Kaltaris Weblog

You may be able to tell from my previous post about Space Beer that I’m a big fan of the malty beverage.  I think most people who haven’t ever really gotten into beer have been grossly misled by the terrible horse urine concoctions that line the shelves of most grocery stores and gas stations. Miller, Budweiser, Coors are just a few names that one should steer clear of if they wish to experience REAL beer.  Fortunately for true beer enthusiasts like myself there has been a massive influx of real beers showing up in local markets over the past several years.

About five years ago there was a massive public gravitation towards better beer, and micro brewery beers were just one of the wonderful items to come out of this change. I experienced my first “real” beer four years ago when a coworker turned me on to a brewing company called Sierra Nevada.  After trying their Pale Ale I was hooked, and never went back to the bland bitter brews that are still so common today.  Since then micro breweries have exploded in the States and you can now go to Kroger, Tom Thumb, and even Walmart and find a wide variety of quality beers.  I notice the selection growing every week and it has afforded me the opportunity to experience many new brews.

I’ve always been a PC gamer.  Since back in the days of Doom, Quake, and Dark Forces I have found that the PC is the best system to play any first person shooter.  The combination of the mouse and keyboard for controls allows for a precision of movement that you really can’t get from a game controller.  Upon the advent of Halo the rise of console shooters was brought in full swing and there have been countless adaptations of this genre ever since.  I tried Halo a few times, but found that the controls were still greatly lacking when compared to the ease with which I could move, look, and target using the single best FPS controller: the mouse.

I recently began playing a few of the newer FPS games on the Xbox 360, and I have to say things have definitely progressed significantly.  The controls are easier, more precise, and all around BETTER.  They still don’t top the control you have with a mouse, but the evolution of this style has come a long ways since the days of Goldeneye 64.  I’ve decided to go ahead and give it a shot and see how proficient I can become with this new hardware, results to follow.

Once again I’m going to be a bit upinyourface with this post…Straight ticket voters piss me off.  My parents are hardcore conservatives and vote straight ticket Republican ever single election. Anyone who has a head on their shoulders knows that just because two different candidates claim the same partisanship does NOT mean they are going to hold to the same policies, they often differ quite a bit, especially when addressing loose issues.

In the case of my parents and almost all other straight ticket voters I’ve encountered over the years, they blindly go down the ballot list and either check all R or all D without even knowing who they’re voting for or what they stand for.  One of their beloved partisans could have had a history of drug abuse and they would never even know it! Instead of picking the candidate with a better track record and integrity(though I’d use that term loosely when referring to ANY politician) they’d rather just stick to their guns and go straight ticket…well thanks a lot people, its those smaller, local officials that have the real impact on your every day lives, and you just put a jackass in the seat right next door.

While I know it often isn’t possible go through and thoroughly research every single little candidate on the ballot, for God’s sake at least do some research on the important ones.  Blindly selecting every candidate solely based on the Presidential candidate’s partisanship is irresponsible and often results in getting bad people put in office.

And here we go with more of my controversial political views…most specifically concerning the election.  I think the electoral college is a damn shame…a travesty even.  Most of my friends voted for Obama…I didn’t, I didn’t vote for anyone, because I didn’t like any of the candidates…but that’s immaterial, lets talk about this electoral college debacle.

If you lived in the state of Texas and voted for Obama guess what? You should have stayed home and not even bothered because Texas is staunchly conservative and the entire state electoral votes went to McCain.  It just seems a shame that so many votes were basically made irrelevant, even though Obama won the election anyway, all of the Obama votes in Texas went straight down the crapper.  I guess people just insist on getting out and voting because they want to feel involved, but with our current system it seems more like a total sham to me.  If Texas were a swing state it definitely would have mattered, just enough votes one way or the other and it could have a decided the electoral votes…but that is definitely not the case in this state, nor will it be for a good deal of time to come.

Ah more on my least favorite topic, Politics!  I find the weeks leading up to election day to be most frustrating for someone like me.  Everyone has to shout out their choices, ranting the same mantra “Get out and vote!”, it assaults you from every direction.  When the clamour finally dies out and the day has passed there’s a diminishing of these annoyances, to be sure, but a general sense of irritation remains.  Those who lost fade into the background, while the winners brandish banners and windshield paintings proclaiming their “good fortune”.  It’s funny, I seem to remember many doing the same things when Bush was elected…anyone else remember this? Am I crazy? It seems almost inevitable that every president will eventually end up with a bad wrap, and when the following years of this term pass, so will the jubilation and excitement.

Seems a shame to get so work up for something that will more than likely end in disappointment, but we all like to have some degree of hope that this won’t be the case.  A greater shame is that everyone puts so much effort into electing a figurehead, when they should be out voting for their senators, governors, and local officials…the people who actually have a direct impact on their life.

Ah beer…sweet sweet nectar of life…and now we can enjoy beer made in space!  Well…not quite yet. The Japanese beer company Sapporo paid (more than likely a ridiculous sum of money) to have 100 bottles of beer made from barley grown completely on the International Space Station.  Sapporo isn’t planning on selling the bottles, at least not yet…but from what we’ve heard they differ very little from their earth grown brethren.  Now I want to know if the crew on the station gets to enjoy the beer they practically grew with their own hands….I can just see it now, the next major space catastrophe won’t be due to some critical miscalculation or hardware malfunction…it will be from engineer Johnson spilling beer in the CO2 scrubbers…or one of the physicists waking up in the airlock with their pants around their ankles…AGAIN.

The Palm Pistol is a single-shot firearm aimed at folks who may have trouble shooting a regular gun and probably shouldn’t be anyways. The company behind the weapon hopes to have it classified as a medical device for the elderly and people with arthritis. Holy shit.

“It’s something that they need to assist them in daily living,” says Matthew Carmel, president of Constitution Arms in Maplewood, New Jersey, which hopes to manufacture the Palm Pistol – now just a patent and specifications. “The justification for this would be no more or less for a [walking aid] or wheelchair, or any number of things that are medical devices,” he says.

Wow, now I want a medical ninja sword.

Ideal for seniors, disabled or others who may have limited strength or manual dexterity. Using the thumb instead of the index finger for firing, it significantly reduces muzzle drift, one of the principal causes of inaccurate targeting. Point and shoot couldn’t be easier.

Point and shoot couldn’t be easier. More like point and shooting yourself in the freaking leg… couldn’t be easier. Seriously though, my grandpa has arthritis and lives in a bad part of the assisted living facility, I’m getting him one.

I recently read a news article about the future of garbage disposal…basically blasting it into space.  Apparently the process has already begun and several rocket loads of trash have already been sent up.  It makes one wonder about the possible implications of this and what impact it may have on future space travel and even the environment on earth.  Many of the loads sent to space achieve a low earth orbit and eventually burn up in the atmosphere…Now I’m no scientist, but burning millions of tons of garbage in the upper atmosphere CAN’T have a good effect in the long run.  Research groups have begun to discuss the feasibility of actually projecting these payloads directly into the sun, however there has been no conclusive tests done to present actual figures on whether or not the extra cost in fule would be worth it in the end.

New legislation was passed in August that forces US university to tighten their policies against P2P file sharing. The new legislation states that universities must inform all students that file sharing is illegal and subject to prosecution and investigation. The new policies are creating havoc for IT groups at both private and public universities throughout the US as they scramble to further secure their networks and put a stop to P2P sharing by students and even faculty.

Along with the requirement of notifying students of the consequences of file sharing, the new law suggests that universities should license media sharing services such as Napster to help promote legal downloads. The law is very specific in stating that universities should offer alternatives to P2P and illegal files sharing. If these laws come into strict administration next year, universities can expect to shill out hundreds of thousands of dollars for licensing such file sharing programs. Perhaps the government has overstepped its bounds this time…?

Due the large number of active computer users in China (some 200 million) and recent piracy issues surrounding Microsoft’s Vista operating system, the big dog has released a new security update to be active with all vista updates in China. Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) originally checked the authenticity of Windows sending a pop up message to the user if the copy of illegitimate and would halt further updates. The new version which was mass released last week takes a much more direct approach to crippling pirate copies of windows. Upon detection of a faulty license the new update will completely black out the desktop display, forcing the user to their computer, and upon restarting the screen will black out again after one hour, rendering the OS almost completely useless.

Chinese lawyers have filed complaints and state that the new update is a violation of their law and that if it is not revoke they will pursue legal action. I find this all a bit ridiculous, because obviously if the copy is not legit, they legally have no right to use it. Seems pretty black and white, but since there is such an influx of pirate copies of Vista in China this update has crippled many businesses and personal users, causing quite a disturbance overseas.