Psykologi, Retorik, Teorier, Tester, Tips, Tobak, Utbildning, Vardag, Vetenskap, Välbefinnande, Ändrade medvetenhetstillstånd, Mythbusting

A reader recently asked me to share perspectives on successful PLM deployments – what are the common themes across successful implementations.

The thought that comes to mind first and foremost is the upfront planning.  By planning I don’t mean the development of a project schedule or of the system requirements - it’s the investment in taking the time to really make sure the business justification is well understood.

There is a process I have used repeatedly that involves managing expectations very carefully before engaging the software vendor.  Too often it seems that the PLM decision is reactive – as sold by the software vendor, not based upon a clear set of business drivers.

To be successful with the process steps executive level endorsement is critical as it has a lot in common with a business process assessment in that it probes the entire organization, however, the assessment is focused upon the product record, not operations or production.  The challenge for many however having someone who knows  PLM well enough to be able to see the opportunities is often not a skill set contained within your company.  The cost of having consulting done for this stage is often well worth the initial investment when taking into account the overall investment you may end up making in the implementation.

The single most significant thing to be done is to look at the PLM project with the same kind of rigor as a product development project.  Too often IT projects (coming from a non revenue perspective) fail to use simple PMO types of processes.  It all starts with the business case phase.

But on the successful implementations – the business case stage would include the following activities:

1. Take your organization chart and mark every department that handles product related information, identify key external partners that are also interacting with your product records (note – do not count your financial transactions here – just focus on the product information).
2. Evaluate each department around it’s  handling of product information or the product record look for manual transactions, duplicated entries, printouts, markups, shadow databases, network storage of product information.  Include examining what IT infrastructure components are involved.
3. Dollarize the impact of the “non-value” added activities associated with these product record related transactions – the caution is that executives will readily let you turn this into a blame game rather than a financial business case – so be careful how this is framed (Read the Dollarization Discipline for more on this).
4. As in product development project management practices – develop a high level specification (similar to a Market Requirements Document) that ties business objectives to the functionality requirements – this is NOT where to say it must run on xyz database, or have n tier architecture.  This is a market level specification for executive consumption.
5. Obtain executive buy-in for the next stage – do not go too deep into specification definition until this phase is approved.

In 3rd Edition there were three progressions for your Base Attack Bonus (a value that was added to all attacks)and two for Saving Throw Progressions (you used to roll a save against a target DC, which is an inverse of the way 4th Edition does it).
4th Edition gives every class a blanket bonus of +1 for every two levels, regardless.

3rd Edition gave each class a list of skills that you could purchase bonuses in easily, and whatever else cost double for the same bonus. These skill bonuses could be augmented by race, feats, magic items, etc, but otherwise saw no increase unless you invested skill points into them.
4th Edition gives everyone a +1 bonus for every two levels, and a +5 if you are trained in the skill. Race, feat, and other stuff apply, but you never invested anything else after that: everything increases every other level at a constant pace.

Most often this statement is aimed specifically at powers. Attack powers follow the pattern of making an attack roll to determine success, and then letting you deal damage and/or some kind of effect if you hit. While each power might follow an identical pattern of roll-and-effect, there is more to it in the actual narrative of the game and style of powers.
In 3rd Edition, attacking came in two flavors: you either made an attack roll, or if you were a spellcaster you selected a creature(s) and it had to make a “defense” roll. Single roll, and the only variance was who had to roll it.

4th Edition made things more consistent by making it so that if you wanted to attack a creature, you make the roll, no matter how you are going about it whether by sword or spell. I like this kind of mechanical consistency because it also makes it a lot easier to generate rules to determine if your ability works or doesnt. In 3rd Edition the saves got pretty wonky, and since they were based on Hit Dice and type it could be very difficult to make a monster with saves that werent too high or low for its Challenge Rating. The designers are free to focus on one set of functioning mechanics and then just move on.

I contest that 3rd Edition was far more guilty of “samey attacks” than 4th Edition since classes followed the roll-and-damage pattern without any kind of variance. Barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rangers all did largely the same routine: make an attack roll, deal damage if you hit. Rangers didnt have the mobility they did now, barbarians did inferior damage to everyone else unless they were raging (they broke even with fighters due to Weapon Specialization), and paladins could call on their god for divine power once per day…if the target was also evil.

4th Edition adds context to powers so that even if on a pure mechanical analysis they perform similar or even identical functions, they wouldn’t be described as such. That’s a big deal for me: classes feel and play differently than they used to. As a rogue, I feel more nimble and agile than a fighter, even though we both like move right up to a monster and stab at it. As a wizard I don’t feel like a sorcerer, who was actually virtually identical in every respect except for class features (which didn’t amount to much).

To sum it up, I’ll concede that in 4th Edition many things seem the same if you look at it from a purely mechanical standpoint. If you strip away the power sources, context, and narrative, you’ll probably find that many things follow an identical routine. However, I would say that 3rd Edition is far more samey in that regard since so few things did anything more than just plain damage. I think that both games would be said to have samey things, but 4th Edition doesnt have nearly as many, and if you add in a bit of description then it becomes much more diverse than it already is.

In closing, if elements in 4th Edition are samey, then elements 3rd Edition are virtually identical to themselves.

Red Jason has proposed a kind of column where one or both of us tackles popular “myths” concerning 4th Edition. As per his request, I’m going to start things out by talking about the spell magic missile.

A common complaint against wizards in D&D is that, unlike the predecessors, they can cast spells all day. Prior editions had a cap on the number of spells you could cast, most recently modified by having a high Intelligence score. Spell slots were doled out on a per day basis, so once you ran out of actual magic you were powerless until you took a long nap and browsed your spellbook. This was how previous D&D editions balanced mechanics: they limited what you could do each day. The downside is that it lead to the “15-minute day”, where you adventure for a quarter of an hour, burn out all your best abilities, and then tuck yourselves in for the next 8 hours or so before having another go.

1st-level spells were really tame, by which I mean that in a lot of cases were inferior to mundane weapons. Magic missile, for example, dealt 1d4 + 1 damage. Period. The average damage output for this was 3.5, while a light crossbow would deal 5.5 damage on average. The only advantage that magic missile had was that it had a long-range-that-you-never-used, and would automatically hit. The downside was that you could only reliably fire off about 3-4 of these things a day. Going by the default encounter-rate-that-no-one-used, you could expect to plow through about 3-4 encounters before necessitating nap-time.
So, you could basically fire off one shot per combat, but 3.5 damage isnt really that useful. Against any typical level 1 warrior monster, you couldnt kill them unless you rolled maximum damage and they had an average Constitution.

What could you do? If you ran out of magic, you were reduced to a really useless almost-warrior. You could fire off a crossbow that wouldnt hit, or try to whack things with a staff that wouldnt hit. Mostly you could end up being a reliability that probably had a better Knowledge (arcana) skill than anyone else.

4th Edition wizards are much different. They have spells that they can use all the time, which has lead some to conclude that they are now magic missile-gatling-guns. This is blatantly false. At best a wizard can reliably loose his magic half as fast as a ranger can arrows, even if you factor in action points. If anything, it was worse in 3rd Edition when a wizard was able to launch multiple missiles per casting. I think the major problem for some is not that they can cast magic missile ever round, but that they never run out of magic. My question is if this is actually a bad thing.

Wizards are supposed to be wielders of arcane power. Is it really so bad that they can consistently fire off minor blasts of eldritch force once every six seconds? Does it somehow destroy the D&D game? NO. If anything I think it makes more sense than a wizard scrambling around his allies trying to avoid getting hit while pathetically loosing ineffectual crossbow bolts at monsters who are spending swift actions to stifle laughter.
Mostly this assertion just screams of nostalgia. You remember the “good old days” when you could only cast one spell each day, and had to leech off of the party so that they could carry you through the dungeon until you hit a point where you were finally useful. You can argue skill uses and social-roleplaying all you want, but scavenging off the success of someone else doesnt sound like a good time to me. I’d rather pull my own weight.

I am thoroughly Sick of a ridiculous myth perpetuated by shows such as Sex and The City, Gilmore Girls* and other nonsense ‘womens shows’.

Girls do not check out guys butts. Again, I repeat, girls Do Not check out guys butts.

The only time a girl notices a guys ass is either a) it’s odd in some way, for example, it sticks out so much you could serve an English breakfast on it**, or b) it’s less than a foot away from your face. And if it’s less than a foot away from your face I wouldn’t really call it checking out, more like keeping an eye on it so it doesn’t knock the drink out of your hand. I speak from experience.

Every single female I have asked agrees, it’s never the ass. About 85% of the time it’s the arms.

So men, cease your squats and various other glute enhancing exercises, and pick up those dumbbells.  All a girl really wants, as Pirate says, is Tickets To The Gun Show.

You’re welcome.

* I swears I haven’t seen a full episode of this, but lived with Chachi when she watched all 7 seasons of this show. I try every day to push my knowledge of this show into darker recesses of my brain but occasionally a memory will pop up, leaving me on the floor, peeing my pants and biting my tongue.

** Ex-boyfriend anyone? SisterGirlFriend? I’ll admit he was good in that he lent me lotsa DVD’s, but that ass was built like a shed shelf..

My first plagiarism!!

http://call-it-what-it-is.blogspot.com/2009/01/mythbusting.html

WTF?!?! He didn’t change a single word, and he’s trying to pass it off as his own!

Look, I get that there is a lot of information out there, and a lot of it is going to be the same. Like music.

But dude, seriously? I didn’t invent the notion that these myths are myths. I didn’t do the scientific research myself to bust them. What I did was read about them and learn about them, and then cobble together a blog posting based on my memory and some research scraps. But you…you just literally copied and pasted my blog posting!

That’s like the difference between researching an essay using multiple books and web site resources, and submitting a friend’s essay from last year as is.

I’m putting this post up before I alert the asshole plagiarist asshole Colin Deslage that I know about his plagiarism, so you’ll get a chance to see it and to COMMENT ON IT PLEASE!

Thanks to Zeke, the commenter who let me know about this. Right now I’m going to google the rest of this asshole Colin Deslage’s blog postings and see who else he has plagiarized.

I’ll let you play “find the errors” with this one. First to 100 wins.

Mythbusting Obama Recovery Package

As soon as I have time I will try to make a proper slashing of it.

Is it true that Lil’ Wayne died?  This was the first thing I heard when I got home this weekend.  Apparently this rumor had been going around all day, and no one knew if it was true.  I decided to look up the rumor, and I found this article.  It looks a lot like an article from BBC news, and it says that Lil Wayne was shot in New Orleans and that he died on November 1st.  However, many people that I talked to seemed convinced that it wasn’t true.  I kept looking up the rumor and I found many articles claiming that the rumor is not true.  Apparently, the BBC article was fake.  This is both the best and the wort thing about the internet: anyone can put anything they want on the internet, whether it is true or not.  It is good a good thing because anyone can post something on the internet.  It does not discriminate, the only requirements are a computer and an internet connection.  Its bad because it means that many things that are posted are not true.  This means that things that many things that are posted on the internet can not be blindly trusted.  If it is from an unknown source, the consumer needs to do some research to make sure it is true.

As we have discussed in class and on this blog, one of the critiques most often leveled at citizen journalists, particularly in the semi-anonymous blogosphere, is their lack of credibility and accountability. A common rebuttal to this critique is that citizen journalists occupy a different niche than the credentialed press corps. Their role, advocates argue, is simply to report honest, unedited, personal stories, “from the ground,” and it’s the job of the card-carrying journalists to do the fact-checking, worry about pesky professional ethics, attempt to maintain some level of integrity, objectivity, etc.

Where do you draw the line, though, between “real” journalism and anything-goes rogue journalism? Is it acceptable for news outlets that enjoy a perceived credibility, riding the increasingly blurry line between the professional and unprofessional, to pick up a blog story (i.e., a rumor) and report on it, provided they qualify it with the adjective “unconfirmed”?

Critics of citizen journalism scored a point this week when a false report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a major heart attack led to a very sudden, 10% dip in Apple’s stock trading value. CNet’s Greg Sandoval reported on how the rumor originated, spread, created a panic, and then died, all in a matter of minutes. Apparently, the rumor began on iReport.com a CNN-sponsored community blog, which promises: “Unedited. Unfiltered. News.” The identity of the user who submitted the report is being investigated by the SEC.

At issue for many media traditionalists, is that the “story” was picked up by a well-regarded digital business blog, Silicon Alley Insider, which reported on it without first hearing from Apple or Jobs’s representatives, simply noting that the report was “unconfirmed.”

Amidst much controversy, Silicon Alley Insider defended their decision, arguing that: a. the story had gained traction when the report was spread, and thus somehow substantiated, via posts to Twitter and Digg; b. in occupying the unique niche of “online journalists,” they do not view their roles as serving as media “gatekeepers;” and c. as such, they should not be held to the same standards of accuracy as mainstream outlets like The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. They conclude that their primary responsibility is to privilege immediacy of information over accuracy.

Hm. Really?

ok, so as you probably guessed, this blog is about the article we read in class today. This article has opened my eyes to the level of absurdity that the media reached by obsessing over this. he has been made fun of by countless comedians, and there are countless youtube videos making fun of him for this. Gore’s claim of inventing the internet even reached its way up to the all knowing and powerful, spadone loving site of snopes.com. but there is just one problem with all this mockery of him. HE NEVER CLAIMED TO INVENT THE INTERNET. He merely claimed to take initiative to creating the internet. This is true. Gore did in fact take initiative in creating the internet. True, the internet was already somewhat invented, but Gore was a major player in the entrepreneurial stage. Gore was the one who talked to Congress about the Internet, and passed countless motions and laws to advance the internet. but this is not what angers me. I am mad over the amount of press that this issue received. Why does the media feel the need to over obsess with trivial things. Sure its funny when the president makes a mistake in one of his speeches, but really, give them a break. after taking the time to actually watch some of the videos mocking Gore, I am somewhat repulsed. Has making fun of others, especially high ranked politicians become the high point in our media? Everyone should understand that all this was, was a slight miscommunication, and does that really deserve all our attention?

Even Scoble couldn’t save Seagate. Almost a year after the hard-drive maker renewed a sponsorship deal with the prolific blogger, its stock is down 35 percent. Archrival Western Digital, meanwhile, is up 40 percent. So much for the profession of “influencer marketing,” a field which has exploded since the 2000 publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and the subsequent work The Influentials. These books, translated into action by marketers, have prompted companies from AT&T to Yahoo to hire executives expressly to suck up to bloggers. Seagate’s Scoble sponsorship is the purest expression of this trend. And the best illustration of why it doesn’t work. Learn More

Periodically, I will select a World of Warcraft game myth or rumor to be put to the test (a la snopes.com). Its veracity will be determined through empirical, experimental, and/or historical research.

Each myth presented will ultimately be categorized as either: TRUE, POSSIBLE, FALSE, or INCONCLUSIVE depending on the results of the research. Myths deemed “POSSIBLE” will be qualified with the necessary conditions under which they could be TRUE. Anything unproven by my research will be labeled “INCONCLUSIVE.” True things will be categorized as TRUE, and false things as FALSE.

The Myth:

Priests are the most nerfed class in World of Warcraft.

The Basis:

Every patch, the official forums are filled with a multitude of threads whining about class nerfs and threats of quitting the game over them.   This behavior is not something limited to the priest class, of course.  Complaints are posted in every class’s forums.

The priest class has undergone some substantial changes since the onset of The Burning Crusade.  Many abilities have been scaled back and too many buffs have been wasted on infrequently used abilities (such as Lightwell).    Again, while large nerfs and minor buffs are not a concept limited to the priest class exclusively, it does not stop players on the priest forum from theorizing about why: 1) Blizzard hates priests,  2) Blizzard ignores priests, and 3) Blizzard nerfs priests the most.

But does Blizzard actually nerf priests the most?  Which class is the most nerfed?

Testing the Myth:

Measuring just how much a class has been nerfed proves challenging.  There is no definitive measure in which we could compare class buffs and nerfs in a qualitative manner.  Quantitatively speaking, however, we have a shot.  What we would have to do is scour patch notes and tally buffs and nerfs.

Big disclaimer: This is, at the most fundamental level, just a count of buffs, nerfs, and other class changes appearing in patch notes.  There are no measures of just how much of an effect each change had, as it would be nearly impossible to create an uncontested criteria to measure the impact of each change on each spec of each class.  If you have any problems with this fact, or do not understand that this is a quantitative analysis and not a qualitative one, then stop reading right here.  This article isn’t for you.

As a starting point, I referenced Madness Lab’s list of class changes.  It has all the class-specific patch notes separated out by class and categorized as either:

1. Buffs
2. Nerfs
3. Changes
4. Bug Fixes
5. New Features
6. Overhauls

Some of the coding of the patch notes I disagreed with.  It also hadn’t been updated since the onset of TBC.  I just used their categorization as a launch point.

I decided to simplify the categories a bit:

1. Buffs – Anything that gives a direct benefit to the class and is not a bug fix.  Also, any new features to the class.
2. Nerfs – Anything that adversely affects the class and is not a bug fix.
3. Changes – Neutral changes and bug fixes.
4. Overhauls * - Situations where the class was changed so significantly that talent points were refunded.

* Each class ended up with one class review counting as an Overhaul and each class was refunded talent points immediately before TBC.  As every class ended up with exactly two Overhauls by this measure, this category was ignored.  Individual changes mentioned in the patch notes during Overhauls were inventoried and tallied, but the count of Overhauls themselves is irrelevant (since equal for all classes).

So, I have three categories: Buffs, Nerfs, and Changes.  I went through every single set of patch notes to live servers from the launch of World of Warcraft all the way up through patch 2.4.3.  I only counted class changes from the notes themselves, not undocumented changes (as there exists no 100% reliable reference of all of them).

Here is a rough idea of the rubric used to categorize the patch notes:

Buffs:

• Mana/rage/energy cost of a spell/ability reduced
• Casting time or GCD time reduced
• Spell/ability damage increased
• Spell/ability cooldown removed or decreased
• New spell/ability or talent
• Lowered the level necessary to learn a spell/ability

Nerfs:

• Mana/rage/energy cost of a spell/ability increased
• Casting time increased
• Spell/ability damage reduced
• Spell/ability cooldown increased
• Spell/ability/buff can now be negated or removed by other players
• Spell/ability given diminishing returns

Changes:

• New icon
• Bug fix
• Clarified or changed tooltip (without changing the spell/ability itself)

The majority of the class information in the patch notes fell into the “Changes” category as there was a fair number of things listed as “bug fixes.”

The summative data for each class is as follows:

Broken down by pre-TBC (prior to the January 16, 2007 launch of The Burning Crusade), TBC (after launch), and totals.  It is interesting to see the difference in the amount of attention some classes received before and after TBC (such as warlocks).

Pre-TBC

• Most buffs: Warlocks (53)
• Most nerfs: Warriors (17)

TBC

• Most buffs: Paladins (30)
• Most nerfs: Priests (17)

Overall

• Most buffs: Druids (78)
• Most nerfs: Priests (29)
  

Well, by sheer count of number of nerfs only, the priest class has received the most.

If we want to simplify this even more, we can give each class 1 point for each buff, and subtract a point for each nerf (with the changes equal to 0 points). So, buffs, nerfs, and changes you could think of as a +1, -1, and +0, respectively.  Summing these could give us an idea of total net effect of the class developments over time.

Score = (1 x Buffs) – (1 x Nerf) + (0 x Changes)

Druids end up with the highest score (meaning, a high amount of buffs compared to their nerfs) whereas priests are the lowest (high amount of nerfs compared to number of buffs).

Lastly, another thing worth mentioning is just how many times a class has come up in patch notes.  We’ve all seen players complain about their class being overlooked by Blizzard.  Has anyone been skimped over in the patch notes?

Sum = Buffs + Nerfs + Changes

Warlocks received the highest number of total changes in the patch notes, and, quite surprisingly, rogues were the lowest.

The Verdict:

This myth that priests are the most nerfed class is within the realm of possibility! One could argue that this myth is in fact true based on the total number of nerfs that have been listed in patch notes or the total number of nerfs that they have received in comparison to the number of buffs.

However, I cannot justifiably say that this quantitative analysis is proof positive of priests being the most nerfed class (hence, why the verdict is “possible” and not outright “true”).  Since the size and scope of each buff and nerf is not being measured, but merely tallied, my results are not truly comprehensive nor conclusive.

What is a buff anyways?  What is a nerf?  It can be argued that a buff is a change made to bring the class up to where the developers meant it to be, implying that it was underperforming in that given regard.  A nerf means the class could have been overperforming.  Druids and warlocks received a lot of buffs pre-TBC, and if you can remember what those classes were right after the launch of Warcraft, you can understand just why they received so many adjustments.

While priests may be, by a simple quantitative measure of the patch notes, the class that has received the most nerfs, they are not necessarily the weakest class.  Remember, Blizzard is constantly making adjustments to the balance between classes and nerfs are never worth cancelling your account over.

This is just one part of a series that I am doing on “Mythbusting in World of Warcraft.” Feel free to drop me a line if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, or read more about other myths that have been tested.

What a fast weekend. I’ve been trying to get a few posts out for a while, but we’re had a few parties to go through, and since Korean transportation shuts down at midnight (except for cabs), if you’re away from your city past midnight, it means you’re out until 5:30am. Such was the case Friday and Saturday nights.

Eating with the Chops.

But I digress. Let’s talk about chopsticks. Now unless you’ve been under some sort of rock, you’ll know about chopsticks. These long, thin devices used to typically eat “Chinese Food.” Throughout Asia, chopsticks are used at meals, but I found something strange when I came to Korea. You see, I’m used to the chopsticks I was given at Chinese and Japanese restaurants. Korean Chopsticks are different.

Rather than being long and round, Korean chopsticks are typically made out of medal and are flat. As difficult as some people have using round chopsticks, flat ones are even more difficult. Maybe that’s why so many people loose weight when they get here.

Now, the only thing I’ve been able to uncover about this phenomenon is that Koreans made the chopsticks flat to increase the surface area (to pick things up with). Some think this has to do with eating rice, but in Korea, rice is eaten with a spoon. I’m still trying to find the cultural origin of the flat chopstick, as I think it is one of the more interesting aspects of its divergent culture.

PART II

Friday remains Essay Day for my afternoon classes. This week’s topic was Fan Death. For those not interested in clicking the link, Fan Death is the belief that closing the doors and windows and leaving a house fan on at night will result in your death if you fall to sleep. This may sound absurd, but most Koreans believe this today. over 50% of my children believe this, which made dispelling the myth rather interesting. In fact, most electric fans are made with timers so that they can’t be left on all night. Furthermore, the news still atributes deaths to fans if one is present in the room.

PART III

The coursework for one of my morning classes is quite easy and the kids can be given so much more than what they’re given. Since during their normal coursework they are assigned an idiom to learn, I decided to include one for this week. I’m proud to announce that when the class is asked, “What is coffee?” the response is a loud and resounding, “Coffee is nectar of the gods!”

I was reading this weeks issue of Information Week – following an article on one of my favorite topics – IT spending (in an uncertain economy)…and was heartened to see several key comments. See

Information Week

In the article from July 28th, 2008 – Stare down the bear it is stated that companies are viewing the present uncertainties with a view to “leap ahead of weakened competitors” and are “plowing ahead on collaboration technologies” while conserving in the tactical areas.

This should hearten those of us who work extensively in PLM – yet it doesn’t. The frustration is that too many executives view PLM as an “engineering system” not as an enterprise necessity. While many PLM systems get implemented within engineering departments it’s typical to find that in short order, the rapid access to product information, the supply chain enabling, the multi-site collaboration capabilities – more employees within a company will be accessing the PLM environment than any other enterprise application.

Many of the PLM systems enable design reviews, assembly instructions, site specific component designations, hazard tracking, safety notices, policies, and processes all to be maintained across the business. Any business that has multiple facilities and produces products, should not forget that PLM is a highly critical collaboration solution (some even include conferencing systems embedded within them).

If your business is looking for efficiencies and reduction of costs associated with communications and collaboration – hopefully you are looking at your information flow in that context as well and examining what can be done to eliminate the overheads associated with transfer, loss, duplication of product information. After all – your business is based upon your products, right?

I am conflicted.

I was just declined membership at a beauty blogging forum because of too much personal content on this blog. Guilty as charged. And maybe I should extinguish the personal element to the beauty site altogether, and recommit to having Mythbuster Beauty be a 100% beauty blog. I would only post beauty posts here, and then post my personal stuff on my Facebook or MySpace accounts.

I have been considering this for months, and was only posting personal posts on weekends and beauty reviews Monday through Friday. The truth is, most people come to my site directed from a search on a specific beauty topic, and could care less about the rest. I add the personal stuff just because I love to share things about my life that are “beautiful.” Part of my belief about beauty is that we, as women are much more than just a pretty face. And discussing the myths about superficial beauty and unhealthy ideas that we have about beauty is something I fight against every day. I hope that message is conveyed in how I review beauty products and present myself here.

Let me know your feelings. I need some candid, honest opinions and will not take offense (at least not long term).

Here are some of my favorite “personal” posts, and I reflect back with a great deal of satisfaction publishing these articles:

Sunday Sermon: The Prayer of the Children: Thoughts on poverty, children, and love.

Martin Luther King Jr. The Freedom We Seek: Honoring Dr. King and his dream.

A Truly Beautiful Illustrator: Scott E. Franson: Inspirational, talented artist who is battling cancer.

Sunday Sermon: Big Sister Little Sister Love: From the pen of my oldest daughter.

The Fine Art of Communication: Thoughts on self-deprecation and loving yourself.

Sunday Sermon: Sister Love: How sisters can and should support each other.

Should we judge our next President by their laugh? History now, but still a relevant topic.

This is what I think the new Mythbuster Beauty slogan should be:

by Daren Jaques

I received the following email forward yesterday along with some anti Islamic ranting that sounded like some toothless redneck had written it with the help of his wife-sister. I think out of the hundreds of forwards I’ve verified through Snopes, only ONE has ever been true. Anyway, here is the basic text of the email (without the redneck rant part) :

Dear Friends,

My first reaction to these pictures was “I don´t believe this, it must be a photographic trick”.

Unfortunately, the truth seems evident, a little boy gets punished because he has stolen bread and they drive a heavy vehicle over his arm ….

What do you do when you receive a series of pictures like this? You ignore them???? Delete and think, thank God I am not living in Iran? This does not happen in my world ….

But the world is OURS – whether we live in Portugal, Sweden or in Iran. OUR children grow up in this world.

I feel helpless but I don´t want to think I received these pictures for no reason. Therefore, let´s use the power of the computer and internet to spread the information around the world. Maybe it can save some children from abuse in the future …???

Ignorance can be defeated …. And the internet is a wonderful weapon.

Snopes indicates that the photos are real, but it is not a punishment; rather, it is a stunt done by a magician in which the child is a confederate to the trick – hence the looks as though he is in pain.

You know, there are real atrocities occurring in Islamic countries. Forwarding fake ones just diminishes the believability and gravity of the actual human rights violations. If someone forwards you this kind of garbage, send them the Snopes link and ask them to stop spamming you.