Static and Groove celebrate 400 WeFunk shows this Friday. WeFunk has been a central sound source for me for the past four years. The popularity of WeFunk is due to Groove's distribution of the shows online. I wouldn't have heard them in Cheshire four years ago if it wasn't for the iTunes streaming of the show. This genius of Groove has rarely been discussed in any forum online. Two days ago, this article came out;

http://www.maisonneuve.org/index.php?&page_id=12&article_id=1939

It features some classic photos too, including this one showing Static's spinning technique on poutine.

Good night.

A Little Thanksgiving Moose Joke

I've always been interested in a meta understanding of humour. What is funny? How does culture effect humour? When I was at University I started creating freeform jokes with friends. Here is my favourite.

A rabbi and a moose walk into a bar. They sit down at the bar and the bartender says to the rabbi,

'You are a rabbi - I've heard rabbis are very wise. I'll tell you what, if you can guess my favourite song from the 1970s, I'll give you this bar.'

The rabbi looks at the bartender and says,

'You are in luck, my son. For tonight I have my friend the moose with me and he has the power of looking into the minds of men. But first you need to get him drunk.'

So the bartender begins pouring drinks for the moose. Bottles of scotch are emptied. Kegs of beer drained. Vodka flows as it if were water. But the moose continues to sit at the bar drinking, but saying nothing.

Finally they are down to the bars last bottle of peppermint schnapps. The moose takes a sip and begins to shake. The vibrating moose begins to projectile vomit. The bartender jumps across the bar. Patrons try to control the moose but are flung off by the creature's spray. The bartender tries to close the moose's huge jaws.

'Wait!' the rabbi shouts, 'You can't stop the moose-sick! No body can stop the moose-sick!'

Seven years later, I received the following email from my old friend Graham 'Tanooki' Wilson.

Tom,

Not sure if you remember you Moose Sick joke, but really how could one forget it ... Anyway I found this link and I started to laugh my arse off...

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/world/article1163905.ece

Graham

Happy Thanksgiving. Good night.

You can see why hard drug users have problems assessing the strength of their chemicals before use. I'm having the same problem with chillies in this country.

Long time chilli addict.

I'm the first person I know to have ODed on chillies in Malaysia and achieved the infamous itchy blood level of toxicity. With 1 kilo of super hot at 15c - completely justified.

I once purchased a violin under the influence of equal portions sambal (pulped chilli sauce) and laksa (Malaysian chilli and coconut milk soup).

The problem with chillies in the US is it is impossible to tell the strength. One week they are weak, the next week you cook them and heaps of toxic chilli oil laden smoke fills the tiny apartment. Part of the problem is the lack of decent extractor fan. But I have never had the toxic gas with chillies previously. Third time in two months this evening.

Good night.

I have been reworking the low-level graphics in the Simulation over the past couple of days. The problem this rewrite solves is the ability to put monochrome and colour text in the Simulation through utilizing the draw primitive for colour and monochrome drawing. This ripples through to the whose genes are those solution to the Simulation paternity test mapping. Being able to line link parents and children in the Simulation will produce an impressive dynamic.

This has come at the same time as the latest issue of UK White Dwarf and the second of my Rommel books from the local library. These factors have combined with some reflective thinking about Noble Warfare, particularly the unit regroup logic.

Expanding on the latter two points - the latest issue of White Dwarf (UK WD 312) follows the recent narrative of a complete drop in the production content for the magazine. It did however contain a battle report. Without the battle reports, I don't think I would buy White Dwarf. In recent issues that contained no battle it appeared to be a drought that was directly related to the lack of staff. The number of staff connected with the production of White Dwarf hasn't increased, but there appears to be a standing maintenance of the magazine.

This month's battle report featured Jervis Johnson who hasn't played Warhammer for a number of years. This was a Time Commanders scenario because you weren't reading someone at the top of their game doing battle. With the tens if not hundreds of amazing players going to tournaments and winning with their finely sculpted, multi-layer painted armies, I couldn't understand why they would look inward for the battle report. They might as well have pulled someone off the street who didn't know a crossbow from a cudgel per Time Commanders.

I guess the new magazine staff are finding their bearings and it will take a good 3-6 issues for things to get normalized again. It seems very strange that GW would allow their flagship magazine that produced so much good faith through great content over the past four years, to drop so heavily, primarily due to understaffing and not maintaining key staff.

My readings on Rommel have given me great food for thought too. Primarily reflecting on aggressive strategy and how to implement this in Noble Warfare. If the strategy picks up sharply, even without amazing graphics, I suspect Noble Warfare could develop a following online.

My theories on regrouping return to the desired structure normalization similar to the desired ape normalization proposed by Bo Daley early in the Noble Ape development as trying to model the average ape and reflecting each ape on that average ape, to produce some normalized society (see the original Nervana Manuals PDF for more). From this idea, I have been thinking of the normalized unit vs the actual unit and how to model this through Noble Warfare. Fortunately, although it's not pretty, Noble Warfare now runs on Mac and Windows which makes development as spontaneous as What machine am I running currently?

Good afternoon.