So, I had a Word document open, and I wanted to start a new document and start working on my essay. I very nearly hit ctl-t to open up a new tab. I can only wonder how long until the standard ctl-n gets replaced in most applications with ctl-t, which will surely confound the future :P

"Ctl-t to open a New document?"

Edit: Also, apparently Microsoft Word can't decide if it likes 'well-being' or 'well being', because it puts the green squiggly underneath it either way, and when I right click, it suggests the other. When I change it to the 'suggested correction', it tells me I've done it wrong again and tells me to change it back. What the heck :P

I have to wonder what the United States is right now. We started out being called "The Great Democratic Experiment" (or so I've heard from my US history class) and were seen with great skepticism. If I recall, lots of people thought we were doomed to destroy ourselves or become a failed country and be taken over by some better nation.

After World War II, the Americans considered themselves an established world power, and it seems like our status as an 'experiment' was put aside. Apparently we were considered (by ourselves, I mean) to be a success. Democracy apparently works

And yet, of all of our traits as a nation, America has become known as a bully, as largely ignorant, grossly overweight, and who knows what else. It seems like the only reason we ever became a world power (self-proclaimed) was because we're pretty freaking big and have lots of resources.

On the other hand, at this upcoming election, Obama is almost certainly going to win, bringing in a huge wave of liberalism that I find to be somewhat frightening. Or, McCain may win, and we'll have an ignorant Vice President, and ultra-conservative views that are also somewhat frightening.

In either situation, we've seen this ridiculously expensive campaigning for votes that only arises from democracy, and politics have become answerable to whoever shouts the loudest (i.e. pays the most) rather than what is considered 'right' or 'wrong'. Mob mentality meets politics, and it seems like lots of people aren't sure of what to do. I'm currently not so hasty to say that democracy was such a success.

(These views were likely encouraged by the long string of comics from http://www.sinfest.net/ regarding democracy and liberty and the United States :P)

Today in the campus newspaper I read a headline story about a small group of people who resented gender roles and predefined sets of male and female, and fight this trend by crossdressing.
Excuse me? It was so absurd I didn't get it the first five times. So they are trying to counteract social stereotypes by dressing up as women if they're guys? And is women's clothing not 'stereotypical' clothing? It just doesn't make sense to me. They are propagating certain clothes as 'feminine' by dressing up in a certain way and claiming it's feminine. I thought the whole point was that gender did not matter? Surely dressing in a gender-neutral way would be far more effective.
But one of the more absurd comments I read was "I think I'm two-fifths male". Well pardon my disbelief, but unless you're a partial hermaphrodite, I'm not inclined to believe you in the least. Sure you can have a 'male' personality, but for you to attribute certain traits to male or female, you are the one who is segregating male and female gender traits and roles. None of us freaking care if you act 'like a guy' when you're a girl, but you feel the need to point out that you're acting like a guy when gender doesn't matter?
It was just idiotic to read about. But now I've made you guys hear it, so I guess I'm only making things worse? :P

http://www.qwantz.com/
Today's (10/17/08) Dinosaur comic was epic awesomeness. And if it felt like XKCD, well it's because Randall did it :P But it's still win. The only regret I have for it is that I don't think the comic frames in Dino Comics represent the Golden Section, which would really have had to make it the most beautiful comic on Earth, for its geometric elegance. But nonetheless, if you do not read Dino comics, at least read today's (Friday, October 17th). Naow.

I have a diary link at the top of my ET page now to my own diary. Thanks, but it pushes the buttons onto a third line on my screen. Make it go away now. Yes, I apparently am requesting this of you, whoever is reading this entry.

Random thought while taking a break from writing essays.

I just saw a picture of Balthier (the sky pirate from FF XII) and underneath it said "who wouldn't love Balthier, no?" I just want to know. Why do people love pirates? As far as I can tell, their defining characteristics are a ruthless savagery and a constant need for a personal motivation to do anything, in that they need assurance that they'll get something out of it. Neither being desirable qualities, I can only guess it's the accent? Is it because Johnny Depp had an accent? I does not understand!!

You can set your language on Facebook to pirate. Z.o.m.g.

Hehe, today's XKCD has created a lot of fun flash links in the forums. Here's one that's similar to Portal, with several references. I have not played either of it's sequels, just because I didn't want to ruin the concept. http://www.koreus.com/jeu/shift.html

More stumble fun:
For iippo mostly, but others will like: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=wkeqhdg4n2
Nerd drumline: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=0euf339zey
More spoiled cats: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=0euf339zey
Weird squishy toys: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=sjq2b0va3m

Got a bit of feedback regarding the clouds, so I submit this revision: Aradon's Workplace. Top image is new, bottom is from last diary entry. I removed the grain and dimmed the stars. iippo, you said you liked the grain, but lots of digital artists see grain as a deficiency as a result of a low-quality render. Let me know what you think of the smooth one versus the grain, whether it's an improvement or not :)

http://elftown.eu/stuff/Cloudbank.jpg
Comments/critique appreciated before I submit to dA. Though I am really considering doing a higher detail render. There's just too much grain >.<

Seriously you guys: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=z2tu7xui8y
Cats.

Also, 45 minute National Geographic video on Chinese weapons: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=8hzqsry4ol
Somewhat interesting at some points, but the last ten minutes are hardly worth watching. Flying Guillotine nothing -.-

Circle Versus Square : http://www.circleversussquare.com/
Quite ruthless, below the belt, all-out fight for the supremacy of geometric shapes!

Rawr? http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/06/07/funny-pictures-abonm-abomilnal-rawwrr1/

For all who are interested, I just finished up a (double-spaced) 15-page paper regarding the arguments for God's existence. I webbified it as best I could and put it on the wiki Templar's Arguments for God's Existence, in case anyone wanted to read some philosophical stuff. I thought you might like it, Silvie, because I spend a fair bit of time claiming that an infinite regress is impossible, and say that Aquinas' argument is the strongest of the three we read about. Considering the paper is titled "An Applause of the Cosmological Argument and Denial of the Infinite Series", I'm quite certain you'll approve :D

To any who read it, it may be best to copy and paste it into Word, though I fear you'll lose the italics if you do, and I really used those a lot when talking about Anselm's little trick with words :P
Further note: These are not my arguments for the existence, despite what the wiki name says. It's just my page. And the essay will be turned in shortly (like, 45 minutes after I make this post) so no stealey etc, intellectual property and rawr :D

Edit: Also, now it's time for my two page paper on Hindemith's "Harmonie Der Welt" for tomorrow ^^'

Diary note to self that is obviously not a personal entry for whatever reason: (laziness?)

The problem I've discussed on occasion with my 3D stuff is that it usually ends up looking flat, like they all have the same perspective. Well, that was the issue, believe it or not. Change the perspective, and the picture looks different. It took me months to make this conclusion, so apparently A=A and therefore change A, and I change A. It's groundbreaking logic. To a one-year old, maybe XD
But perhaps to be more fair to me, I knew I needed to change perspective and exactly how to do so eluded me. But I kept saying, "it probably has to do with the zoom feature" which would change perspective. Astonishingly, I believe the zoom slider is actually labeled 'orthographic perspective' on Terragen 2. Still couldn't really be sure it would change the perspective apparently :P In any case, I've decided once and for all that the zoom is in fact the feature I need to use to give my pictures a different feel to them, one that places the viewer into the picture rather than outside the picture. See, I couldn't tell how to use the zoom feature, because I pulled the slider to one side or the other, getting really extreme effects. I have not tested, but I would bet that I need very slight variances to get proper effect. Of course, I had no idea what zoom really did, since the effects were kind of vague and hard to predict.

Today, though, I was looking at nature and said, "Zoom would do that." Don't ask me how I know; apparently intuition at times sees it reasonable to put knowledge into your head that you could have sworn it never had. But I was marveling at a view of clouds that I had today, because it was in a wide-screen view (of the long window of a bus, so it was framed essentially) and the ground/trees seemed to form a sort of inverted semi-circle underneath that managed to frame the bottom of the scene but provide no obstruction to the clouds. Which is rare. Usually I have to crane my neck or walk somewhere else to get an unobstructed view of the sky, and usually the elsewhere has it's own obstructions. So I was rather pleased with discovering this brief moment of wide screen cloud footage :D
But it seemed to me that the clouds were of larger size than they should be, compared to the world around me. I figured that it seemed like the camera brought the clouds closer to the scene while the ground stayed in the same spot, but they appeared smaller too. So my mind said, "zooming in will make the center of the image appear the same distance away, but rather than fill in the whole screen with the image, it sort of diminishes what appears on the outer edges of the picture." In other words, to get a proper cloudscape in a digital program, perhaps I should increase the zoom a little with the camera directed at the clouds. The ground should seem to shrink in size compared to the feature. In any case, whether this is the proper application, it seems I now know the use of the zoom feature, and it is to put the image in the appropriate perspective, so the viewer gets the impression of having things to look to at his or her left or right as well as what's shown in the picture. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was before, but this was the problem and now is the solution :D

Suggested reading along the lines of which I've seen Viking post:
Science will be the death of us all- coming to a Hadron Collider near Earth, Sept. 10!
http://www.cracked.com/article_16583_5-scientific-experiments-most-likely-end-world.html

Psychology shows we're all jerks at heart-
http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html

Some freaky weird mental disorders?
http://www.cracked.com/article_15650_5-mental-disorders-that-can-totally-get-you-laid.html

So philosophy class is pretty much my favorite class evar, without question. Until this afternoon, at least, when I went to composition class and we spent like half an hour just listening to how four pitches could sound if you placed them in different arrangements of the octave <3