Posted: July 30th, 2005 | Author: | Filed under: out of doughnuts ramblings | No Comments »
I just played my best game of Lumines so far. It’s been a couple months since I’ve played my PSP and I’d forgotten how addictive the game is.
The combination of music and exploding square blocks is just so much fun. I would take some video of it if I could. I finally got to the levels where there begins to be video and text animated in the background. For a puzzle game they really make use of the PSP’s screen.
Posted: July 29th, 2005 | Author: | Filed under: out of doughnuts ramblings | No Comments »
Today on Forum(KQED) they had a discussion on Indian gaming and it’s impact on communities. Much of the discussion centered around gamblings effects on urban communities and whether or not a casino is appropriate in San Pablo.
Experts on both sides were able to site numerous studies and statistics arguing for and against casino expansion. Clearly Thunder Valley and Cache Creek have both generated considerable income for the tribes. No one could deny that revenue from both casinos have funded health care, education, and public services which have improved the quality of life on the reservations.
One listener felt it was wrong that these had to be funded with gambling. I have to wonder why it takes gambling to provide basic health care on reservations. I have no clue about public policies and legal trivia involving funding for reservations, but this situation seems terribly screwed up.
Apparently California is one of the world’s largest economies just by itself. I know that I and every other wage slave pay some 8+% of our incomes to the government every year as well as a fortune in property taxes, vehicle registration fees, and so on. From my calculations that adds up to a GAZILLION BILLION dollars!!
Where the hell does all my money go? Why do we have Indian Reservations with no dental care until gambling companies roll into town? Now we rely on oppurtunistic gambling investors aka Satan’s Minions to help provide our residents with support services.
That’s bullshit. I realize this is probably a complicated problem beyond my comprehension with enough inertia that will prevent it’s correction during my lifetime. Still, doesn’t it just make you wonder how the heck things got so screwed up until building a casino is the only way out?
(Disclaimer: I really like gambling and I have gambled at indian casinos in CA)
Posted: July 26th, 2005 | Author: | Filed under: out of doughnuts ramblings | No Comments »
So the previous post is auto magically generated by Media Manager. He’s done a great job over there and this is a fantastic start. All the info is pulled from Amazon, I’ve just provided the text for the review. The formatting is configurable view some built in templates that you can select. This is kind of a first look at the beta for me.
Features like this currently take a fair amount of techinical skill to get installed and incorporated into a blog. Once up though, the usage is trivial. The associate links for the product are all automagically generated for me. The only thing I had to do was type in the name of the book. I’m hoping the people at yahoo bring up these types of features when they have product meetings for Y! 360 because I’d really like to see 360 blogs grow to catch the features available for MT.
Posted: July 26th, 2005 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »
5
1
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When I first saw this book being recommended at Stacy’s, I didn’t think it would be something that I would like. After reading it though, I can say that the reviewer’s didn’t lie when they said it could change the way you see the world.
For me it definitely changed the way I think about the differences between people and my definition of “normal”. My favorite part of the book is hearing the autistic characters perspective on the interactions between “normal” people.
Definitely worth your time.
0345447549
The Speed of Dark (Ballantine Reader’s Circle)
Book
Elizabeth Moon
02 March, 2004
Ballantine Books
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This item is currently not available.
$13.95
$8.67
Posted: July 26th, 2005 | Author: | Filed under: out of doughnuts ramblings | No Comments »
I’ve upgraded to the new beta of MT that was released. It seems a good deal faster than the prior versions and the interface is a little bit nicer to look at.
For my day to day usage there really isn’t any change except that I can use Media Manager. This is created by the author of BookQueueToo and features new enhancements like a review tool. He’s off to a great start and I’m looking forward to the plugin reaching 1.0