Just. Wow (www.youtube.com).

Also, Joss Whedon co-wrote Toy Story???!?!? How the fuck did I not know that until now???

What. The. Fuck. (www.inquisitr.com)

Seriously. How did I miss this before Xmas was over?? Truly one of the strangest things to come out... ever.

EDIT:

AND THAT'S NOT ALL. Christopher Lee... 90 year old metal singer. Oh and he's been in almost 300 movies or whatever.

Mainly for Comrade Conrad (www.alaskadispatch.com). Hope it jives with the 2 and 2s.

Drunk history is the best video series ever. I'm apparently a few years behind on this, but it is so good.

My favorite is Episode 6 (www.youtube.com) (there's pineapple pieces! I know I chewed it), but you should probably start with Episode 1 (www.youtube.com) if you have not seen them.

Pixar + Metal (www.metalinjection.net)

Mastodon (www.youtube.com) I love you. Will see this movie.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. You should have bought it Josh.

IN THE FAAAACE! http://www.youtube....mp;feature=related (www.youtube.com)

I just downloaded the game Journey on Playstation Network, but it goes in the queue of games I have stacked up ready to play after the PE. Most of these games are still in their packaging!

Man, Breaking Bad just keeps getting better and better. Season 2, Episode 8 is SO GOOD.

CALL SAUL.

I don't even. (www.youtube.com)

We ordered a Nest Learning Thermostat. We'll keep you appraised of how it goes.

If you've got an hour or two to spare, they've got posted online the Acquisitions Inc. Dungeons and Dragons game the Penny Arcade, PvP Online, and Wil Wheaton played: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/paxgame2012 (www.wizards.com)

Entertaining as hell.

A business idea I had, but first a few things:

Thing 1: I've talked about the subject of women in computer science a little bit before. Doesn't make me an expert on the subject, but the paucity of women in the computer and overall engineering fields is unfortunate and confusing to me.

Thing 2: Living in Alaska, geographic distance from everything else excludes us from a number of privileges, one of which being convenient and expedient shipping. It is expensive, time consuming, and in some cases impossible due to the fact that some businesses refuse to ship to Alaska. While online shopping is often still the way to go depending on the product and the need, we don't have the flexibility in terms of quick shipping options, or quick turnaround on return items.

Thing 3: We have 8-9 months of winter, during which we have record numbers for movie watching and eating out for our population base. Part of that indoors crowd are the computer geeks, specifically those that are the professionals, the hobbyists, gamers, or just designated family computer repair-person. There are a few, small email groups, but to my knowledge there isn't a physical commonplace for these people, nor is there a business that caters to the mid-to-higher end of computer hardware and support. Best Buy doesn't count, as they are much less centered around repair and more about retail, plus their target demographic is considerably less technically savvy. To put it short: there is not a Boscoes equivalent for computer people (even of Boscoes people likely intersect computer people with a high hit rate).

Thing 4: I can't definitively say that it is unique to Anchorage or Alaska, but I have not seen the "coffee shack" trailers anywhere else I've traveled. In terms of safety, from my sister's own anecdotal stories, to recent events, these are terrible places to work. Furthermore, for these coffee shacks, and similar businesses (see: Great Harvest Bread Company, any clothing store), they have fairly obvious and one-sided hiring practices when it comes to choosing employees. And in terms of doing business, that is their prerogative: young, attractive women attract customers, get better tips, and have more chance of repeat patronage and continued brand loyalty than anyone else. However, it's hard for me to see how this benefits the employees, particularly in the case of the coffee shacks. While I had an opportunity for a programming internship in my mid-teens, my sister was learning to be a barrista (which has nothing to do with her career now, and may have been her choice over other things at the time, but I'm bringing up the difference in opportunity, not the later career choices).

Thing 5: Computer literacy is a commodity. Computer repair shops around Anchorage, while mostly honest, are not impartial in their support, and it is not in their best interest to impart knowledge. Again, back to business prerogative, but mostly in terms of avoiding the long shadow of legal liability.

My business idea is in three parts:

1. A membership-based, self-service computer shop, catering to mid-to-higher end computer hobbyists and professionals. Membership fees would allow a person entrance a facility, in addition to cheaper prices on some items, but more importantly, access to computer components in a diagnostic as well as try-before-you-buy capacity. It would give members trying to fix their own computers the ability to quickly identify malfunctioning components by short-cutting the "process of elimination" troubleshooting. It would also allow members to test new components to determine whether an upgrade was necessary or effective.
2. Given that new computer hardware and there shipping and stocking thereof is expensive, one would have to find ways to offset capital costs with things like trainings, certifications, and basic computer literacy courses. In addition, there could be a mentorship program, similar to the one I explained towards the end of this article, that would help small businesses in return for donated expertise and cheap technical labor.
3. Hire employees with a heavy bias towards women, particularly those interested in technology, or other geeky exploits. Provide training, internships, and allow for certification, but in an environment intent on inviting and accepting and engaging women as intellectual peers, not as tippable sex objects or walking clothing racks.

I like this idea for a few reasons:

• The reason I rarely throw away computer parts is because replacements and spares are 2 weeks away, and I can't always be certain that what I received after my 2 weeks will be exactly what I need.
• Membership would keep the lights on, as well as provide deals to members that may not be available at box stores. It would also serve to always know who a customer was (in terms of employee safety), but also what their previous issues were, notes, and other things that could help the customer in the future.
• Employees would be free to impart knowledge, free from legal liability, provided that they were not the individuals performing whatever repair (note: I said self-service).
• Practical, utility rules could be in place for "break it, you bought it" in terms of handling diagnostic or try-before-you-buy hardware.
• Employees would benefit from work experience, could gain training and certifications, as well as establish connections in the community for career or educational advancement.

There's at least one, very real problem with this that I'm not sure how to solve. If indeed the community this type of business would cater to thrives on the dispersing of computer knowledge and overall computer literacy, that knowledge would have to come from somewhere. And unfortunately, that knowledge doesn't come cheap. The reason that good, consumer computer support is often so poor is because the folks with the expertise to make a place like this work wouldn't work for the wages this would be able to pay. Somehow, the mentorships and the expert-level knowledge would have to be on a volunteer basis.

Thoughts?

Safety Not Guaranteed (www.youtube.com)

I had an idea for a game. Not "quit your job and hop on Kickstarter" good, but I've liked the idea for the 10 minutes I've been thinking on it.

Simulation games (for example, Sim City), in the right context, can be incredibly addicting. I played one on my phone for upwards of 10 hours that was simply managing a software development business. They're fun to play for a few reasons:

• They're timed/engineered perfectly to ensure that you're both improving upon your creation, while at the same time serving your creation's random needs and wants, at a consistent rate to keep you interested.
• They're designed to feel like you're doing small, simple tasks, but with vast consequences.
• They're often based around things that people can approach, have little knowledge about, but still feel comfortable making decisions despite.

Working next to and around the telecommunications industry, my thought was to have something related. Not quite "Sim Tower," but more like "Sim Cell Phone Tower." I think this is a good simulation context, given that everyone seems to have opinions on cell phones, cell phone reception, phone plans, phone models, and relative speed.

The game would be equal parts:

• Tower placement and planning (Identifying good/bad signal areas, in combinations with high/low population density areas, as well as trying to balance tower signal "conflict").
• Tower reselling (Charging competitors to rent space on your tower, but reducing your own reliability/bandwidth)
• Network bandwidth backbone throughput (Each tower can do X many calls, Y much bandwidth, how can you balance those things out while charging competitively and maintaining good user experience?)
• Available phone choice (Balancing user demand vs. network capabilities (Edge network, 2G, 3G, HSPA, etc.) vs. network drain vs. licensing/contracting/exclusivity requirements with phone manufacturers)
• Marketing budget (Increasing new/incoming customers versus leaving customers, keeping existing customers, etc.)
• Spectrum licensing (Large up front lease cost, but gives you further room to support more signals, more technologies, better network availability)

It'd be fun to balance those things in combination with computer player, and see how well people can manage around random events. For example:

• Conventions, sporting events, emergencies (where everyone calls their family to see if they're alright) that dramatically spike usage.
• Random weather, solar flares, etc., that interfere with signal strength, probability of dropped calls, all that.
• Poor city planning (Somebody erects a 30 story building next to your tower. The building completely blocks signal to half of the tower, and signal echoes off the building reduce signal quality to everything else on the tower.
• Tower sabotage (other companies, vandals, etc.)

Each game could also be sort of a technological race as well (a la Civilization). Everyone could start out with the equivalent of "analog" cell technology, move up through time-divided signal technologies, code-divided signals, texting, data transfer, where your choice could be between cornering a market with your current technology in order to beat your competitor or to develop and innovate past them.

The above is my idea for the basic game mechanic.

The turn is that you could play with either a) your friends or b) Internet rando's, competing against their management of their cell phone network against yours.

The prestige would be that you play it on Google Maps with real locations, accounting for things like elevation, weather, and solar activity. You could finally answer for yourself the question of why it's hard to get cell phone service at your house when you live in a hole, or on the opposite side of a hill from a tower.

Thoughts?

I had a reasonable affection for Tron: Legacy. Of course, I wanted it to be something it could never be, but that's another story.

However: I'm interested, at least a little, in the animated show they're doing, called Tron: Uprising.

Trailer here (www.youtube.com).

Gents, on Google search for zerg rush. I know you'll enjoy it.

Narrated Amnesia: The Dark Descent play-through videos (www.youtube.com) tend to be my favorite way to experience the horror game genre. Mostly because they are hilarious.

Man... watching Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (www.imdb.com) and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (www.imdb.com) is an exercise in elation and then massive disappointment.

John Carter

Went to see John Carter with my father this evening. We both walked out with the rare notion that we liked a science fiction action movie, and felt that more people should see it.

I felt that the story was imaginative, honest, and well-constructed. They had impressive pacing, to the point where I was pondering on the implications of various character and plot developments at the same time I was enjoying the subsequent action scene.

I watched both DS9 and Star Trek: Generations this evening.

I watched Generations because I wasn't sure if I'd seen it or not. I had.

Generations... is barely a passable movie. If you aren't thinking about it. At all.

Red Letter Media goes over it (redlettermedia.com) better than I can.

So, I didn't watch DS9 this evening. Instead I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (www.imdb.com). Which was pretty alright, I felt.

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.

However, now I feel like I am a heartless goddamned robot because I wasn't crying throughout the whole thing. The kid was crying. Max von Sydow was crying. Sandra Bullock was crying. It ended up being a heartfelt story about how a community came together and cried because a boy whose father that had died in 9/11 was trying to cope with reality (and grieve in a unique way).

I haven't been to New York. Or lived there. Or known anybody who had lived in or near there that didn't say that it was an angry, unkind place. Which, to some degree, undermined how deeply I could believe the premise and reveal towards the end. And, the mystery behind the key ended up being even more tenuous and random and seemingly miraculous when it turned out the key had nothing to do with anything the father intended.

But I did like some of the messages. That some things just happen, and they cannot be understood, they just simply are. And that, whether we like to admit it or not, our parents probably understand us better as people than we do.

Would recommend. Unless you're a fucking robot.

Sometimes when shit gets slow at work, I open the internet and expect it to entertain me. It doesn't because that requires searching or navigating to a place that provides entertaining content. Usually I can never think of some place to go, so I just flip through the half dozen sites that I have bookmarked, see nothing new, and close the window. I repeat that about every 10 minutes as time allows. Nothing happens.

Watched Contagion last night. Good movie. Most realistic apocalyptic virus movie I've ever seen. Also: I can't stop touching my face.