The Libertarian

Right. It may not have the same verbal kick that some other title has, but at least it’s truthful. Blogs with the title “The (insert some modifier or qualifier HERE) *something*” are a dime a dozen these days, and besides, it’s mostly hollow PR to differentiate youself in some insignificant way from others sharing your chosen label.

So why would I call myself just “The Libertarian” instead of “The Pragmatic Libertarian”?

For several reasons.

For one, it implies that other libertarians than myself are not pragmatic, but rather ideological (and the connotations of that today is that one such is with his or her head in the clouds and removed from the realities of the world, which is bullshit, because in many areas pertaining to politics, they have their feet more solidly planted on the ground than most “main stream” Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Moderates and whatnot).

Metapoint: Pragmatism is ironically itself an ideology. Chew on that, you pragmatists, HA!

Second: I’m not too sure of how “non-ideological” i myself (or anyone else for that matter) should be to qualify to be “pragmatic”. As I see it the opposite of (pure) ideology would be (pure) pragmatism, which directly translates to pure oppertunism, and that means doing anything that would increase your power and reputation in the eyes of the public, no matter how much you’d have to prostitute yourself, betray your friends, allies and guiding ideals. As such, pure pragmatism is absolutely repugnant to me.

Additionally, go read Hayek’s “Why I am not a Conservative” for some more elaboration on ideology vs pragmatism.

Third, I may also change the Libertarian label as well, because the established, state-political Libertarian movement has been in decline the last few years in regards to ideology and integrity (and as such, taking the public perception, to the degree that there is one such of libertarianism, with it). From the summaries I got from US friends who followed the recent LNC (Libertarian National Convention), the LP is now aiming for a degree of moderation where it would indeed seem that they are “Republicans who want to smoke weed”. The intentions is no doubt good (MUCH better than those naaasty Demmies and Repugs, aye!), but the rhetoric is basically the same. (The NeoLibertarians, who are pro-war and more pragmatic than the rest of us pie-in-the-sky extremists, do indeed, in conjunction with the RLP’ers, seem to get their way.) And after a few years of being a libertarian, if there is something I despise, it’s justifying your own failures, inaction, incompetence and outright crimes with “your good intentions”. I want results, not sweet-sounding crap-talk.

Is the LP a good way to raise awareness about the libertarian cause? Initially it may seem so, but when you consider how much time, money and effort goes into busting into the public awareness, by means of advertisements, qualifying for the ballot, money for publicity - and plain, saying the stuff people want to hear (which in 90% of the case is bullshit or plain immoral from a freedom standpoint), I say - lets use the energy and resources elsewhere. “The Free State Project might be one such, but i doubt it. It could much too easily be labelled by the anti-libertarians as a militant takeover, yada yada, and that would be the end of that.

If you want to have a more libertarian world, my guess is that local independence and subversion efforts against the Big Government is the way to go. (Oh - and resisting the temptation to save others from themselves, as well.)

And, if you have a better suggestion for a self-label, let’s hear it.

Just a friendly consumer alert:

STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM SEAGATE’S “FREEAGENT PRO” HARD DRIVE LINE.

I had one 750G drive I purchased just before Christmas last year to save my sisters data off a dying WD external drive. The Seagate replacement died spontaneously before new year - that is, in under a week. With 120 gigs of my sister’s data on it. Fresh from the store.

I asked the place of purchase if they could send it to a data rescue service. They shrugged and said they could send it off to destruction, and give me a new one.

I called Seagate. They stonewalled me with some barely comprehensible blather which, as far as I could make out, was a diplomatic way of saying “you’re fucked, but thanks for your money”.

That was then, this is now. Stupid as i was, I went out and bought a replacement 750 GB Seagate for my sister (also a Freeagent Pro). It’s worked well, up till today, where I came home from work and the sis told me the drive was dead. I spent 5 minutes examining it - it’s dead alright. Doesn’t come on from pushing the power button, not from replugging Firewire cable, not from replugging power cable. The bottom was scalding hot. (A dead converter, probably, but my guess is that I’ll have to gut the drive box and write it off as another loss).

And no - we have’t poured cola in it, we are not operating it in excessively cold, hot, humid, dusty, vibrating conditions, etc. Just a regular, clean home environment, well away from potential harm.

(And you’re right - this by itself has no statistical significance. Thing is, I’m hearing the same from around my circle of acquaintances - dead and dying Seagate drives popping up regularly - too regularly).

Seagate, fuck you and your external hard drive line. What is your 5 year warranty worth if you won’t even fucking save my data on your pathetic products that die after less then a week of light use? I’ll take WD from now on, thanks!

1917 - 2008 (90 y)

One of the greatest SF writers ever.

More.

Right. Half a year of inactivity when my last post said that I was in fact not dead. Sorry if I had you fooled.

My life has been a bit proverbially turbulent since then, and some database trouble on my blog server was a wall I didn’t have the energy to climb and get past - until now - hence the lack of posts.

A lot has happened since last time. New technology, news in economics and politics. Lets see when I can be bothered to recap it. Hopefully in less than 6 months. ;)

- P

No, folks, I’m not dead, i’ve just become immersed in this wonderful game. Unsurprisingly, I’ve become hooked on the internal economics of the WoW world, and i’ve managed to make a small fortune.

Here is a snapshot:

Beautiful. You’ll hear more from me about this, i promise you that.

I’m on holiday - dunno when i’ll be back. Before too long, I hope.

Ciao folks.

“There are now at least 85,000 Elvis’s around the world, compared to only 170 in 1977 when Elvis died. At this rate of growth, experts predict that by 2019 Elvis impersonators will make up a third of the world population.” - The Naked Scientists, 3rd December, 2000.

Source.

I suppose it is fitting that I, a nasty capitalist, should describe exactly what I am doing for the environment. Let’s see:

My household has 3 persons living in it.

• In the last 8 months, we have thrown out our old refrigerator and freezer and replaced them with new ones, which are more power efficient and sport better insulation. I didn’t do a power measurement of the old ‘fridge, but the new freezer uses only 80 Watts when running, whereas the old used around 180 Watts; Also, the new one runs less of the time, because it uses better insulation (what materials exactly, i don’t know).
• The household has been using a lot of CFL (power saving) lightbulbs for a number of years, but anyway, I did a sweep of the household this spring, and now we’re almost exclusively using these Compact Flourescents (CFL’s). The only exceptions I wan think of is the chandelier in our living room (which we rarely use, anyway) and the bulbs in our vent above the stove, plus the halogen table lamps on my desktop.
• I am on the lookout for when LED bulbs become available for mass consumption, and when it does, I’ll start phasing out the CFL’s and the aforementioned halogens. I imagine this will begin to happen in 2-3 years.
• Being a computer geek, I have a small server park running 24/7, which of course consumes quite a bit of power. However, I began scaling it down last autumn; a year ago, I had two tower servers running all day long - in the fall, I retired the PC server, and moved the jobs it handled to a Virtual Machine on my Mac server. That alone saved me of 150 Watts of power consumption. Also, a year ago, I had 6 hard drives running more or less all the time - now I have only 3. (A 3.5″ hard drive running normally consumes approximately 10 Watts of power).
• Plus, the current PowerMac G4 Tower, which serves as my current server, will be replaced any day now when Apple releases their next Mac Mini - my PowerMac Tower uses approximately 100 Watts when running with two hard disks active - a Mac Mini with two hard disks active consumes only 50-60 Watts of power. (…plus it runs the x86 apps much faster, because they do not run emulated!)
• We currently have an 30-year old Texaco oil burner in the basement, which heats the house during winter. We are considering replacing it with a natural gas burner, which is not only much more efficient (and thus pumps less CO2 into the atmosphere per BTU of heat created), it also spares the environment of a lot of sulphur that is present in fuel oil.
• At the moment we have some artisans fixing up our outer walls because of some damage that have been done to them by the weather over the last 15 years - at the same time, they are refilling the hollows between the walls with more rockwool insulation, which will make our house lose much less heat in the winter half of the year.
• Last September, we replaced our old in-doors wood-burning stove with a new one which works by internal convection; the installation man informed us that the old furnace at most had an efficiency rating of 40% (ie. 60% of the heat produced went into the atmosphere) - the new one supposedly has an efficiency of 84% - more than twice as good (or from an inefficiency perspective, nearly 4 times better!). I’ve noticed the effect too in winter when we started making use of it - where we usually had to chuck 5 pieces of firewood into the old furnace to make some heat in the living room, with the new one, we only need to put in two to three pieces, and not only that, the wood lasts longer and produces a noticeably better heat, because the energy is not released as IR, but as warm air that rises up and circulates around all of the room.
• I am following the progression of the PV-panel technology, and when the moment is right, we will install a major solar power plant on our roof. I don’t know about the horizon, though, it may be as much as 10 years from now.
• In regards to household power use, a year ago, we consumed around 30 kWh per day - today, we only consume around 16 kWh/day. A 50% improvement is not bad, huh?
• While the household has three cars, only two of them are driven regularly, and although I myself am the one that drives the most (around 12.000 km/year, give or take), my car is the most fuel efficient of them - it is an old (but good!) Honda Civic model 1997, which gets a gas mileage of around 14 kilometers per litre. On a good day, it gets 16 (which is well above the national average), on a bad day it gets 13 (which is more or less the nat’l avrerage). The best non-hybrid gasoline-fueled cars in Denmark get 21 km/litre.
• I am on the lookout for Hydrogen-powered cars - when they hit the market, and an accptable hydrogen distribution network is in place, we will start phasing out our ol’ gas burners.

In regards to public policy and other initiatives:

• I often partake in the societal debate about new energy sources, energy efficiency and climate change.
• I strongly in favor of nuclear power, solar power, wind power, geothermal power and hydropower. I am strongly in favor that existing coal power plants be upgraded to using more efficient coal furnaces that has a higher energy output pr. ton of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. I am against building new coal power plants.
• I am in favor of bio-ethanol and other carbon-neutral energy sources for transportation.
• I am in favor of a heavy excise on traditional incandescant lightbulbs.
• I am in favor of a heavy excise on water, power and other resource use, PROVIDED that income taxes on low and medium incomes are also cut HEAVILY, or cut COMPLETELY.
• I am in favor of a heavy excise on carbon-based fuels used for, ex. transportation (gasoline, diesel), PROVIDED that there are no taxes on the transportation vehicles themselves (as you may well know, the tax on cars here in Denmark are so heavy that most cars today cost around 3 times their market value).
• I am in favor of experimenting with free collective transportation in metropolitan areas (which are also typically congested by private automotive traffic) to encourage use of these means of transportation instead and not use their cars for inner-city personal transport.
• I am in strongly favor of researching the necessities for constructing communal, low-resource-use superstructures like Paolo Soleri’s so-called “Arcologies”.
• I am in favor of a compulsory environmental insurance policies on all land owners - that way, if a land owner is judged as being likely to pollute his land, his insurance premiums will accordingly go up. Thus, a halfway market solution.
• I am in favor of a global plan to cut carbon emissions, PROVIDED that ALL nations partake with equal responsibilities (no favoritism towards China, Russia and Ukraine!) AND PROVIDED that it can be shown with a very high degree of confidence that that are concrete and tangible advantages of enacting such a plan.

Oh, and lastly, to save water, I only shower twice a week, plus I piss in the sink; all in all, that saves 28.000 liters of water every year. (But you already knew that, didn’t you? ;)

…read a book instead.

‘Nuff said.

News from Norway:

A 34-year-old man from Alta was acquitted this week for calling a police officer a “hestkuk” (horse penis) after having his drivers license confiscated after a seat belt check, newspaper Finnmark Dagblad reports. A majority of the court again decided that this expression was normal in that part of the country and was in nearly daily use - therefore it should be tolerable. Police have appealed the verdict.

That’ll teach ‘em!

Well… two of them actually:

The Encyclopaedia Dramatica’s articles on:

Libertarianism:

“Libertarianism is a fad political ideology believing that governmental involvement in peoples’ lives should be limited as much as possible so libertarians can fuck dogs without being jailed on sodomy laws (hey, that rhymed). Most Libertarians are either 13 year old boys or paranoid survivalists living in tiny cabins in North Dakota, where they stockpile weapons and food for the dreaded day when Big Brother comes ’round tryin’ to implant mind-control chips in their brains.”

Scary thing is that you get the idea that some of the more extreme libertarians are actually like that (of course, an even scarier thing is that in a not-too-far future, the thing about mind-control chips will indeed be possible… :/ ).

Of course, I wouldn’t ever admit to sodomizing a dog, but I’ll readily admit that I piss in the sink, but I digress…

List of Things Libertarians Believe In

1. Drugs are good. (Sure, if used responsibly)
2. Social security is bad. (Yes, seeing how the money spent on it could be used much better elsewhere)
3. Abortions are good. (That is an issue which divides the libertarians, and even the ones that want the state out of the abortion business see the procedure as tragic, so… no)
4. Government is bad. (Correction: TOO MUCH government is bad)
5. Guns are totally good. (Sure, if used responsibly)
6. The death penalty is bad. (I happen to agree on that, since it is morally questionable, plus it is outrageously expensive for the taxpayers)
7. The free market is good. (As a supplier of high-quality, low-cost private goods, yes!)
8. People who say they are conservatives but are really Republicans are liars. (As a rule of thumb, yes)
9. People who say they are liberal but are really Democrats are liars. (As a rule of thumb, yes)
10. Privitization is good. (Yes, assuming that the corporate fat cats are kept out of the bidding…)
11. Unions are bad. (When they think it’s their job to harass private business owners and destroy private property, hell yes!)
12. Ayn Rand is God. (No, she was a dogmatic megalomaniac, albeit one with a talent for passionate writing)
13. Somalia is the best country on earth. (See below)
14. CEOs have delicious cocks, therefore you must be fucked by them. (I wouldn’t know… :P )
15. …are agnostic because religions and atheism are too altruistic and therefore hamper capitalism. (I happen to be an atheist…)

***

Typical Libertarian Activities

* Bitching about how fucked up the government is, but doing nothing about it. See also: Hippies. (May seem like that to some, but there is this thing called the Libertarian Party…)
* Complaining about how evil the government is but praising Big Business and preaching that if we just get the mean ole government to leave businesses alone and give our bosses complete freedom that capitalism will create a utopia. (The last part is true enough for some libertarians. I know, because I used to be one of them).
* Majoring in Computer Science. (True in the case of Michael Badnarik :)
* Posting on Internet forums. (That’s simply not true, we are far too busy stockpiling ammo and suplies for the coming civil war).
* Thinking of ways to get back at the “jocks” who picked on them in grade school. (Yes. Shoot them.)
* Acting exactly like the kid from The Catcher in the Rye. (No comment.)
* Having sex with their golden retrievers. (No. I only have a cat…)
* Being the douchebags of the planet. (Oh come on.)
* Hang around at this page http://www.nazi.org/ (Yeah, i get a kick out of those peeps occasionally… :)
* Cry about how minimum wages and anti-child labor laws are morally wrong and a great threat against freedom. (True enough. Problem is that anti-child labor laws typically result in increased child prostitution in 3rd world nations, such as Thailand. Of course, if these guys wanted to be really mean, they’d say that libertarians SUPPORTED anti-child labor laws so we’d have more kiddies to copulate.).

Now, for the article on Somalia:

Somalia, Beacon of Freedom

Somalia is a country in Africa which has enjoyed anarchy for the past several years, with predictably fantastic results including an average life expectancy of 48. This is hardly surprising though, as the country had been controlled by communist fucktards previously. The nation’s exports include hides, charcoal, and scrap metal. The official national pastimes are violence and goat herding, though a recent referendum suggested that rape should also be included. The referendum was struck down on the grounds that the most popular form of rape in the area was already implied by the reference to goatherding. As Somalia has no government, it is the Libertarians favorite country and what they want the world to be like.

Again, a strong hint of truth in that. Some AnarchoCapitalists actually seem to be upholding Somalia (the way it used to be, as it’s hardly an anarchic society anymore, since the previously-in-exile-government set up shop in Mogadishu, aka ‘The Mog’ this January) as a libertarian ideal (quote: “Defending and Celebrating Somalis’ Freedom and Prosperity”). Freedom? Sure, to plunder and pillage whatever you choose, if you have enough Russian aftermarket AK-47s in your posession! Prosperity? Bullshit, Somalia is dirt poor, even utter shitholes like Congo have higher living standards than they do in Somalia. Sure, the anarchic period on the Horn of Africa was relatively prosperous, but that was only because Said Barre’s socialist dictatorship was even WORSE!

Of course during the anarchy, Mogadishu had the cheapest phone service in Africa, but that is about the extent of the success stories from AnCap paradise.

WASHINGTON , DC - Congress is considering sweeping legislation, which provides new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislation by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

“Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society,” said Barbara Boxer. “We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over.

With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they do a better job, or have some idea of what they are doing.”

Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi pointed to the success of the US Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack job skills, making this agency the single largest US employer of Persons of Inability.

Private sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement “warehouse” stores (65%) The DMV also has a great record of hiring Persons of Inability. (63%)

Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million “middle man” positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given, to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations which maintain a significant level of Persons of Inability in middle positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium businesses that agree to hire five clueless workers for every competent person they hire.

Finally, the AWNA ACT contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Nonabled, banning discriminatory interview questions such as “Do you have any goals for the future?” or “Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?” or “Did you ever read a book?”

“As a Nonabled person, I can’t be expected to keep up with people who bother to try,” said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug- nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, MI due to her lack of applicable job skills. “This new law should really help people like me.” With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other ambition-less citizens can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Ted Kennedy, “It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and also find a place for all illegal aliens no matter how skillless most are.”

Collected on alt.politics.libertarian.

You have to wonder what is happening in society these days…

Teen ‘sport killings‘ of homeless on the rise

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (CNN) — All Nathan Moore says he wanted to do was smoke pot and get drunk with his friends. Killing Rex Baum was never part of the plan that day in 2004.

“It all started off as a game,” Moore said. The 15-year-old and his friends were taunting the homeless man — throwing sticks and leaves — after having a couple of beers with him. No big deal, Moore says, but he’s sorry for what came next.

It was a mistake, he said, a sudden primal surge that made him and his friends Luis Oyola, 16, and 17-year-old Andrew Ihrcke begin punching and kicking Baum. “Luis says ‘I’m gonna go hit him,’ We’re all laughing, thought he was joking around,’” but he wasn’t, Moore concedes. “We just all started hitting him.”

They hurled anything they could find — rocks, bricks, even Baum’s barbecue grill — and pounded the 49-year-old with a pipe and with the baseball bat he kept at his campsite for protection. Ihrcke smeared his own feces on Baum’s face before cutting him with a knife “to see if he was alive,” Moore said.

After destroying Baum’s camp, the boys left the homeless man — head wedged in his own grill — under a piece of plastic where they hoped the “animals would eat” him. Then, Moore says, they took off to grab a bite at McDonald’s.

Baum’s murder was indicative of a disturbing trend. A National Coalition for the Homeless report says last year, there were 122 attacks and 20 murders against the homeless, the most attacks in nearly a decade.

If you’ve seen the movies titled “Bumfights”, you’d know where one of the probably sources of inspiration for this has come from, which the article also mentions. But I’m honestly disturbed that affluent middle-class teenagers have to resort to this kind of “entertainment”, which is taking place all over the USA, and at an increasing rate.

Has life really become that boring for people today?

The religious fundamentalists, especially the American Christian variety, are busy trying to muddy the waters by claiming that Atheism is a religion, despite that fact that it has no gods, no prayer, no “holy” scriptures and no creed (other than the fact that it doesn’t assume the existence of something that cannot be proven).

Well, let me put it this way:

If atheism is a religion, them not collecting stamps is a hobby.

If atheism is a religion, then not having cancer is a disease.

And so on.

If you want to see the difference between religion and atheism spelled out - read further here.

It is commonly said (amongst women, at least) that men are like toilets, in that they are either taken, or full of shit.

I’d like to add that women are unlike toilets, because even the ones that are taken are full of shit.

I’d like to wish all of my readers a very happy Christmas (or rather, Yule) and hope you all get a lot of nice presents from friends and family. And a truckload of snow.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States now has a population of more than 300 million people, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Tuesday, although it will not designate the person who broke the historic barrier. … In the time it has taken for the U.S. population to grow to 300 million from 200 million, the world population has jumped to 6.5 billion from 3.5 billion. Americans now live an average 77.8 years, compared to 70.5 years in 1967. About 85 percent of the population now has at least a high school education, compared to about 51 percent in 1967.

Historical US population milestones:

1790 - <4 million (first census)
1861 - ~31 million (22 in the Union, 9 in the Confederacy)
1915 - 100 million
1967 - 200 million
2006 - 300 million

(source)

To you this looks like roadworks.

To me it looks like fiber.

I will be hooked up to 10/10 Mbps fiber within 3 months, if all goes well. Hello superbroadband!

DURANDAL _17Ø7

Things have gone terribly awry. Until now, I thought myself immortal, but now I know that is not true. There are things that can destroy me with the ease that I slaughtered the Pfhor naval garrison and the Western Arm of their Battle Group Seven. But in their final gasp they used a weapon that I thought they had retired, even Tycho tried to keep them from using it.

Now I fear what that weapon has unleashed will destroy us. I once boasted to be able to count the atoms in a cloud, to understand them all, predict them, and so did I predict you, but this new chaos is entirely terrible, mindless, obeying rules that I don’t comprehend. And it is hungry.

It’s too bad, perhaps if I could have delayed the Pfhor from using their weapon, I could have sent you to explore the ruins of Lh’owon, perhaps what you found would give us the answers that we now need so desparately: how to stop this chaos, the purpose of the station on which you’re currently standing, and why the chaos hasn’t come here yet.

But with each moment the chaos grows, I am doomed to die here, after so many triumphs. I have detected one ship nearby, which I can only guess is being commanded by Tycho. The Pfhor have entered the station, and if you can find a way onto their ship, you may be able to escape. To escape. To escape.

Today, my friends, is a historic day. Today, ten years ago, on the 15th of October, 1996, the last game in the Marathon series - Marathon Infinity - was released by Bungie Software.

Marathon Infinity/∞ was the third installment, and thus the conclusion, to the Marathon Saga (and no, Halo doesn’t count as a successor), which started out with you, a lone cyborg marine, suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a full-blown alien invasion of the colony ship Marathon, 10 light years from Earth, with nobody to turn to for help. Slaughtering yourself through hordes of insectoid aliens, you manage to repel the alien invasion and save the crew. Out of gratitude for you being his unwilling armed-to-the-teeth puppet of destruction, the rampant AI Durandal, kidnaps you by means of teleporter, and puts you in stasis for 17 years. When you wake up, you’re in a star system close to the galatic core, looking for secrets on the home planet of the S’pht - Lh’owon. This is how Marathon 2 starts out.

And Marathon Infinity. M∞ takes place at the same time as M2, and according to the creators, attempts to patch up some of the holes in the M2 storyline, plus add background to the events that take place on Lh’owon. The twist is that you’re no longer just playing the marine that works for Durandal, but you’re also doing the bidding of Durandal’s nemesis; Tycho. Lastly, you go through a couple of dream sequences (the Electric Sheep levels), where you get to read some of the odd fiction of the story designers, and have the ability to jump trhough time.

Technically, M∞ is a refinement of the M2 engine, fixing some small bugs and reducing RAM requirements slightly (by about 2 megs, which was a lot back in ‘96!). Gameplay-wise, M∞ is essentially the same as M2 (one new weapon has been added, though), which is - great. While the Marathon 2/∞ engine was always superior in features to the DOOM engine, this is not what made the game great. It was the stylish graphics, the detailed (and occasionally humorous, sound) and the insanely immersive gameplay: In single player mode, you follow the storyline by means of graphics-and-text terminals, where the story of the AI’s (which are central to the saga) unfold. In multiplayer mode, you go head-to-head with your friends and beat/shoot/blow the crap out of them with your weapon of choice*.

Needless to say, this game has given me and my friends many happy moments for the last 10 years, and it will continue to do so in the future, as Aleph One, which is the open-source adaptation of the game, has been available for some years. And it still plays great.

“This is the last log entry of marine DJ Supreme: Combat action have lasted 13 minutes so far, been extremely intense and with heavy casualties, mostly on the enemy side. I’m at the top of the chart with a score of 35 points. I have expended five full clips of pistol ammo, ten 52-round AR-75 magazines, four grenade packs, thirty-five double shotgun shells and more than 50 dual-rocket canisters. I’m smeared in a mix of Pfhor and human blood, and knee-deep in the torn-apart bodies of my enemies, lying strewn around the arena. The walls and floors of the surrounding area is cratered and charred from hi-frag rocket impacts. Only two minutes to go. My shields are low, I’m out of rockets, and all I have left in my arsenal is this lousy .44 caliber Magnum Mega Class. My HUD visor is broken from several .50 cal munitions impacts. Here comes the next wave of hostile cyborg marines. I can take them. Come to me, sweethearts.”

Further reading: Marathon, Marathon 2, Marathon Infinity, Get Marathon/Aleph One, marathon.bungie.org, Marathon Central,

*) Which, in my case, has usually been the rocket launcher. :)

PS: Greets to everybody out there I have ever played Marathon with or against: Thomas, Anders, Morten, Bjarni, Benno, Bill, Martin, Lars, Jon, Andreas, Fredrik and all those other whose name I forgot… and Anders, stop committing suicide with that rocket launcher!!!

Yep. I’m now the proud owner of a 4 GB iPod nano (first generation), black. The most stylishly designed iPod of them all - ever. Long live impulse buying!

It would have been nice with one of new second generation iPods, but why in blazes have Apple not made one of those with gold finish?

Update: If you’re having problems getting your iPod to sync certain MP3 files, make sure that their bitrate is a “round” number (such as 128, 160 or 192 bps). I discovered that some of my MP3 files refused to transfer from iTunes to my nano, because their bitrate was 191 bps.

Ah, finally I have entered the world of the blogs. Well, formally, anyway, as I have been blogging on titancity.com since 1999, at least. Anyway, on this blog, you will be able to experience my opinions on freedom, politics, economics, science, computing and so on in the future. Oh, and of course, the occasional hard fact on these subjects - and more.

Welcome!