NorthernPlato's Blog - 2old2play

At a loss for words

I don't think I've ever been ashamed to be Canadian. But that's quickly changing, and it's all due to a few opposition parties bitter that they lost an election.

I've made comments in my life that Bush stole the 2000 election. The fate of a country decided by a handful of judges instead of a proper and full recount. Though costly, a recount would have been the morally correct and proper.

But what the NDP, Bloq and Liberal parties of Canada want to do? That's stealing an entire government, let alone an election. The election happened and they lost, yet they're brokering backroom deals to steal parliament! What the FUCK!

The gist is this: the Conservative party tabled an outline for their financial plan, which included cutting the public funding to all parties. That funding was the child of Jean Chretien, a former Liberal Prime Minister. The public funding has been critized as being biased to the party in power, because it sees that party losing the largest amount of money.

The Conservative party stood to lose around 10 million dollars, far more than any of the parties. That isn't a problem for them, however, because they receive most of their funding from grassroots fundraising. The Liberals, bloated after almost 15 years in power, would run the distinct possibility of being bankrupt, along with the fledgling Green Party.

So the Conservatives, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to remove that little tidbit. Still, the opposition parties march forward with their idea of stealing the government. They claim that anything less than a stimulus package for the economy will send Canada into a depression. Really? We'll go from having one of the stronger economies in this world wide mess to being what, a third world country? I don't think so.

Yeah, the auto industry might be crumbled and thousands of people will be out of work, but how in the fuck is that any different than when Alcan closed their doors in Canada, or any of the other logging or steel mills? Where were the opposition parties then, crying about the plight of the working Canadian? Oh yeah, they weren't scheming back then.

I'm livid. The opposition wants to put the Liberals in power, with Stephan Dion as the Prime Minister. This man lead the Liberals to the worst showing of support for the Liberal party since Confederation. Even Martin (whom I supported and voted for) fared better after dealing with the Liberal Sponsorship Scandal. A scandal which came from a funding program started by Jean Chretien. And who was one of the first people to start brokering talks between the Liberals and the NDP last week? You guessed it; Jean Chretien.

That man's meddling ruined the Liberal Party. I was a Liberal supporter for most of my life, and I would have described myself as a 'Paul Martin'-liberal. I was disappointed at the partisanship and ego displayed by Chretien because he didn't want to leave power. And now Chretien is trying to help broker a deal to steal the government voted in by the people?

I'm all for the idea of party coalitions to oust an abusive government. Or even a government that is trying to repeal innate human-rights from sects of individuals. But no one is clamouring in the streets. No one but the profesional politicians themselves have been crying foul about the Conservative government. Where is the support of the people for this action? There is none.

I'm becoming convinced that this is why liberal parties want stricter gun control; it's not to keep the people safe, but to safeguard themselves.

The timing of this action is absurd. We've just gone to the polls. We gave the Conservative party a slightly larger minority government than they had going into this election. We, the people, don't have confidence in the Liberals or the NDP. Who are they to assume we want them?

I've never been this ashamed at my government, which is saying a lot considering how deplorable I found its treatment of our citizens being held and tortured in foreign countries.

Source:

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20081130%2fconservative_budget_081201

[5 Comments]

Youtube rocks

I love that I can find music videos on youtube; it certainly helps break up the monotony of some of my 'easier' classes.

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73hHRfOuooc

Neil Young ftw!

Appearantly, embedding was disabled, so I'll try to find a different video of the song. Here's a link to the original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vef03k5i8VI&feature=related

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Double news in one blog!

First, a bit of a polical rant. It's Election Day here in Canada, meaning I went out and fulfiled my democratic responsiblity. Yes, I say responsibility and not right, because I believe that being engaged (at least as minimally represented by voting) is a responsibility of citizens. I can't stand hearing that people don't vote. It's not your choice, fucktard, it's your damned responsibility. Gah!

This election, I only had one issue that mattered to me above all, and it wasn't education, health care or the economy. This issue wasn't on any opinion poll and it wasn't address by the majority of parties. The issue most important to me this election was Arctic sovereignty. After reading an article early this year about the Russians mapping the sea-floor and trying to make a case at the UN (or wherever it happens to matter) that because of a continental shelf extending from land they own, they should have 'ownership' over the artic, I was impressed (although reluctantly so) by my government's reaction.

It doesn't matter now. It may not matter in my lifetime or for another 10-15 years. But pledging now to increase military troop patrols and invest in coastal Inuit villages to bolster our use of land we've staked a claim to for decades (if not hundreds of years; I'll profess ignorance for how long we've officially claimed our border there), the Conservative party got my vote.

As this election progressed and I tracked the events, I was extremely put-off by my usual party of choice, the Liberals. I haven't been happy since Chretien screwed over Martin and messed up the party with which I most identified; I hate partisan politics and watching the jackals try to advance their agenda at the expense of my country pissed me off.) If Harper gets a majority government, or a more substantial minority than what he had, and he doesn't mess it up by going socially right, then I may be a Conservative for a while. Ah well. My opinion (and vote) changes based on what I see and how I perceive the party to act. It's never written in stone and my vote is up to the least damaging party.

The second bit of news: I'm doing well in school. Since returning, I've been holding a 95% average. I'm damned pleased with myself because I used to slack off in school and glide-by effortlessly with 70s. Working, studying and paying attention have netted my marks of which I'm proud. I even had a teacher state she owes me coffee because I got 100% on the test in her class. Like a 'first trimester' exam. Woot!

All told, I'm pretty damned giddy. Well, it's time to go reheat left-overs from turkey-day dinner. I hope everyone reading (and not, I'm not biased ) has a good evening, and if you're Canadian, I hope you don't feel terribly dirty after voting. I know I did.

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First Steps...

... for me into a new career.

Shortly after getting back home from the LAN, I received mail from a few different places. One fromEI (social assistance for people recently laid off; for you non-Canadians, it's basically a refund on a 'tax' we pay off of each pay check similarly to pension payments) saying they'd finally sorted all the paperwork out and another from a new program in Ontario called 'Second Career'. Basically, it allows "under" educated people such as myself to go back to school while on EI and receive assistance. It does require a contribution from myself, of course, which I think is a good thing for such a program.

I'd never be able to go back to school on my own without some form of assistance, and having already paid off a student loan once I'm glad I don't have to do it again.

Anyway, today was a 'mandatory' pre-start, 'quasi'-frosh day that at least 50% of the people registered in the course didn't attend. I wouldn't of showed up, but I figured that'd be a crappy way to start off. I'm very excited to be going back to school, especially for something that I was exposed to in my previous job (consulting/technical writing for companies that wanted to submit a report for research tax credits). There was a lot of financial information from clients' that I'd have to handle, but helping them stratigize such expenditures was beyond my (and my employer's) realm of knowledge.

Hence, I'm now in an accounting course. The program I'm taking is appearantly a fantastic program that'll qualify me for transfer credits for the programs from all three professional accounting associations in Canada. All I need to finish after this course is, depending on which university I attend, either 1 or 2 years to get a degree and the rest of the courses required by the various accounting associations.

So, in 4-5 years, I'll have a degree, a diploma and a professional designation that's recognized across the counrty and in demand, all of which will compliment my work experience.

So far, with only a high school diploma (I started a landscaping technician program out of high school, but couldn't afford to continue living out of town. A $5,000 loan for nothing.) I've been a quality assurance co-ordinator (I have my ISO9001:2000 Internal Auditor accredition that's RAB certified), I've been a production controller for the same company, and most recently I did consulting for a research tax credit program. I didn't do any of the tax work, just the technical report submittion and helping clients to identify qualified expenditures and in a few cases help them to plan out future research or improve research tracking documentation.

That my all sound very boring, but I loved the strategizing. As my former employer started to require stricter technical content, I started to lag behind and I was finding my job very stressful. We'd discussed my going back to school, but with their client load and such they couldn't justify the loss in revenue and keeping someone just to do the financial information. I don't think I've ever been relieved to be laid off, but I was then.

And now I'm about to start school for a program/course that I'm excited to be taking. Woohoo! Yay me! I can't wait to be pulling in a 4.0 average and rocking numbers and ledgers.

[3 Comments]

Where is the head?

If you've never read Least I Could Do before, you really should start.
http://www.leasticoulddo.com/

And to encourage you, here is the most recent video they've made using the main character of the comic. The song is somewhat NSFW, so listen quietly.

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SdMPxwIxF4

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Change

I don't like change. Sure there are many things I'd like to change in my life, but actually going about affecting those changes are, at times, frightening. A few weeks ago, frustrated at work, I'd approached my boss about switching from report writing to doing the financial details for all writers in the company. The company only has 3 writers, including me. Part of this change would require me to take courses through the college our offices are in. The courses I was looking at taking all qualified for transfer credit to a professional association in Canada; Certified General Accountants of Canada.

After taking those foundation courses through the college, I'd be able to apply for the transfer credits and pay a membership fee. I wouldn't be done yet, though, as it would take a program from a local university to finish the CGA courses and acquire a BA in business. Which would be nice seeing as currently I'm technically only a high-school educated shmuck. All told, this plan would have taken about 10 years part time, mostly due to the fact that the foundation courses through the college is equivalent to a 3-year program full-time.

I thought, for the briefest moment, it would be faster and better for me to return to school full-time. It would be hard, sure. I'd be making almost no money, but I'd qualify for a student loan again, having paid off my loan from my abortive college attempts. But I lack the intestinal fortitude to leave my comfort zone.

Well, on Friday last week, the choice wasn't mine to make anymore. Changes were made at work and I found myself superfluous. Being laid-off certainly wasn't the birthday surprise I'd planned to give my wife when I woke up that morning, but it's what I had to share. For the second time in 8 years of working, I'd been let go.

But I found I wasn't upset. While my boss was explaining the state of the company and how we'd both acknowledged earlier that I wasn't really a 'fit' for technical writing anymore due to recent changes in what was required, I found myself relieved. It had been hard the last few months, trying to keep up with the changes. I was no longer happy and dragging my ass out of bed to give my best that was seeming to never be quite good enough was very disheartening. It's part of the reason why I'd thought I should just quit and go to school full-time. Get a diploma in business accounting and open a few doors to other employment opportunities.

Being laid off, there are programs in Canada that I should qualify for apart from using student loans to pay for my education. I should be able to receive employment benefits while going school, which while it's nowhere near what I was being paid, it would allow me to still pay my rent.

It's an odd feeling, being hopefully and terrified at the same time. A few years ago, I think I would have caved to the terror and simply decided to go out and find some other full-time job and continue to seek a path more comfortable. But in the last few years, I've read quite a few blogs here on 2o2p of people facing all kinds of changes and difficulties. And I've been inspired by a few members, in how they deal with adversity and strife that I could never imagine dealing with and they do it with such faith.

So to everyone on 2o2p that's ever shared a piece of their life with the rest of us, thank you, and know that you've made a difference to others. You inspire us to be try to be better than we would otherwise be.

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Child Soldiers

The treatment of Omar Khadr is something that I've found disgusting since I first heard about it. A child soldier, aged 15, is accused of killing a US soldier with a grenade. It's not so much that the US arrested him and sent him off to Guantanamo Bay, it's that the Canadian government has done shit about it. It's similar to the case of a Canadian citizen being sent to Syria by the US instead of being sent back to Canada; in that case it was the US officials acting on information provided to them by the RCMP. That information was later found to have been wrong and largely speculative.

But the Khadr case annoys me most because he's a child soldier, accused of killing only 1 person in a combat zone. I say 'only 1' because Canada apparently has a reputation for putting a lot of time and effort into the rehabilitation of child soldiers from other countries, and comparatively those children have seen or done far worse things and in greater numbers. There is/was a group in Africa known for using child soldiers as part of it's more violent groups. The Canadian government sees fit to spend resources on these children because of the belief that they're victims, and yet one of our own citizens is allowed to wallow in a prison with a rather dismal reputation. We've allowed a child soldier to be interrogated and suffer abuse. It took years for Khadr's defense (currently U.S. navy Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler) to even acquire documentation related to the charges. Kuebler was in Canada recently telling parliament that he doesn't believe the charges are true (arguably the job of all defense council) and I've read before (but can no longer find the article) that there was testimony that Khadr wasn't the one that even threw the grenade in the first place. Yet we still do nothing. I

'm not saying that he shouldn't remain in custody while the trial continues. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a trial, and I certainly understand that it's quite possible he's guilty of what he's being charged with. However there is precedent in the international community in regards to the treatment and punishment of child soldiers. Even if Khadr's found guilty of murder, like many other child soldiers, Canada should spend the resources rehabilitating him and not allowing him to spend his life in some US military prison.

I'd like to make it clear, given the mixed audience at 2o2p, that I'm annoyed with my government and not the US or the existence of the holding area at Guantanamo Bay. It just seems, over the last several years, that the Canadian foreign policy is "if you find yourself in a bind outside of Canada, fuck off and don't bother us. Obviously, you deserve whatever has befallen you, legitimate charges or not. We don't care." It seems to be a pretty shitty position. While I understand the need to respect the autonomy of foreign nations' justice systems, that autonomy should only go as far as the reputation the country has in the international community. Leaving a citizen stranded in some hostile environment is unacceptable. We have the means here to track them, hold them if necessary, and ensure they are treated humanely. Fuck the autonomy of countries that presume guilt and treat people accordingly.

The article that got me all riled up this morning can be found below for those that are interested. At the end of the article are links to previous articles published on Khadr's case.

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/Canadian+child+soldier+faces+Nurembergtype+charges/Home/ContentPosting.aspx?isfa=1&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20080507%2fomar_khadr_080507&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True

[2 Comments]

testing

Just because Smoke said he couldn't add a new blog, and I'm an ass like this.

[1 Comments]

One more cat pic

Lately, with nothing to say, I haven't had a reason to blog anything, and I find it pointless to just post pictures from www.Icanhascheezburger.com when y'all can bookmark the site and have a daily smile yourselves =)

All that said, this picture was far too cute to pass up, and I just feel the need to share. It still makes me smile, even after a few days, and quite frankly I just want a way to get back to the quickly ;)

cutest sleepy kitteh evar!

(I'm actually debating tagging this NSFW, just for kicks, but I think I can resist the cheap joke. I think..)

[2 Comments]

Canadian music heritage

I'm a fan of the late Stan Rogers, and while perusing the intertubez today, I meandered across the official site for his music. While digging around for some samples of his music (because there's nothing on YouTube...arg...damn you CBC, damn you), I found a link to work his son is doing. I watched a video recorded at a concert, and I was blown away by how much he sounds like his father in that song. Granted, the song is a cover of his father's, but still, it was amazing.

So now that I'm back at home with a CD copy of Stan Roger's Home in Halifax, I'm going to link (or at least try to link) the youtube video of Nathan Rogers singing Northwest Passage, on the small chance that there are other fans of Roger's music on the site.

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6Lu4vskmg

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Random

Long and boring story short. A thread on the WoW forums got me thinking, and thinking got me to googling (0.999...=1) and something I read therein got me to here:

I'm still wiping the tears away. The rest of the pictures on this site that I've seen so far are pretty damned funny as well. This could keep me occupied for days.

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Thanksgiving

Well, it's Thanksgiving this weekend in Canada, and I'm about to be off to my second ridiculously large meal for the weekend. Thank God for belt punches, pants with expanding waist lines and Eno's. Ahh, over-eating once or twice a year is beautiful. Bring on the cheesecake, turkey, pumpkin pie and gravy, not necessarily in that order.

Thanks once again to ICHC for a picture that adequately shows what I'll be doing in a few hours

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Button Glitches

I've been reading the ongoing saga of button glitches in the H3 forums and I have to say I'm rather confused by the more competitive gamers that try to explain why it's required. It seems to me that they're doing themselves a disservice by arguing in favor of using animation canceling in a game where the creator of the game had explicitly stated that they view it as cheating. It's not the glitches themselves that bother me, let's be honest, the people arguing for their use in professional leagues are better than me regardless. It's what makes them either professional, semi-professional or even just aspiring professional gamers: their dedication and practice and staying on top of trends. I do not begrudge them their accomplishments and skill. However, as a group of people seeking to have their leagues gain wider acceptance and audiences, their struggle is counter-productive. To that end, I decided to sit down and attempt to convey, as an outsider with no affiliation or vested interest why I feel as I do. I hope this can provide some perspective to an otherwise often heated debate:

-----------------------------------------------

In any game or sport, there are methods of enhancing your performance. Some are obviously wrong and provide a distinct unfair advantage, while others tend to be regarded as the athlete's commitment to the sport.

In baseball and other professional sports, performance enhancing substances such as steroids, hormone therapy and rigged gear are declared unfair advantages, and those professionals that use them are never considered by fans to be as good as other athletes that don't use those substances, regardless of the stats of the player.

Other methods of enhancing your performance include old-fashioned training and a regimented diet. The athlete, in conjunction with their team, coach and physicians, work out the optimum diet for the athlete to maximize their output, devise work out plans to increase their maximum capacity and function required for their sport.

These methods are usually seen as a form of dedication to sport on the part of the athlete, and fans typically respect or idolize their favorite 'star' player for this reason. It's not just that the athlete in question is good, if not the best, of among their peers - it's that the fans appreciate the work and dedication required. If that athlete is later found to have abused substances or tools deemed unacceptable within the sport, than that persons reputation and record of even possibly legitimate accomplishments is forever tarnished.

The delineation of what's acceptable is generally founded on tradition and 'how the game was meant to be played'. Not just about winning.

Extend this to professional gaming. Within the game there are methods to improve your performance: networking glitches, physics glitches and in some cases, animation glitches. Usually, people tend to agree that utilizing networking glitches is an unfair practice. More people than not also tend to agree that abusing the physics engine to bounce higher or pull objects through walls is an unfair practice. The truth is, anyone can learn to do them, so it can be argued that it is simply part of trying to win.

But it is not how the game was intended to be played and therefore it is frowned upon not only by the participants, but by the emerging fans of the circuit.

This draws attention to an important difference between professional sports and professional competitions for gaming. In sports, the manufacturers of the tools of the sport don't have much say in how the game is supposed to be played. The players and the franchise owners have convoluted negotiations for the introductions of changes. However, in professional gaming, the game designer is the entity that determines how they intend for their game to be played. Not only by the average gamer, but by anyone that desires to compete in games with others. There are rarely separate rules built into the game for the professional gamer and their leagues.

As groups like MLG gain more widespread and mainstream attention, the perception of ones performance will be measured not only by the competitors wins or loses, but also by how they chose to play the game. If people decide to use whatever glitches they can as allowed by the league to win, they risk having their accomplishments tarnished by the game makers statements that 'x technique is an exploit and we never intended it to be allowed'.

It is obvious, that in this case I'm referring to the current 'button glitches' from Halo2 and the pursuit of finding similar glitches in Halo3. I believe it is in the best interest of MLG to not allow these combos, to the best of their ability, in their tournaments. The game in question was designed to have certain constraints on actions such as firing and reloading. To the developer, these are important strategic choices for the player, and as such are an integral part of developing strategy and being a 'good player'. Professional leagues will forever be competing in games devised by other people, with rules and expectations determined by the developers. Short of branching out into game development, it will become increasingly important for these leagues to reach out to developers and develop an understanding of how the game was intended to be played.

However, this cannot be a solely one-sided effort. Developers, as they continue to develop games that are used by professional leagues for competition, need to begin working on plans to add these Leagues in the detection of cheating. A prime example was Halo2 and the relationship between Bungie and professional leagues. Within Halo2, it was not necessarily a simple task to show that people were extensively using animation or 'button' glitches to enhance their game. Therefore, it was felt that for the best competitors to remain competitive was to learn and master the use of those glitches. However, with the advent of Halo3, Bungie has created a tool for replaying the game-files and have the ability to review the files to see exactly what was happening. It would go along way to growing the professional leagues if companies like Bungie developed and licensed to the leagues software to review or referee matches. Before companies go to this length, it may require that the leagues go to the developers and say 'we want to know how you intended this game to be played, and how can you help us ensure that our participants adhere to these rules'.

The future of professional gaming greatly depends on the leagues' ability to meet with developers and devise methods similar to drug testing in professional sports, in order to gain a wider acceptance and sense of legitimacy. Eschewing glitches of any sort is only a step towards that goal.

[4 Comments]

Happy Monday!!

I have found the perfect lolcat for today. I've also managed to figure out how to make my own lolcats using the lolcat-builder on their site. So hopefully soon I'll stop ripping off others peoples' work and posting my own.

For now, this is me posting someone else's pic, but it's appropriate for today:

[3 Comments]

When Halo3 MM and the stars align

Allow me to preface this by saying that I'm far from a good player in halo matchmaking. But today the stars aligned, and between good teammates and what can only be new players on the opposing team, I got medals in a ranked game I'd normally think I'd never get. Woot for me!

www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStatsHalo3.aspx

I'm not sure I'm linking that correctly, but I'm glad I got these early. It may be a long time before I manage to pull something like this off again. =)

I'm particularly giddy about the 'Perfection!' medal. Woohoo!

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