I would hazard a guess that the majority of my readers have never played a MMORPG. That's a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Player Game. I have them because I feel I have an addictive personality and don't want to get sucked in to a game like so many people have. Whether or not I play, however, the virtual worlds these games inhabit are getting bigger and more complex. They may be the forerunners of a virtual world of the future, so news about game events leaks in to the real world sometimes. Especially funny stuff, highlighted by an assasination a few years ago.

Ultima Online was one of the first MMORPGs. I have no clue if it's still going. The creator was this guy named Richard Garriot, AKA Lord British. He entered the game to make a speech, and forgot to turn on his character's invincibility tag. Bad idea. Someone killed him, and it actually made real world newspapers.

Just recently there was another hilarious incident in an online world. Some girl who plays World of Warcraft died in real life, so her guild or whatever in the game decided to hold an in-game funeral for her. While in-game avatars lined up to pay their respects or somesuch thing, an enemy guild attacked and slaughtered them. The "bad guys" even made a video of it, complete with spliced in quotes decrying the action and a great soundtrack, and released it for public consumption.

Actually it brings up an interesting point. I would assume that there are plenty of normally "good" people who play online games to be bad. They turn on that computer and start killing and pillaging. On the other hand, I just don't think that many "bad" people are getting online to experience being good. If they get online at all, I'm sure they play bad/evil characters, too. This would leave most MMORPGs with a lower good/bad ratio than real life, and funeral attacks no longer seem surprising.

Be sure to read this. Michael Totten is a journalist, but unlike most any other reporter out there. He used donations from readers of his website to pay for his trip to Iraq. He's not beholden to any editors, he can go where he wants and cover the stories he wants to cover, and thus is far more interesting and revealing than what you get from the New York Times. He's left Iraq, and this is the story of his trip to Israel after leaving Iraq.

Check this out, via Instapundit, via somewhere else. It's a study of various alternative fuels. Pretty in-depth, very interesting, and quite possibly a big part of our future. Although at this point I expect the singularity to change everything before we really run out of gas.

Someone described the singularity as "the geek rapture," and I admit to feeling like an evangelist when I talk about it. Local cable access, like the Wayne's World show, not national like Jerry Falwell or whoever is big these days. Has anyone coined the term "netevangelist" yet? Hmmm.... A quick google search shows that I'm way behind the curve on that word. I guess it's obvious. Singularevangelist? Too long, but it is original, so I claim it.

So I'm willing to admit that every day that goes by, the Bush administration seems more and more stupid and incompetent. People often acuse me of loving the guy, but I don't think I've ever said that, and I've frequently criticized him. What it comes down to is that there is only one alternative. You get the Republican candidate or the Democrat, and as bad as Bush may be, I still think he's better than John Kerry would have been. For the next election, it just depends on who is nominated. I'll probably vote Republican, but if someone more Lieberman than Dean wins the primaries, who knows?

I think the country needs to devise a way to open up elections to third parties. It's almost impossible for a third party to even get on the ballot for the Presidential election, much less have a chance in hell of winning. If a bunch of people decided to start a third party that follows basic libertarian principles without the extremism and peculiarity of the Libertarian Party, I'd probably follow. Such a party would strip people from both the Democrats and Republicans, but I think it would hit the right side hardest. A Democratic victory would be virtually guaranteed. This is why the Republicans need to turn things around. If they don't, they are going to start losing elections because of defections to either the Democrats or some third party/independent status.

What needs to be done? I can't speak for the Iraq situation. I just don't know, it's too hard to get straight answers from the press and the administration about what's going on over there. Iraq isn't turning away the kind of people I a focusing on, though. The people the Republicans need to appeal to want to see vast improvement in border control, spending, standing up to extremists instead of placating or ignoring them, and education, though that last could probably slide. I'm not even sure what the Federal government really has the right to do with education. Aren't schools run by the states? There was the No Child Left Behind Act, definitely done by Washington. So I'm not sure. But anything other than opening up the country to vouchers falls short. Back to the important things. Cut spending. Make some real efforts to do something about pork. Support the FairTax (ok, that probably won't happen, but it sure would be great to see it). Control the border, stop the influx of people illegally crossing. Do something about the ones already here. Another amnesty will just cause the cycle to repeat. Start condemning Islamist violence and such instead of apologizing for it. Like it or not, the Muslim world seems to be slowly gearing up to some bad stuff, seemingly led by Iran and the Saudis. Act like it.

Yesterday was a great day. Got two midterms back, a B on one (should be an A with the curve), and a solid A on the other. Then I had to do a presentation on digital currencies. I was very nervous since I bombed my last presentation, so instead of writing a speech and memorizing it, I just went up there with copies of my slides in front of me, and basically winged it. It worked, and I got an A on that, too.

Made my schedule for Fall semester. I decided to add a second concentration to my degree. Right now it's just finance, but by taking some specific courses instead of random electives, I can double in Risk Management/Insurance. I don't know what that will do for my paycheck after school, but I assume it will help. And I don't have to take an extra hours to do it.

Yesterday was a great day. Got two midterms back, a B on one (should be an A with the curve), and a solid A on the other. Then I had to do a presentation on digital currencies. I was very nervous since I bombed my last presentation, so instead of writing a speech and memorizing it, I just went up there with copies of my slides in front of me, and basically winged it. It worked, and I got an A on that, too.

Made my schedule for Fall semester. I decided to add a second concentration to my degree. Right now it's just finance, but by taking some specific courses instead of random electives, I can double in Risk Management/Insurance. I don't know what that will do for my paycheck after school, but I assume it will help. And I don't have to take an extra hours to do it.

Although I've rearely watched her show, it's been hard not admire Oprah. She's a self-made tycoon who has done a lot of good for a lot people. She started her book club, which made reading literary novels a passion again for many Americans, and then she restaretd her book club with even better non-contemporary novels, helping Americans to rediscover authors like John Steinbeck and Carson McCullers (two of my personal favorites). And now there's this, via Instapundit (as usual):

Winfrey, 52, who is reportedly worth more than $1 billion, said she doesn’t feel guilty about her wealth. “I was coming back from Africa on one of my trips,” she said. “I had taken one of my wealthy friends with me. She said, ‘Don’t you just feel guilty? Don’t you just feel terrible?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t. I do not know how me being destitute is going to help them.’ Then I said when we got home, ‘I’m going home to sleep on my Pratesi sheets right now and I’ll feel good about it.’"

Tiger Woods, upset over some of his less-than-excellent golfing at The Masters last weekend, said that some of his bad shots made him "feel like a spaz." Nothing wrong with that, right?

Not so fast. Apparantely the word "spaz" has much more negative and specific connotations in British English. Over there it is considered a dirty term for the disabled, and there is a big uproar against Woods. Can't people ever look at intentions? Tiger was obviously not trying to insult handicapped people, he just felt he played badly, and used a term common in his own language that means stupid or klutzy or whatever. The uproar over this is ridiculous. They seem to want Tiger, and anyone else, to be aware of every possible offensive word in every possible usage. WHy can't they be sensitive to the fact that the word means different things in different places? I think people have a responsibility not to get offended at every little thing, just as much as famous people should be aware of what to say and not to say. But they should not be expected to know that spaz means something very different in a different country.

Just for an example of how clueless our politicians are, read this. I'm tired of hearing people say that illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans won't do. That's BS. If history teaches us anything, it's that Americans, more than any other group on Earth, will do whatever they need to do to make money. McCain even said that Americans won't pick lettuce for $50/hour. That's complete bullshit!!!! $50/hour translates to $100k/year. I'd do it in an instant. Does he really some think some teenager who can barely pass high school, flips burgers at McDonald's for minimum wage, and who's girlfriend is pregnant is really going to say "Hell no, I won't pick lettuce for you!"

Look, this is pretty simple logic. If illegal aliens weren't available to do jobs like this, employers would have to raise wages in increments until they were paying enough to get Americans to do it, and then they will flock. The beauty and logic of a free market economy is that people go where the money is, and the money goes where the chance to make more is. If there's a niche to be filled, it WILL be filled, and to deny that is to deny our country's history.

Check this out, via instapundit.

How cool is this? I had read about the DARPA thing before. First year, no one finishes, people scoff. Year two, five teams finish, including some amateurs. And the space elevator thing is awesome. I'm a big proponent of aiming oour space policy towards an elevator, and this means other people are serious, too.