Eep²

With all the stock market drama, I feel compelled to state the apparently not-so-obvious: the stock market (ANY stock market, not just the ones on Wall Street in New York City) is nothing but a pyramid scheme: people buy stock at a certain price, causing it to rise, spurring others to continue buying it. The original (first) buyers sell (or hold to rip off future buyers), driving the stock down and taking the money of those who bought the stock after the first buyers. Then, in order for the second group of buyers to make money there must be a third group to buy the stock to drive up its price again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Classic pyramid scheme antics. Next...

Stop living beyond your means! Credit is an illusion and is nothing but self-inflicted slavery. It's bad enough one has to "work" for "money" in the first place so don't compound the problem by digging your wage slavery hole even deeper by taking out a loan. If you can't afford it, don't buy it! A home is NOT the American dream--don't be suckered into the delusion. A loan from a bank is only possible because people have deposited money into the bank for the bank to loan out to other people with interest (of which you get far less in a standard savings or interest-bearing checking account). Credit/loans are just other parts of the greater monetary pyramid scheme.

The world is going to have to learn that it can't survive on mythological money backed by faith alone--it just doesn't work and isn't sustainable in the long run. Going into debt needs to become a thing of the past now as more and more people wake up to the realization that it is slavery, pure and simple. Knowledge is power...but power corrupts. (Ignorance is bliss.) However, the more people who have comparable knowledge, the less they can corrupt each other. Living within one's means will become more common as people become less materialistic and wanting things they don't need (or are marketed to "want" by greedy companies/corporations).

It's time to wake up already, people...

See this blog post for another perspective.

Well, no post for months but just haven't been in an egotistical mood, I guess. I quit Wurm and have since reverted to playing single-player games and IRCing. I haven't even been working on the 3D game comparison--just too much work to maintain in its current state (and getting a more automated entry/management system just isn't working) so it's on the backburner for now. Oh and I found Keyboard King, a cool program to reduce the keyboard repeat delay and increase the keyboard repeat rate beyond what Windows can do--even to specific keys (like just arrows, backspace, and delete as I have it set up).

I've been playing Wurm for the past 2.5 months or so--the first online game I've ever paid for...for 2 months anyway. Wurm is an MMORPG which it claims it is not but, rather, a "fantasy simulation"--but Wurm is an MMORPG for all intents and purposes. Unfortunately, like Second Life and Active Worlds, its development is lacking, slow, and underdeveloped. And with only 1 developer I can't see supporting such an unorganized buggy still-beta (despite going "gold" in June 2006) game. Wurm has potential but its learning curve is way too high and requires far too much time and energy to be any real fun.

I used to call Wurm "fun work" but now it's just plain work for the most part. Practically everything decays and has a quality level (QL) to it, with lower QL things decaying faster than higher QL things. However, to get things to a high enough QL that they don't decay in, say, even a month, requires paying for a premium account and then, of course, building up one's skills in order to create/improve things, which takes months by itself. Obviously, the developer, Mojang Specification (1 person now, basically), thinks players won't have any life other than Wurm.

Combined with game/chat masters and players who mostly don't seem to care if newbies cut down all the trees in the area, Wurm just isn't worth continuing for me.

For what, you ask? Get this: creating disambiguation pages--yes, for following Wikipedia guidelines, I'm blocked...indefinitely...again--by the same admin who banned me before for a week. Fucking ridiculous. And I've been such a good little Wikilemming and haven't been uncivil to anyone since my last reinstatement--really! Golly...not only must you be a little priss, you can't even contribute too much or the big bad admins don't wike it! Wah! Cry me a fucking river, weenies--seriously, let it all flow out into the ocean of over-emotion. Jesus H. Fucking Christ...(just what does the H stand for anyway?)

Anyway, on a more serious note (well, not really but I'm bored), I'm trying to get my 3D game comparison converted to a content management system so people (that's me, basically, since no one else seems to be interested) can add/update it more easily without having to mess with some big-ass table (BAT™) or settle on single-page lists and cheesy framed comparisons of games not in the BAT™ (it's trademarked, damn it--use it and I sue!) Eh...hey, it's only been ~7 years in the making!

Email notification of replies to comments on other people's blogs, not just one's own.

The feedback list needs a "Design" category. The theme I use, Minimalist Grey, is fixed-width and annoying cuz I have a wide screen. Vox needs to let people use their own themes that aren't limited to a fixed width. (Do you know why I didn't use a compound word that time?)

Composition preview option--just save? C'mon, Vox, get into the 21st century already...

And what's up with the screwed up fonts? I edit this post and the font's changed style, color, and size--what the fuck? I hate bugs... OK, so "copy-pasted text from elsewhere retains font formatting" and there's no way to reset the font to the default black-on-white in-edit style (which is automagically transformed to your theme's colors--unless it's explicitly different in this text-entry pane. Uh...yea...great design, Vox! Back to graphics design (and coding) 101 with you!

Well, another admin reviewed my unblock request and changed the ban to a 1-day block (well, 1.5-day including the ~12 hours from the initial block). I may bring an admin review against the admin who did a hasty indefinite ban against me without going through normal arbitration procedures. The previous admin who blocked me for a week also evaded discussion directly related to edit reversions (which is what I was partially blocked over). Damned if I do, damned if I don't, it seems... I hate politics and bureaocracy!

Well, that didn't take long. Despite playing Wikipedia's consensorship games, and contributing GREATLY to it, I still get the boot based on Wikipedia's far-too-anal "civility" policy (more like be a good little lemming and do not dare dissent from the "appeal to majority" fallacy). Typical--online oppression is dispensed FAR too easily.

Welp, now I'm blocked for a week because I tried to improve Wikipedia's craptacular disambiguation navigation system, which is inconsistent, contradictory, and hypocritical. Typical.

The problem with Wikipedia is it's too easily controlled by bias (what it dubs "consensus"). A group of people may not agree with one thing one week, but the next week (month, or year), consensus may change. It's like democracy on crack (which itself is just the "appeal to majority" fallacy)--and even worse when combined with capitalism where it then also becomes an "appeal to money" fallacy (which is just another kind of majority). Ridiculous.

I really don't know why I even bother trying to improve things--no one seems to want improvement. Everything I've come across I try to improve, but end up meeting heavy resistance. What's the point?

This is a scan of Steamshovel Press #1, 1988, from Philip Gounis, sent to me to resolve a dispute over the Steamshovel Press Wikipedia article. I have only cropped/rotated it.

Steamshovel Press #1 cover

This time for a "revert war", regarding my handling of "disambiguation" pages. How anal can Wikipedia be about pages that are lists of links to other articles? Geez...and then I try and use their own rule (set index articles, which is on the damn disambiguation page and appears nowhere else in Wikipedia policies/guidelines besides in the Manual of Style disambiguation guideline) against them and I still get the shaft. Go figure...