Morals:
Your choice of actions.
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Honor:
A track record of how consistently you keep to your morals.
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It's not that I'm a bad person,
___I just recognize more than most,
______that every second of my life,
_________I can willingly chose to do the wrong thing.
It's not that I don't know what I'm doing,
___I know the consequences of my actions,
______I chose to act based on those consequences.
I know why I act,
___when I'm selfish,
______when I'm arrogant,
_________when I'm good,
____________When I chose to be evil.
Because, evil, like good,
___is a choice.
As long as I have free will,
___I will always have that choice.
Some think that
___True Evil lies in mindless obedience.
______It is.
_________Which is why my evil is arbitrary.
Others want to be good,
___want others to be good.
______want me to be good.
I chose to be only,
___what I want,
______what I chose,
_________Nothing more.
Because evil,
___is a choice.
As long as I have free will,
___I have that choice
______No one else.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
For those interested in the process.
Original...
Color and Levels: Pass 1...
Color and Luminosity Edit...
Focusing, Finished piece...
Color and Levels: Pass 1...
Color and Luminosity Edit...
Focusing, Finished piece...
Monday, September 14, 2009
I Did It Because of Microsoft
___One of the cool things about moving the XBox (360) to the dorm has been the fact that instead of running the video through a bulky TV I'm now running it through an HDMI cable to my good LCD monitor and, as a result, the picture is 10 fold better than what I was previously used to.
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___The downside of this setup, however, is the fact that unlike the TV I was using my monitor does not have any speakers. Sacrificing sound for a crystal clear image may not sound like much of a price, but it really detracts from a game when the most that the game can do to you is shake in your hands (the controller) or flash a few lights your way. Somehow Doom just isn't as scary without the creepy crawly sounds and the out of breath panting of the main character.
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___To solve this problem I decided to finally get a small set of speakers for my computer. The good news, the speakers are great, the bad news the cable that sends the normal audio/video out to the TV (instead of the HDMI cable) covers the HDMI port when you plug it in. Microsoft made it literally impossible to plug in both cables at the same time.
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__In disbelief I researched Microsoft's website and sure enough, in order to get sound out of the XBox when the HDMI cable is plugged in is to purchase an adapter that is exactly the same as the one I have except that it only sends out sound, and it doesn't cover the HDMI port when you plug it in. How much do they want for this duplicate inferior cable, you might ask? $50 for almost the same thing as I already have.
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___Unsatisfied with that solution further research revealed that the reason that the two cables won't fit side by side is that Microsoft made the casing on the standard cable thicker than it needed to be. Once you take the casing off the cable fits and works fine.
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___Seriously Microsoft, WTF?
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___The downside of this setup, however, is the fact that unlike the TV I was using my monitor does not have any speakers. Sacrificing sound for a crystal clear image may not sound like much of a price, but it really detracts from a game when the most that the game can do to you is shake in your hands (the controller) or flash a few lights your way. Somehow Doom just isn't as scary without the creepy crawly sounds and the out of breath panting of the main character.
|
___To solve this problem I decided to finally get a small set of speakers for my computer. The good news, the speakers are great, the bad news the cable that sends the normal audio/video out to the TV (instead of the HDMI cable) covers the HDMI port when you plug it in. Microsoft made it literally impossible to plug in both cables at the same time.
|
__In disbelief I researched Microsoft's website and sure enough, in order to get sound out of the XBox when the HDMI cable is plugged in is to purchase an adapter that is exactly the same as the one I have except that it only sends out sound, and it doesn't cover the HDMI port when you plug it in. How much do they want for this duplicate inferior cable, you might ask? $50 for almost the same thing as I already have.
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___Unsatisfied with that solution further research revealed that the reason that the two cables won't fit side by side is that Microsoft made the casing on the standard cable thicker than it needed to be. Once you take the casing off the cable fits and works fine.
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___Seriously Microsoft, WTF?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
thank you
I don't mean to belittle the rest of the wonderful gifts I received on my birthday, but one gift in particular was so incredible I realized, upon receiving it, I didn't actually have the words the say exactly what it meant to me.
My Dad has collected proof sets from the US mint, one for each child he had at the time, ever since I was born in 1988. Each year he would get the latest one, and, after admiring the craftsmanship that went into that year's edition, put them away for safe-keeping. Today, on my 21st birthday, he gave the collection he was keeping for me, to me.
I'm not a materialistic person, in a conventional sense. I believe an object, on it's own, holds little value. Yet, unquestionably, these coins hold a high value to me, not as objects, but as what they represent.
The coins themselves, as my Dad knows well, are masterfully crafted and perfectly preserved in the proof sets. Being an artist myself, I can easily appreciate the amount of work and talent that has gone into creating each and every coin. To the point where, despite the fact that currency is printed in bulk, each coin is, without a doubt, a work of art.
Also, there is one set for each year, a commitment kept for 21 years. Though every success, each year, every argument, each parting of paths, every meeting of ways, and all of the changes our lives have gone through, that commitment has stayed.
So, even in reflection, I have difficulty saying exactly what it is these coins mean to me.
In the end I find I have no greater words than,
thank you.
My Dad has collected proof sets from the US mint, one for each child he had at the time, ever since I was born in 1988. Each year he would get the latest one, and, after admiring the craftsmanship that went into that year's edition, put them away for safe-keeping. Today, on my 21st birthday, he gave the collection he was keeping for me, to me.
I'm not a materialistic person, in a conventional sense. I believe an object, on it's own, holds little value. Yet, unquestionably, these coins hold a high value to me, not as objects, but as what they represent.
The coins themselves, as my Dad knows well, are masterfully crafted and perfectly preserved in the proof sets. Being an artist myself, I can easily appreciate the amount of work and talent that has gone into creating each and every coin. To the point where, despite the fact that currency is printed in bulk, each coin is, without a doubt, a work of art.
Also, there is one set for each year, a commitment kept for 21 years. Though every success, each year, every argument, each parting of paths, every meeting of ways, and all of the changes our lives have gone through, that commitment has stayed.
So, even in reflection, I have difficulty saying exactly what it is these coins mean to me.
In the end I find I have no greater words than,
thank you.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Windix 6
___So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided that, since I'm not using my laptop for anything productive this quarter, (Homeworld Complex as a notable exception) I've gone ahead and reformatted my hard drive and replaced both the UNIX and Windows XP installs with Windows 7 beta.
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___Now, some of the more technologically savvy in the crowd (all 3 of you), may ask why it is that I would replace a beautiful, fully equipped, and most importantly, stable, version of XP with 7. (Not to mention the obliteration of Ubuntu (The version of UNIX I was using)) The answer is surprisingly simplistic: With enough time, I should be able to hack the windows operating system to behave like a UNIX bash shell at the command line, and a Windows machine inside of the GUI. On top of that, Windows 7 has done an excellent job of making sure that all of the normal bloatware that comes with Windows has been removed. Even more, the control panel nonsense that came with Vista has been reworked to the point where even I have to admit, it's easier to navigate than XP's control panel.
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___Much to my surprise, the largest problem I've had with Windows 7 thus far, is the fact that my graphics card drivers are only compatible if you hack the install files. The system, other than that, is even more stable than XP, and, better than that, it actually runs faster...
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___This raises some important questions like:
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___Could it actually be that I like an operating system from Microsoft?
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___Will computer nirvana occur sometime in the near future?
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___Has Satan called anyone yet about his heating problems??
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___Now, some of the more technologically savvy in the crowd (all 3 of you), may ask why it is that I would replace a beautiful, fully equipped, and most importantly, stable, version of XP with 7. (Not to mention the obliteration of Ubuntu (The version of UNIX I was using)) The answer is surprisingly simplistic: With enough time, I should be able to hack the windows operating system to behave like a UNIX bash shell at the command line, and a Windows machine inside of the GUI. On top of that, Windows 7 has done an excellent job of making sure that all of the normal bloatware that comes with Windows has been removed. Even more, the control panel nonsense that came with Vista has been reworked to the point where even I have to admit, it's easier to navigate than XP's control panel.
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___Much to my surprise, the largest problem I've had with Windows 7 thus far, is the fact that my graphics card drivers are only compatible if you hack the install files. The system, other than that, is even more stable than XP, and, better than that, it actually runs faster...
|
___This raises some important questions like:
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___Could it actually be that I like an operating system from Microsoft?
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___Will computer nirvana occur sometime in the near future?
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___Has Satan called anyone yet about his heating problems??
Friday, March 13, 2009
Community?
___So, after being passed a link to This Tumbleweed Life and reading through a few of the posts I came across this post which talks about the homeless, more specifically, the growing number of homeless children. The solution that the post suggests is to support your local faith-based homeless shelter. Now, admittedly, the post's author is an ELCA Lutheran pastor (which explains the faith-based bit) however, it got me thinking on the subject of community, or lack thereof.
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___In our complex social system, communities seem to serve a few basic needs: validation, identification, and support. These concepts are ordered in an egocentric manner, an individual feels the need for validation (See Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), the idea that there are others that think like they do; once part of that group, the individual can be identified (also read stereotyped), and identify themselves; then, finally, be able to support, and be supported by, their community.
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___These needs originated from the idea that a group can survive more easily than an individual and thus, so long as the individual feels safe inside that group, the individual will desire to remain inside of that group. At the present, of course, survival in such a life or death sense is no longer an issue... or is it?
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___While we may say, homeless "community", what we really mean is a group of individuals that all share the commonality that they have no home. Many suggest that we give this "community" a helping hand... but maybe what we should really be giving them, is a way to bring these individuals into an actual community...
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___Just a thought.
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___In our complex social system, communities seem to serve a few basic needs: validation, identification, and support. These concepts are ordered in an egocentric manner, an individual feels the need for validation (See Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), the idea that there are others that think like they do; once part of that group, the individual can be identified (also read stereotyped), and identify themselves; then, finally, be able to support, and be supported by, their community.
|
___These needs originated from the idea that a group can survive more easily than an individual and thus, so long as the individual feels safe inside that group, the individual will desire to remain inside of that group. At the present, of course, survival in such a life or death sense is no longer an issue... or is it?
|
___While we may say, homeless "community", what we really mean is a group of individuals that all share the commonality that they have no home. Many suggest that we give this "community" a helping hand... but maybe what we should really be giving them, is a way to bring these individuals into an actual community...
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___Just a thought.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Death by Irony
___So, hours after finishing the final for my Introduction to Systems Programing class, the TA is kind enough to send me the unofficial, unweighted grades for all of the projects. As the instructor has already announced that he will not curve the grades, I can easily calculate my final grade in the class. What else, but a D*.
*obscure reference to: Just Don't Get a D
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___Hours, after publishing this post the first time the instructor sent my official grade, a C-. Hurray for last second grade curves!
*obscure reference to: Just Don't Get a D
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___Hours, after publishing this post the first time the instructor sent my official grade, a C-. Hurray for last second grade curves!
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