#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
61 Greenfield Grizzlies (7-1)
39 RR Redbeards (5-3)
108 Bane Cornshuckers (4-4)
73 Mounds View Meerkats (5-3)
112 King (4-4)
94 Gilbert Gamma Rays (4-4)
87 Favre Dollar Footlongs (5-3)
75 Texas Chili Eaters (4-4)
60 Boot Hill Bogs (2-6)
50 Clerical Errs (0-6)
I rather enjoyed this parody of a New York literati’s take on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown:
24:00 Lucy bobs for an apple. Snoopy is in the tub somehow. Lucy feigns disgust at the discovery.
Schroeder, a musical Faust, bangs away at a toy piano, coaxing impossible, darkly miraculous tones from the infernal instrument. The Devil’s notes pour out from his fingers like the blood offering from a slaughtered goat above the sacrifice-font.
Snoopy, utterly helpless in the music’s thrall, dances and weeps, dances and weeps. He stumbles back out into the night, disoriented. The music, the music.
The most dangerous blog on Tumblr observes that SJWs are not only the self-appointed Video Game Police, they have appointed themselves the Identity Police as well:
Catherine of Aragorn @PaleCompanion
@nero’s total lack of empathy with (& almost hatred of) the oppressed is so unique in a gay man I’m not unconvinced his sexuality’s an act.remember you’re only gay if sjw’s say you are.
MOD 1: Same for blacks or women or whoever else.
If you are “X oppressed minority” and you disagree with “approved
leftist minority groupthink,” you are no longer permitted to be a
minority. That’s what life is like today. Being gay and/or black and/or woman
or whatever, and being told that even then, you are still not allowed in
our cool underdog outsider group because you don’t agree with OUR
politics.
Which brings these tweets to mind:
Trevor Curtis @trevorcurtis23
I’m sorry to put it this way, but my balls are more Native American than @voxdayReggie Stone @rock_regi
You are as “indian” as every other white guy claiming to be 1/16th Cherokee. Stop co-opting other’s race as a shield.Pox Vay @PoxVay
DNA, not heritage. No practicing of culture or tradition.pure, impure @pure_impure
Vox as as Indian as I am Yemeni.Narc @narciblog
If @voxday is Native American based solely on some genetic test, I’m black since all of Homo Sapiens came out of Africa.
I take it as quite a compliment that aside from two of the usual suspects (pure, impure is Andrew Marston), there are so few SJWs willing to take the risk of openly expressing doubts about my Indian heritage, although strangely enough, virtually no one has expressed any doubts concerning my Mexican background. Or perhaps it isn’t so strange, as there is no question that the Red Card trumps the Brown Card in the SJW mind. (One of these days, I’m going to finish designing that SJW card game I started. If you’re an interested artist, let me know.) My being an Indian increases their discomfort when they try to DISQUALIFY me.
Let’s face it, it’s more than a little amusing that the only writer ever expelled from the hyper-inclusive Science Fiction Writers of America was one of its only Native American members.
Anyhow, it’s pretty clear that more experienced SJWs like McRapey have finally learned that I simply do not lie when making direct and public claims such as these. They may be dubious, they may have their doubts, but they know that anytime I offer them something this easily attacked, it’s almost surely a trap. This demonstrates that I was wrong about them. It may be a long and painfully slow process, but as it turns out, they are capable of learning after all.
But denying science and playing Identity Police is nothing new. Back when I was in college, I remember a prominent feminist member of the faculty standing up and saying that “Margaret Thatcher was not of the gender woman” due to her offensive politics. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was indubitably of the female sex, whether the SJWs liked it then or not, just as I am a bona fide American Indian, and not one of the “1/16th Cherokee” sort either.
As for the claimed failure to practice either culture or tradition, that would be a surprise to anyone who ever had a birthday dinner with my family. The inability of SJWs to understand that some people are more interested in what they can make of themselves than what they are made of tells you all you need to know about their prospects in life.
It appears she’ll fit right in with the SJWs, pedophiles, and child molesters there:
If there is such a thing as actually abusing a child through
excessive generosity and overindulgence, then Lena Dunham’s parents are
child abusers. Her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter noted for his
primitive brand of highbrow pornography, his canvases anchored by puffy
neon-pink labia; her photographer mother filled the family home with
nude pictures of herself, “legs spread defiantly.” Self-styled radicals from old money, they were not the sort of people inclined to enforce even the most lax of boundaries. And they were, in their daughter’s telling, enablers of some very disturbing behavior that would be considered child abuse in many jurisdictions — Lena Dunham’s sexual abuse, specifically, of her younger sister, Grace, the sort of thing that gets children taken away from non-millionaire families without Andover pedigrees and Manhattanite social connections. Dunham writes of casually masturbating while in bed next to her younger sister, of bribing her with “three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds . . . anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.” At one point, when her sister is a toddler, Lena Dunham pries open her vagina — “my curiosity got the best of me,” she offers, as though that were an explanation. “This was within the spectrum of things I did.”
YERGGHH! I’ve always thought Dunham looked like a Daughter of Innsmouth straight out of Lovecraft. It turns out that she’s even uglier and more freakish on the inside than her appalling exterior would suggest. She’s not the voice of her generation, she’s not a voice of a generation, by her own account she is an incestuous child molester.
RD asks about strategy vs tactics:
I was browsing through some of your old columns on WND and came across
an article where you mentioned that one of the premiere, defining games
of the RTS genre, Command & Conquer, could could not actually be
described as a “strategy” game. You wrote:“Like those video game
reviewers who insist on describing RTS games like Warcraft and Command
& Conquer as “strategy” games, the media consistently confuses
tactics with strategy.”Would
you care to elaborate on this point? As a long-time fan of the C&C
series and the RTS genre, I am most curious to hear your justification
for distinguishing between tactics and strategy with respect to
describing RTS games. Also, what in your opinion is the best example of
an actual “strategy” RTS game?
The difference between strategy and tactics is pretty clear. If you’re trying to win a war, it’s strategy. If you’re trying to win a battle, it’s tactics. Even Wikipedia is useful in this regard:
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, “art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship”) is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the “art of the general”, which included several subsets of skills including “tactics”, siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in East Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word “strategy” came to denote “a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills” in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact. The father of Western modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as “the employment of battles to gain the end of war.” B. H. Liddell Hart’s definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy”. Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals.
Military tactics are the science and art of organizing a military force, and the techniques for combining and using weapons and military units to engage and defeat an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology have been reflected in changes to military tactics; in contemporary military science tactics are the lowest of three planning levels: (i) strategic, (ii) operational, and (iii) tactical. The highest level of planning is strategy, how force is translated into political objectives, by bridging the means and ends of war. The intermediate level, operational level, the conversion of strategy into tactics deals with formations of units. In the vernacular, tactical decisions are those made to achieve the greatest, immediate value, and strategic decisions are those made to achieve the greatest, overall value, irrespective of the immediate results of a tactical decision.
That’s the formal distinction, and it should be fairly obvious that most RTS are intrinsically tactical in nature. But there is also another way of looking at it, which is the one I actually had in mind, which is that strategy implies thinking and planning, whereas tactics implies acting and responding. Most RTS games such as Warcraft and C&C, involve considerably more of the latter than the former. Indeed, even if we disregard the fact of the old “grunt rush” tactic or the fact that success often boiled down to superior click speed, thanks to the “technology tree”, most RTS involve virtually no thinking or anything that can reasonably be described as strategy.
My old friend Chris, who has designed a few notable RTS games, is even quoted in the RTS article: “[My first attempt at visualizing RTSs in a fresh and interesting new way] was my realizing that although we call this genre ‘Real-Time Strategy,’ it should have been called ‘Real-Time Tactics’ with a dash of strategy thrown in.”
So, for both reasons, I don’t think it is possible for an RTS to be a proper strategy game. I actually designed an RTS, as it happens; the original WAR IN HEAVEN game was supposed to be an RTS. It would have been a lot better if we had gone that route too, but Valu-Soft wanted to chase Walmart with a DEER HUNTER-style game, which, as I have related in the past, backfired rather spectacularly when they foolishly hired the buyer who wanted it before the game was finished.
The right stuff returns. You have to respect the courage of the men flying private test rockets into space:
Virgin Galactic’s suborbital commercial spacecraft SpaceShipTwo has crashed during a test flight in the Mojave Desert about 95 miles north of Los Angeles, according to NBC affiliate KGET. The California Highway Patrol has confirmed that one of the two pilots aboard the vehicle is dead; and the other is in critical condition.
Since we’ve been talking about #GamerGate all day today, I thought we ought to actually talk about games too, which makes this the perfect time to post this article about one of the great, and massively underrated game designers, Steve Fawkner.
Fawkner released his first full game, Quest for the Holy Grail,
for the Sinclair Spectrum in 1983. “I didn’t know about publishing or
about how to get a game to the store,” he says. “So what I would do is
go to a gaming convention and take some copies of Quest for the Holy Grail in a snap-lock bag, with some instructions just printed out.”He gave them away to attendees, free of charge, with a message at the
start and end of the game requesting players send $5 to fund the next
one. He didn’t expect to earn a penny, but Fawkner got 32 checks —
earning $160.Encouraged by this unexpected success, he developed more games,
building up a mailing list of people who liked his work. He’d send them
games through the mail, and they’d pay another $5 for each title they
enjoyed. “It was extremely, extremely primitive, but it was kind of
pizza and beer money when I was a teen.”Then one day in early 1989 he finished a game that seemed too good to
give away, either in snap-lock bags or through snail mail to his small
list of previous customers. Warlords combined two games Fawkner had been playing at the time: a strategy video game called Empire,
by White Wolf Productions co-founder and former Space Shuttle Program
flight designer Mark Baldwin, and a board game by TSR called Dragons of Glory.
A turn-based affair, it put you in charge of one or more clans — each
possessing heroes and citadels and soldiers — and asked you conquer at
least two-thirds of the map.Fawkner thought maybe he could sell Warlords commercially.
“I sent it around to a few publishers,” he says, “and just got told no.
They weren’t interested in a game that was 90 percent finished by
someone they’d never heard of.” He also sent it to distributors, unaware
of the difference between the two. “They certainly weren’t interested
in something that didn’t come shrink-wrapped in a box.”Almost ready to give up, Fawkner chased one last lead: Strategic
Studies Group (SSG) in Sydney. “They do strategy games,” he remembers a
friend saying. “OK, they’re tanks and planes and military kind of
strategy, but why don’t you send it to them?” Fawkner shipped a copy
off, and initially heard no response.“Six weeks later, I got a phone call,” he recalls. SSG co-founder Ian
Trout confessed that his company had thrown the game out because it had
knights and dragons in it, but they gave it another look after his son,
Alex Shore, found the Warlords disk and dug in. “I owe Alex a
huge debt of gratitude for actually finding my game in the garbage and
playing it,” Fawkner says. “Because SSG published it. It reviewed really
well, sold I think tens or hundreds of thousands of units and did very
nicely.”
Steve’s a modest man. Warlords was also CGW’s 1991 Game of the Year. It’s still such a good game that Ender still plays it from time to time when he isn’t playing Fantasy General or Civ5. Warlords 2 was even better, although I thought 3 and 4 lost a bit of the plot, being too influenced by the newfound popularity of the RTS genre.
But then to come back with Puzzle Quest, which started the whole Puzzle RPG craze, was simply amazing. Anyhow, notice that not only did no one ever welcome to the industry with encouragement and snuggles, but despite the massive respect with which he is regarded by veterans throughout the industry, he still has to scratch and claw to find the money to make the games he wants to make.
I still have my original boxes, manuals, and disks for Warlords here in my library, an honor I convey on only the very best classic games.
He’s talking with Clark of PopeHat on the subject. Clark has an interesting tribalistic interpretation of the cultural war. His idea is that many people’s position is primarily based on their tribal identity rather than on the basis of an actual opinion on the subject.
WARNING TO CERTAIN SOUTHRONS: I’m listening and some minor Moldbuggery is involved.
They just never stop. Which is fine, the important thing to keep in mind is that they never stop lying. A comment from Judge Judy & Executioner:
Vox; your late latching on to #gg and insistence on establishing yourself as a cheerleader despite the fact that the main #gg either didn’t know who you are or if the did, didn’t want you, has made me realize your sigmaness is less about being an alpha with no interest in playing the game and more about being a gamma who’s figured out how to.
Maybe that analysis is wrong, but this who thing has been very gammay of you
This is interesting because it not only demonstrates the usual SJW dishonesty and inability to understand the other side, but also shows how #GamerGate is now perceived as having status that must be denied to opponents deemed dangerous.
As to the “late latching on to #gg”, I merely note the obvious:
Also, gammas don’t turn into sigmas. It is omegas that do so. The gamma mindset can never transform to the degree required; they care too deeply about the social order.
Here is a good example of an SJW sally on Twitter. Notice that it is absolutely rife with dishonesty, false pretenses, and attempts to DISQUALIFY from start to finish:
Brosephus Aurelius @Brobuntu
but what the fuck is a pink shirtVox Day
A subset of SJWs. (link to Roosh’s article)Brosephus Aurelius
wait isnt Roosh that PUA sex tourist guide guy that offended a good chunk of europe with his books?Vox Day
Straight to DISQUALIFY. Textbook SJW. Well done.Brosephus Aurelius
I’m not disqualifying his opinion, just checking if you knew his past public exposure before linking. I’m still reading the linkVox Day
Roosh has not offended most of us who live here in Europe. I know exactly who he is. And I don’t subscribe to the Genetic Fallacy.Brosephus Aurelius
hey there’s not a single mention of pink anything in that link, so I’m confused as to how it ties into my questionVox Day
Perhaps this will help you: (link to my response to Roosh’s article.)Brosephus Aurelius
wait so you personally made up this word and it’s definition, then expect everyone to keep up with it by default?Vox Day
I don’t have any expectation of you at all. I don’t care what you do, say, or think. Accept or reject, as you see fit.Brosephus Aurelius
well this is a pretty vast conspiracy put forth, I’m going to need somewhat of a more rigorous source than a few people’s blog postsBrosephus Aurelius
especially when you’re making an implicit appeal to ethos without any visible standing in that regard, as you’re anonymousVox Day
My “visible standing” is 1.5 million monthly pageviews. Accept or reject, as you see fit. Not my concern.
The object, obviously, is to create a rift between us that he can exploit; the rabbit is dangling the opportunity for me to win his approval by denouncing Roosh, which he will then immediately turn into a weapon to use against Roosh. This is the “Divide and Denounce” tactic. My favorite part is where he attempts to deny that he’s trying to disqualify Roosh and claims he’s merely “checking if you knew his past public exposure before linking”. As you do, I suppose. But his language gives him away even in the denial; he says “I’m not disqualifying” rather than “I’m not trying to disqualify”, which tells us that he assumes that his opinion is sufficient to disqualify someone. This is a key SJW trait.
The correct response to “Divide and Denounce” is to refuse to denounce or otherwise separate yourself from the target they are attempting to isolate, no matter who the target is or what they are supposed to have done. (#GamerGate, in general, has done a stellar job of this, it is one of the things that makes it antifragile.) So, it’s no surprise that when I refuse to rise to the bait, he then proceeds to attempt to disqualify BOTH Roosh and me, because he’s going to need “somewhat of a more rigorous source” than our blog posts. Quelle surprise! This is the “Pose as a Moderate Who Finds the Evidence Unconvincing” tactic, which is, of course, simply a variant of their primary tactic, DISQUALIFY. We see it utilized every election season with all those fake “Republicans who have always voted for Republicans in the past, but this year, Romney/McCain/Bush/Dole is simply too extreme”.
And notice how when I simply kept answering him in a straightforward manner that clearly indicated I did not care what he did, thought, or said, he dropped the moderate pose and retreated to snarking about Roosh’s article. (It’s remarkable how SJWs are always “laughing”. They must be very jolly people indeed.) If, on the other hand, I had showed any weakness, taken the bait to separate myself from Roosh, or accepted him as a legitimate judge as to my standing as a source, he would have immediately pressed that point.
One reason for SJW success is that they operate on a mixed 2GW/3GW model, 2GW firepower/attrition on the larger scale combined with 3GW maneuver by their fanatics. But, as we know, 4GW trumps both. In any event, the mention of Roosh led another SJW to leap in and attempt to DISQUALIFY him, at which point a modest degree of hilarity ensued.
James Mathurin @jameswiseson
@Brobuntu @voxday Don’t forget he’s also an admitted rapist.Vox Day
No, that’s John “I’m a rapist” @scalzi. You can even hear him admit it here: (link to MP3)James Mathurin
Nah, it’s Roosh.Vox Day
That’s a direct quote from 25 October 2012. You literally can’t get any more “self-admitted rapist” than that.James Mathurin
At some point, will you explain why you think I care? I was talking about Roosh V being an admitted rapist.Vox Day
You’ve provided no evidence at all. I’ve provided conclusive proof that John Scalzi is a self-admitted rapist.Vox Day
So, you are actually saying that you don’t care that John Scalzi is a self-admitted rapist. Wow just wow.Brosephus Aurelius
11/10 wizard tier trolling
This is another point to notice. SJWs are shameless hypocrites. They will completely ignore the very same charges that they hurl – in this case, a knowingly false charge against Roosh for “violating” a U.S. state’s age of consent law in a country with a lower age of consent – against their targets if those charges are directed at them or someone they consider to be on their side. While you can easily expose their hypocrisy in the eyes of others, being exposed won’t even slow them down, so don’t hang your hat on it.
Notice that I am expected to care about his undocumented claim that someone he is attacking is “an admitted rapist”, but he is not expected to care about my documented proof that someone else is a “self-admitted rapist”, which is exactly what Roosh describes in the article the SJWs are trying to DISQUALIFY: “SJW’s do not believe in objectivity. Instead, speech and ideas must be
viewed relatively depending on the source and its intended audience…. SJW’s have started labeling men as rapists based on anonymous internet
allegations, even when the supposed victims never reported the crime to
police.”
You have to admit, he certainly called that one correctly.