This is a follow up to last week’s post.

full story can be found here.

Update no. 2:

Okay. This is the second Jesus Cheeto story I’ve seen:

Found here.

—————–

Okay, breaking news.  I found a third separate incident on Fark today.  That’s 3 separate sightings in about 24 hours on the news.  This one is actually the coolest, but you’ll have to watch the video to see what they are talking about.

So, without further ado…. Jesus in Cat Fur.

I have been introduced to an evangelist named Louie Giglio recently (thanks to my stepsister).

This talk is not cutting edge or current, but it does reveal some interesting side effects of human nature.

The talk is a sort of science-evangelism. It’s wonderful that Louie appreciates science, but don’t think that his approach is quite … pristine for lack of a better word … for the non-religious.

Here’s his talk in a few short sentences (without the melodic keyboards in the background):

1) Our universe is big. Look at these huge stars!
2) Here’s a black hole that looks like a cross via hubble! (applause)
3) Here’s a protein (laminin) that looks like a cross … it holds our cells together! (applause)

I really would like to believe that my skepticism hasn’t run off uncontrollably, but I look at a room full of people who really want to believe in something awesome, and I feel the energy of it, and I feel moved by it, and I feel completely separate from it.

I think, wow, you found two things in the whole wide universe that look like an X.  Two intersecting lines.
Louie describes this protein, laminin,  as his knockout blow… a hook jab that he’s exceptionally proud of.

—————————–

For the video (and comments) from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg_ZVS6Kecw&feature=related

—————————–

One of my favorite comments to the video:

“Praise God for this video! Only true believers can fully understand this message.
God bless you Mr. Giglio and other true servants of God! ”

And another:

“WOW I was totally blown away……thats absolutely awesome! My 2 teenage kids were completely impressed! Thank you for sharing that with us! God bless you!”

—————————–

My mind jumped to a seemingly unrelated email I recieved a few months ago by Athen (my step mom)

http://www.foldmoney.com/

This shows how you can fold money and make images that look kind of like historical events.

These images are more complex that a simple intersection of two lines.  They look like the twin towers.  But despite the more intricate complexity involved in their making, I feel that most Christians will have an easier time being skeptical of the significance here.
—————————–
Pattern recognition is a wonderful thing. It really is. It’s good that we can see faces in the clouds, etc.
It really is.

But why is this being used as a basis for faith. Yes, the universe is big. Yes, there are lots of things shaped like two intersecting lines (a cross)

But, I can’t help but feel like I belong to a whole different species when I see people who interpret folded money as fore-tellings of apocalyptic events, or the structure of proteins (as diagrammed in science text books) as sources of reaffirmation of beliefs and convictions.

Here’s the rub though:  Our brain tends to latch on to things we feel are significant and toss out the rest.
——————-

I have met a few men of faith who draw their faith through prayer and research into the Bible. Among them are my father and a brilliant preacher named Butch Simmons.

I cannot understand how people get so much inspiration from things shaped vaguely like a cross, however. There is a universe of shapes out there. If we put any special kind of significance on the capital letter ‘V’ these people would hold flocks of geese in the highest of spiritual regard.

I am just completely baffled how to process this. I don’t understand why I was given this video.  I don’t understand its positive commentary.  Maybe I am missing the part of me that takes this sort of thing as evidence.  Maybe a degree in philosophy has bred in me an extra thing (skepticism) which most people lack.

But then people are skeptical of things like aliens.  So, maybe it’s not even skepticism at work.

I’ll sleep on this.

I’m playing with the spore creature generator! Here’s one of my doo-dads.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rACOf3D-KQE

Game design is a nebulous job. People have asked me how they can become a game designer. They have some great ideas. Maybe they’ll take some classes.
So I’ve created a syllabus for my upcoming free class called “So You Wanna Be a Game Designer”:

The purpose of this is as follows:

Think of this as night school. Before you spend your hard earned money and time learning C++, Maya, and Java… This course will help you to get the experience of design, without all of the overhead.

I need a good response when people ask me how they can be a game designer. Part of me wants to tell them to take out a huge loan, pack up and go to Full Sail for a couple of years.

It seems like there should be a quicker method for finding out if the discipline is attractive.

If this thing is works it can be a do-it yourselfer, with a final project you can share with your friends.

So I want to create a 2 month crash course to find out if you’ve got the chops. Luckily, I already have a test subject.

So anyways. Here’s my current syllabus for weeks 1 - 3.

1) Design a new “real materials” game. Examples include charades, boccie ball, and tag. The deliverable is a 1 or 2 page document that explains the game’s rules and play structure. If people can read it and easily understand what they need, and how to play the game, then your first homework is a sucess.

2) Focus test your game. Iterate upon your game. Clarify any rules questions that have been found. Game design is very much about iteration and creation. Finally type up the notes you’ve gotten from your focus testers. What worked? What failed?
The first two weeks deal with design in a way that someone with any skill set can attempt. As my friend Justin pointed out to me: “It’s worthless to spend years learning how to program, and then discover you actually don’t like designing games.”

By this point I estimate a good percentage of budding game designers have moved to greener pastures and have dropped out. Actual design and iteration is not as fun for some as they would like to believe. The remaining students are energized by focusing their creative energies.

3) This is tricky.

I feel that a game designer should know something about scripting. This may merit some harsh criticism from some who would say “no designer scripting“. As someone who primarily is payed to script my butt off, I can’t help but to say that, in my experience, it’s a darn fine skill to have as a designer. In “Rusty’s School of Game Design” we’re going to dive in despite all of the controversy and get started on scripting instead of tackling level design or something similar.
There is also a lot of debate here as to the best engine to get our budding designers started.

Neverwinter Nights has a particularly good engine for building missions and dialog. I’m throwing this one out for the simple reason that it’s a bit too focused of an engine for my program.

Flash is a bit sexier for me right now because of the flexibility and sharability of the game. This is still in the running but it gets minus points for the higher pricepoint pushing $700 for CS3 Professional. Also it is restrictive in regard to 3-D graphics.

Game Maker is a gem at $20 and that’s for the professional version. The good news is it has a lot of tutorials, is cheap, and is specifically set up for making games. It even makes .exe’s! The bad news is that its 3D capabilities are limited.

Shoot’em Ups like Team Fortress 2 have good SDKs and tools for creating custom levels. This is appealing, but once again I am determined to focus more on scripting than level design at first, as this course is designed primarily to help people understand whether they they like the day-to-day activities of a designer and I feel that people may enjoy modding and level design more than scripting.
So, the current top-dog for getting everyone’s feet wet in scripting is Yoyo Games’ Game Maker.

I’d like to hear from potential “students” as well as experienced industry people before we nail down week 3 and move on to making weeks 3 - 6.

I just found out about this new theory called Doubly-Special relativity, which was popularized by Giovanni Amelino-Camelia.

It states that there are actually two observer-independent constants in the universe.

1) The speed of light (as per the standard theory of relativity)

2) A new observer-independent length (the Planck length).
Although I still have trouble grasping the Plank length (~1.6 × 10⁻³⁵). According to Wikipedia, it is the length scale at which the structure of spacetime becomes dominated by quantum effects, giving it a discrete or foamy structure.

Anything smaller than a plank length, and all bets are off. Essentially, this is a universal pixel. With doubly-special relativity, we know that this “pixel” is a constant size, that any independent observer can agree upon.

This is quite a strange claim, given the premises of special relativity.  There is an observed “length contraction” with relative speed.  So, if you are on a very fast train (.99 light speed), the landscape around you will look “smooshed” together.  If things look “smooshed” to you on the train (but to the farmer in the field they look the normal length) how could you agree on the size of an “inch”?  You could not.  But if you both zoom to , a hundred-million-trillion times smaller than a proton, then you will see a unit of size that is the same for both of you.

How though?  Well, maybe that’s how time and space “curl-up” and warp with your relative speed.  They take the beating so that these “pixels” remain constant (along with the speed of light).

So we maintain a constant “resolution” and a constant “frame-rate” even in the face of relativity.

Secondhand Lands Beta is underway. We’re amassed some avid players!

It’s night 2 and I believe 3 people have passed the “Level 50″ landmark. We even have a “overt” player. I’m wondering when the PvP will start at this rate.

FOURTwenty, Aeros, Enwis Haphio, and BaaaaB are all fairly experienced players at this point.

Overall more people are playing as sheep than as wolves.

A few players have sworn us as their “new home”. I think they enjoy the developer attention of 3 GMs being logged on around the clock.

Last night, as you can see, players were new and had their fairy helpers still with them.

Tonight Peepers and I are celebrating people reaching level 50!

More as the beta continues!

Secondhand Lands is now officially beta!

I encourage all of you to go to www.secondhandlands.com and download the launcher!

I’ll see you all on server Duncan!

It’s news to me!
This weekend I went to San Antonio with my Mom, Stepdad, Grandma and *gasp* girlfriend.

I’ve met a lady. Yes. I should have posted sooner, but now that she’s met the ‘fam’ I suppose all of the internet can know me and Tomie are dating.

Who’s Tomie? She’s a reporter for the Temple Telegram, so I have been, and will be driving up to Temple on some or most weekends. Scary!

Tomie has noticed and categorized many of my character flaws. One of which I shall report to you now.

Apparently, I say “sure” a lot. It can mean “yes”, “maybe,” sarcastically “no” or several other things.

San Antonio was great though. I saw the “river walk” for the first time. For anyone who hasn’t been. Go. It’s awesome. I’ll include a Wikipedia link for good measure.

That’s all for now. For the people who’ve been checking the site lately, to no avail, I apologize for my laziness.

More soon.

Well.  Tomorrow I will take the plunge and drive with Mr. Stocks to the great state of Mississippi.

The drive will be long and horrible, but I will endure.

Until next year, good night and good luck.

Below is an image that I’ve constructed in order to help categorize different types of atheists “labels”.

Once some good conversation gets started, we’ll talk about the significance of showing just how broad a label we are dealing with could possibly be.