TerraVirtua.com

good bye, kali... i love you...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:29:29 PST

one of my cats has been sick for a while now... when i took her in to the vet a week or so ago because of stomach problems, she was still doing pretty good, and had lasted WAY longer than the vet ever would have predicted. mammary cancer in cats is extremely aggressive. she had lost some weight, down to about 7.5 pounds from 10 when she was first diagnosed, but at the time, she was still pretty ok... still eating, still had energy, getting around, doing the things she normally did. my vet warned me that even so, when she started to decline, it would probably be fast... and probably be soon.

about last thursday night, she seemed to start losing her appetite. she ate, but not much, and not with much gusto. i was hoping she was just having a bad day (shed had them before) and would pick back up. when i got home from work friday, all the food was eaten, and i thought maybe thats all it was. but saturday it was the same again, just picking at her food. sunday all day, she seemed ok but suddenly sunday night, she threw up a lot of blood, crawled into her bed, and wouldnt come out.

she couldnt even be tempted by a treat, which she ALWAYS went crazy for, even on her bad days. and when i went to bed, she still wouldnt come out, and from the time i brought her home 16 years ago, she had never missed even one night sleeping with me on the bed. not one. i finally carried her, bed and all, into the bedroom, and slept with her by my head for the little bit of sleep i got.

i knew then that it was time. shes been sick for a long time now... but today, she got well.

it was the worst thing ive ever had to do. ive never felt as bad as i did then (and now), and ive felt pretty crappy before. theres a big empty screaming hole in the center of my chest where my heart used to be. ive read stories about how people pull their hair and tear their clothes and beat their chests in grief. i get it now.

i cradled her in my arms for the 5 hours before the appointment, and held her as they put her to sleep. i was the last thing she saw. i hope it was a comfort... i want to think shes in a cat heaven with lots of fish and string and treats and sunbeams... but i know shes not. shes gone. and my heart hurts so bad i cant even describe it.

i know no one cares about this stuff, but it makes me feel a little better to write it.

i got kali 16 years ago... i had just seen a dollar movie with my then wife. there was a pet supply store in the shopping center and we decided to stroll over there and take a look at the fish. they didnt normally sell pets there other than fish (it was called "wet pets") but that day, they had a big cardboard box in the middle of the store with 6-8 kittens in it. these were teeny tiny kittens, just opened their eyes not long ago. they were free with the purchase of a huge expensive bag of cat food.

i walked over to the box and looked over the side, and there was this one kitten that immediately ran over to the side and started trying to climb up the side of the box. she didnt meow as much as... well, yell, really... it was the funniest sound id ever heard from a cat, and just had to pick her up... she climbed up my shirt sleeve, across my chest, and into my pocket, where she promptly went to sleep.

in retrospect, i can see now that i fell in love with that cat instantly... she had stolen my heart along with my pocket. but at the time, we were POOR, and a $50 bag of cat food was a LOT. i tried to bargain with the clerk but to no avail, and finally i reluctantly dug her out of my pocket. she was so tiny, she fit in the palm of my hand... and she cried and cried when i put her back in the box. i didnt make it 20 feet out of the store before i turned around, went back in, and bought that bag of cat food.

from that day forward shed been a constant companion... a lap cat bar-none. she would greet me every morning, follow me into the bathroom, sit on the back of the toilet and talk to me while i showered, follow me as i got ready, and give me a cat-hug before i left. every day when i got home, shed greet me with a yell and another hug, then climb into my lap as soon as i sat down anywhere. then at night, she sing her weird yelling meow (she never did grow out of it) for a treat, and curl up on the bed beside me (when she wasnt trying to crawl under the covers)...

shes always been my little baby girl, and now shes gone. god i miss her so much. i love you baby...

Song of the Whenever: Sia - Soon We'll Be Found

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:47:22 PST

you know, its kinda hard to think up a way to explain WHY i like a song all the time. so... i just like it. you might like it too. click play and find out.

i also really dig the video. again, i just do. id love to post it here, but the cocksuckers at universal music pulled it from youtube. THIER OWN VIDEO, posted by them. not a bootleg from someone else. why? who knows. i suspect its because theyre a bunch of dicks.

update: found it somewhere else.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC) for $20 this weekend

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:26:27 PST

if youve got a reasonably updated PC, or an xbox360/PS3, and you havent played Batman: Arkham Asylum... man, you really need to. B:AA was the best game i played last year, without question, and i think it would probably make my list for my top 10 favorite games of all time.

the point being, its on sale this weekend for $20 from gamersgate. the pc version, that is.

of course, if you wait another 6 months itll prolly wind up on sale somewhere for $10... and be $5 on sale in another 12. but B:AA is one of those rare games that is actually worth the full $50 pricetag, so you cant hardly go wrong for anything less than that...

things moving along nicely...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:46:38 PST

the rebuild of the code is coming along nicely... much more quickly than i expected. had i not been so busy/lazy this weekend i think i might could have finished it even... but i think one more uninterrupted weekend will be enough to polish it off. the only thing that irritates me is that, because im deliberately going outside my comfort zone on this code and using techniques that i need to learn (but dont presently know beyond the barest academic sense), everything is almost certainly as bad as it can possibly be and still work.

a year or two from now im going to look back at this latest iteration and think its one of the worst things ive ever written. but i guess that shouldnt be a surprise, because i feel that way EVERY time i go back and redo the code for the site... i wonder if there will ever come a time that i code my own site in the same way i would a clients, where im not trying one experiment or another and instead just shooting for solid, reliable, quality code?

considering theres always something new to learn, and its always going to be safer learning it on my own code (where nobody gets fired or sued if it isnt perfect)... probably not...

downtime

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:09:11 PST

the long-delayed and much-needed revamp of the whole blog layout and software is about to get underway over the next several days... during that time, the blog may be down or quite unusable. im going to take this opportunity to do a lot of stuff that ive been needing to do, like go to a pure css layout, rework the whole templating engine for the software, get the thing using subversion (the source is already in subversion but im manually copying updates over because ive been too lazy to clear out the server copy and check it out from subversion), switch everything over to jquery from my own now-outmoded javascript library, and more...

the difference to you, dear reader, will be undetectable if i do everything correctly. however, it will allow me to do stuff ive been WANTING to do but cant, so there will be some more visible stuff coming after i get everything transitioned. this will also allow the software to be useful for other people who want it (ive got at least one who has asked for it, but cant use it currently because it wasnt designed with portability in mind), and should also improve indexing of the site contents in google et al.

anyhow, bottom line, dont worry if the site goes away for a bit... it isnt permanent, and doesnt signify anything major beyond my semi-regular desire to keep things updated with current techniques and technologies.

ed's life ended last week

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:53:22 PST

Webdude2 (2010-02-02 10:14:27):
Hey..you never wrote about Jen and I having our baby girl last week so all your reader(s) would know. Lothos would probably like to hear all about her. :)

as you can see, ed's life as he knew it changed forever last week... no longer his own, his life now belongs to a (as far as i know) healthy baby girl named alice... hit him up on facebook for all the pictures and shit (i assume there are tons of pics anyway, i dont facebook so i dunno...)

time for a site update

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:04:38 PST

man, the html for this site is sooooo bad. its obvious i was in a hurry the last time i banged things together. its long overdue for a rework, which i think ill start on this weekend. theres stuff i want to do that i cant do cleanly with what i have now, and its starting to irritate me...

Obama: puts fire first.

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:36:03 PST

note to self:

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:11:44 PST

do NOT attempt to cut your own hair at 5pm on xmas eve, when it is guaranteed no barber will be open for at least two days, and you have a full slate of activities from which you cannot hide for those two days, even IF youve done it a hundred times with no problem.

what is it the stock brokers say? past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Song(s) of the Whenever: Shrift - Lost in a Moment

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:24:16 PST

ok, this posting every day thing is for the birds. so screw it... ill do it a few times a week... maybe. almost definitely once a week, at least, except for the times i dont.

to make up for it, im putting a whole album up today instead of a single song. this is currently my very favorite album (my favorite track on this album is #5, Floating City)... so, enjoy. or dont. its not for everyone...

Song of the Day: Huun-Huur-Tu - Fly, Fly My Sadness

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:27:52 PST

huun-huur-tu perform traditional Tuvan folk music, using a technique called "throat-singing" which is a polyphonic style in which multiple notes are sung at one time by a single singer, producing a weird harmony even when only one person is singing. its pretty wild.

i like all their stuff, but this is without question one of the most hauntingly beautiful and achingly sad things i have ever heard. i cant understand the words, but really, i dont have to... the lament comes through loud and clear.

Song of the Day: Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:45:52 PST

ok. just stop. i dont want to hear it. this song is my secret shame, my guilty pleasure... its absolute trash, utterly uncharacteristic for me, and yet for some reason that boggles even MY mind, i still like it.

i dont listen to radio anymore, so generally my only exposure to pop is through stores and restaurants. i heard this one while eating dinner at genghis grill and it became lodged firmly in my brain. i just couldnt get the stupid song out of my head until id listened to it like 10 straight times. and by then, well, it had kinda grown on me. its got a really catchy hook with a good, strong, thumping bassline that makes it oddly likable.

listen at your own peril, and dont blame me if it gets stuck in your head, too.

Song of the Day: Bent - Sing Me

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:07:38 PST

ok so, no song yesterday. why? because grooveshark was down. except, it wasnt. rather, it was from one pc, and STILL is, but isnt on another pc. dont ask me, i have no idea why.

Song of the Day: Eisley - Invasion

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:37:19 PST

ok so i havent had much to say lately... in the interest of maintaining some semblance of activity, im going to highlight a song i happen to like every day.

and by "every day" i mean, "every day i remember to do it, until such a time as i get tired of doing it"...

today's song is "Invasion" by Eisley, a group of local girls (from tyler)... how can you not love a song about "invasion of the body snatchers"?

shatner does palin

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:57:43 PST

please god, dont let palin be the republican presidential candidate in 2012... i cant take 4 more years of obama...

will you kiss me?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:20:04 PST

a glorious dawn...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:07:16 PST

god i love the internet. theres so much creativity and talent out there, people doing genuinely fantastic stuff who have the opportunity to share it with the world... stuff like this:

i just keep listening to it...

the sky calls to us... a glorious dawn awaits...

Veteran's Day

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:44:26 PST

thank you, again, to all veterans and active-duty servicemen. no amount of thanks are enough, but theyre all i have to offer.

yet another crazy good game deal: Sword of the Stars

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:09:13 PDT

heres another great game at a great price, good through the end of the weekend...

Sword of the Stars: Ultimate Collection for $10 at Gamers Gate.

this is another of my all-time favorites, one i still play regularly... its a space 4x game (think "civ in space") with a number of innovations on the formula that make it stand out as one of the best in the genre... in particular: randomized tech trees! there are certain core techs that are always available... but the rest vary from game to game, and the paths linking them in the tree also vary...

what this means is, you cant just identify the "killer techs" and race up the tree via the shortest path. in games like civ, after a while, you get a feel for what the optimal tech progression is and once you get that worked out, every game tends to play out just like every other game. same build order, same research order, same same same... it is the greatest weakness of the genre, and really ruins my long-term enjoyment of those kinds of games. once youve figured out the optimal progression, victory is almost a foregone conclusion, and the individual playthroughs differ only in minor details.

however, in SotS, you DONT know what techs are available... you have no idea if your tech tree will be biased towards, say, beam weapons or missiles or armor... or a balanced mix... you dont know if youll have shielding techs, or stealth techs, or both, or neither. you dont know for sure that if you want the killer mega-beam of death, you need to research X, Y, and Z to open it up. additionally, you dont even know how many resources it will take to get any given tech. you have ESTIMATES provided by your scientists, but they may be off by as much as 50% in either direction. the end result being, science in the game progresses more like actual science... in fits and starts, with discoveries leading to unknown future opportunities.

all this, of course, affects the main body of the game: making war. youre forced to adapt not only to your enemy, but to your own scientific progress. every play of the game will see you adopting different strategies for making war on your enemies. sometimes you may focus on specialized small and mid-size hulls in mass quantities, using combined arms. in other cases, you may go with smaller numbers of large dreadnoughts. EW might play a big part in one game, and not at all in another. and of course, the enemy civs ALSO get randomized tech trees... so you can never be sure what youll be facing from THEM either. it'll keep you on your toes!

god, i could go on an on about the greatness of this game.

i still havent mentioned that in combat, all the weapons fire is actually modeled in-game. every shot, every projectile and missile, every turret and cannon. you can target and destroy individual ship sections and subsystems. ships and projectiles have mass, and a small ship hit by a large mass-driver is going to be violently flung off course. which reminds me, thrust and inertia are modeled as well. ships dont start and stop on a dime... unless youve got techs that deal with that.

oh yeah, and theres diplomacy too... but i never mess with that :)

titan quest gold, $10 on steam today only

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:33:20 PDT

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/402/

ive mentioned titan quest gold before in other posts... and i say again, if you dont already own it, it is absolutely criminal to NOT get it at this price. seriously, just go buy it already. you can thank me later.

this is what i call "bullet time"

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:06:48 PDT

very very cool... i especially like the hollow points in gelatin around the 6 minute mark. i also like how the soft lead bullets look like butter on a hot skillet. the shotgun stuff at the very end is also pretty sweet...

liberals certainly havent cornered the market on stupid...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:48:49 PDT

theres a lot of stupid to go around, and conservatives frequently dont do stupid by half-measures... a fine example would be Andrew Schlafly, creater of the "conservapedia"...

now, the conservapedia alone is stupid enough for a whole post... but it actually gets better. witness: The Conservative Bible Project!

theres a lot i could say about this, but its been pretty well said already by Good Math/Bad Math. yeah, i know, this isnt math... the blog author occasionally goes off-topic. i rarely EVER agree with him on the times he does, but in this case, he's spot on. the meat of it:

What the "Conservative Bible Project" is doing is not translating the bible. It is rewriting the bible to make it say what they want it to say, without regard for what it actually says. These people, who insist that every word of their holy texts must be taken as absolute literal truth without interpretation -- are rewriting their bibles to make it say what they want it to say.

You might think that I'm just exaggerating, since I'm a flaky liberal reconstructionist jew. But I'm really not. If you look at their explanation of what they're doing, it's not translating. Translating is going to the original text, which is written in some language X, and trying to convert it to language Y without loss of meaning. They don't even pretend that they're going back to the original sources. They're taking existing translations of the original text into english, and then re-writing them whenever they don't like what they say. They describe looking back to at the original text as a last resort "exception" (their word!) to their "translation" process.

wow. just... wow. a commenter contends that christianity has a proud tradition of this kind of redaction, but i think its closer to the truth that its a HUMAN tradition thats been going on as long as we could write, unfortunately.

minotaurs rock

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:30:40 PDT

our very own lothos!

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:19:15 PDT

lothos has been a part of terravirtua for a long time... 10 years, at least. he's probably the only one left from back in the day, actually... anyway, he's done what we all should be doing, he's decided to actually take action, get involved, and speak out... here he is at the 9/11 freedom rally in texarcana last month:

that was awesome, man... thank you for both your past and present service to our country and its citizens. you need to run for office. seriously. id vote for you.

you know, they ought to start handing out those pocket declarations/constitutions at ALL these rallies, and having mass oath-takings to the constitution. i think its time to start organizing the people in a real way. i want to see this happen all across the country, become a real movement, get people behind defending the constitution, PROUD of their defense of the county the founders intended.

id like to see the oath keepers extend their membership past military, police, and other public servants out to the public at large. i agree with you, that its time the government feared its citizens again. as jefferson said, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." so how do we go about doing that? how do we put the fear back into the government without sparking a civil war? is it even possible?

are you ready to be our fearless leader? :) we're gonna need one...

our obama, who art in washington, hallowed be thy name

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:06:30 PDT

just to avoid any confusion, thats obama theyre praying to, not nehemiah scudder.

and if you get that reference, im probably preaching to the choir :)