New blog is located here.

The main feed will be updated shortly.

*Edit: Main feed has been updated. It now points to the new blog.
*Edit2: I've removed the ability to comment on the old blog. I was getting too much spam.

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Yes I've noticed a few of my old posts have a lot of spam. Oddly enough most is for buying World of Warcraft gold. It's funny if I google 'daksystems' I come across a bunch of a websites whose sole purpose seems to be listing broken captchas. Awesome. I've not the time to clean up these posts but since no one really comments here anyways it probably isn't a big deal.

Just please be aware I'd never post anything in the comments myself. Especially not bullshit links to gold farming sites.

For those who are novice web users I HIGHLY recommend you look at your status bar at the bottom of Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera before you click on a link. The links I post are generally to legitimate sites. If you see something like http://123.253.34.35 don't click on it.

The blogging program I use is called simplephpblog. It hasn't been updated since 2005. When I first started my website I didn't do a ton of research for settling on a blogging tool, I went with the first tool that made sense. Unfortunately I didn't realize simplephpblog was dead. Why tell you this?: It means there aren't any new security updates. As far as a I know this blog is secure but you can never be too careful.

I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again: I will be porting over to Wordpress or something similar very soon. I'm currently trying to figure out how to get my old posts over to Wordpress.

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"Kick him in the nards"... "Wolfman's got nards." From those 2 fateful lines of the 80's cult classic "Monster Squad" I've become enamored with the word "nard." I don't know that anything else quite sums up a man's nethers in so amusing a fashion. In reference to my subject line: I've been trying out "Goldbond" powder to see if I can mitigate chafing of my inner thighs.

Unfortunately no matter how thin I've been my thighs always touch. Coupled with the running I do throughout the week and you've got some pretty harsh heat rashage. Generally this isn't a problem except in summer months. Awesome. So this summer I decided to try Goldbond. Well... it does sorta work. Unfortunately what they don't tell you is that if you get it directly on your fun sack there will be a light burning sensation that doesn't end for an hour or so. Yay!

There was an interesting article today on Ars Technica (a site I highly recommend for the tech. minded) regarding video gamers and how they can further their own cause by not being dbags. What caught my eye was a recap of a discussion with venerable game designer Will Wright: "He told us about how he came across an article where the writer described a young man engrossed in some unfamiliar handheld object, apparently to the point where he was out of touch with his surroundings and didn't want to interact with others because it distracted him from his new obsession."

Turns out the tale he was regaling everyone with was from a medieval monastery and it was regarding books. I can't imagine there is anyone out there who thinks books are a bad thing. Although I'm sure there are some defenders of morality who would claim only text books are necessary.

The point is, and I agree with the Ars article here, gaming is the red headed step child of politics. And I also agree with Ars that gamers have to sell themselves well. It doesn't help our cause when game bashing politicians receive death threats from angry teen gamers looking for a laugh. Ironically what politicians don't realize is that these same gamers are the ones that call myself and others "asshats" online. We (the older gamers) don't like them any more than you (the politicians.) Believe me, if I could cull the gaming population of under 18 social retards I would. They don't help the cause and only serve to legitimize hate mongering. (If you are a TF2 player, find a server called Vidya's (slang for video) to see what I mean. 2 minutes in there and you'll be begging for a hot shower and social contact.)

At some point we need to grow the fuck up and put on a better front. Games that promote learning or serve a social good are perfect examples of what we can accomplish. If you aren't a game designer you can always donate to one of my favorite charities, The ChildsPlay Charity. ChildsPlay (as I mentioned in my very first post) is a charity start by Penny-Arcade to provide games to children's hospitals. I believe the first year it was opened it raised a half million dollars in cash and goods, this past year it raised 1.3 million. 1.3 million, that is a big "fuck you" to anyone who says gamers are shiftless ticking time bombs of anti-social behavior.

On that note, back to nard burning.

-Dakota

p.s. A few days I ago I was writing up a post on software engineering when I had to attend to something else. Here is that post in its unfinished entirety:

"Don't let software engineers tell you any different. What we do is inherently easy. How else do you explain the multitude of shit-programmers out there creating monolithic programs to do the most menial of tasks? I wish I could find a link because, and I shit you not, I've seen a program whose sole purpose is to copy specific file types from multiple folders in to a single folder. Honest to god it was over 100 lines of code long. That might not mean anything to a non programmer but to give you a sense of scale, you can do it in 3 lines:


FOR /F "tokens=1 delims=" %%A IN ('dir *.obj /s/b') DO (
cp %%A c:\dumpfolder
)

*Just replace .obj with whatever file you'd like to pull. This is Windows .bat code. Real easy to learn.

I would posit that anyone can write code if they are properly versed. These programmers reel from problem to problem like a drunk sailor hoping to score, eventually ending up with crabs.... I didn't really think that analogy out. Ignore the crabs part, the drunken stumbling is still apropos. The point is that crappy programmers will spend their careers fixing bugs created by patches they wrote for other bugs. It's an ugly cycle.

Good software engineers are a rarer breed. These are the coders that write proactive code and apply real fixes to a problem instead of patching a leaking ship. No one should want to maintain the Titanic. That's not to say good coders don't write gritty patches once and awhile. Anyone in the field will tell you that time is always a problem. Sometimes shit needs to get done and you've not the time to attend to some problem: Like clicking a button takes you to an adult only website instead of to google. Sure it's a problem but with the right "spin" you can call it a feature. Tell people that the program guesses the users interests and no one will admit they are linked to porn pages because who wants to admit that's their taste?

"But Jeremy" you might say "Aren't there any folks in the middle?" Sure. These programmers are still awful but they've learned to bullshit better than the rest. These are the programmers making real money, the contractors, the consultants, etc... I'm reminded of a poster I once saw that says "There is good money to be in prolonging the problem." These coders consider bugs as job security. Lets say they work on a program for 3 years that cost 6 million dollars to make. If it crashes who are you going to pay to fix the problem? Sick of paying them to fix the program? Can you justify spending another 6 million on a new contractor? This type of coder is easily characterized by an over-abundance of power point presentations, buzz words, and a slick car salesman demeanor.

My point.. I guess my point is that if you are honestly thinking of a career in software engineering don't be a douche."

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In this day and age it's always surprising to me that I can still BE surprised by the douchebaggery of corporations (or whatever AirTran is considered.) In making flight plans for the end of August I purchased a ticket home on Monday. Later that night I decided I'd rather leave on Tuesday so I called up AirTran. So much for that fucking thought. Their cancellation/change policy stipulates that you have 4 hours in which to make changes without incurring a fee. 4 hours! Who the fuck realizes their mistakes in 4 hours? I'm making an appointment 2 months out and I was trying to change my ticket 6 hours after purchase. 30 minutes of which was spent on the phone with AirTran's amazingly piss poor phone service. Yay!!!!

Airlines seem hard pressed to stay afloat in todays economy. I would honestly think they'd try and accommodate lighter requests from customers in the hopes of maintaining customer loyalty. So fuck em. If I could be sure they'd not sell my seat I would take the $75 dollar hit just to screw them out of the remaining money.



Especially AirTran. Have you ever flown on AirTran? It's like riding in a shopping cart pushed by a bag lady. The staff is unprofessional, the planes are dirty, and, as I stated above, the customer service is about as good as a ball-less man in a procreation contest.



In a completely unrelated note, the Judge from the disbarment trial of Jack Thompson is apparently recommending permanent disbarment. Zoinks yo. When your professional conduct is so piss poor that the Judge doesn't think you can be rehabilitated with a short disbarment you know you're a D-Bag.




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Yes I know the images don't seem to be obeying the margins of my blog anymore. I think it's time to switch to a more professionally written blog.

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