Napalm Riot

I still am sleeping on my brother's sofa, but that isn't too bad. The most of the trim is up now, and a few shelves. Nearly done!

Wiring: 4/5 done
Sheetrock: 9/10 done
Painting: 9/10
Deck: 4/5 done

This news article irritates me - http://www.time.com/time/…le/0,8599,1840388,00.html

If you'd like to avoid reading the rest of this, just realize that I think the above article is mostly BS. Well written, but BS.



From the third paragraph: "We haven't been a nation of small towns for nearly a century. It is the suburbanites and city dwellers who do the fighting and hourly-wage work now, and the corporations who grow our food."

"Corporations who grow our food"? Not even! My grandparents were (and those alive still are) farmers, as well as several other close relatives. "City dwellers do the fighting"? The whole nation has gone to war, and unless I'm mistaken, those from big cities don't have the only claim to bearing the weight of it.



"Furthermore, he" - [that is, Obama] - "has thrived in the culture and economy that displaced Main Street America — an economy where people no longer work in factories or make things with their hands, but where lawyers and traders prosper unduly. (Of course, this is the economy the Republican Party has promoted — but facts are powerless in the face of a potent mythology.)"

"This is the economy the Republican Party has promoted — but facts are powerless in the face of a potent mythology." Do, please, show me these facts, and give me the source to your studies!

"An economy where people no longer work in factories or make things with their hands, but where lawyers and traders prosper unduly." I hope you can see the non-sequitur here: Factories, lawyers, and resellers have nothing in common. Lawyers are seen as bad, and the loss of US jobs to keep prices down is seen as bad, but neither of these are Republican. They aren't Democrat either. And, have you ever shopped at Lowes, Wal-mart, Target, Kroger (or Dillons, depending on location), or Hobby Lobby? I guess that makes you a BAAAAD person for going along with their scheme.

I guess I should stop before I spontaneously explode... Thoughts on this, anyone? (Thoughts on the article, not my exploding )

I moved 800 miles away from home in Kansas, down to Texas. Now, I'm sleeping on my brother's sofa.

Before I jump into the rest of the post, check out my newly created blog/homepage/whatever: sites.google.com/site/theinfog

I'm doing renovations on his apartment for my share of rent, including building a really nice deck. I'll have to post a few images.

I haven't really started looking for work yet, but apperently this part of Texas has a lot of construction jobs. I'd like to find something in CAD or estimating. I do much better with computers and drawing things in CAD programs than with construction tools. I can use them, but I'm more familiar with computers.

Now that I have access to the internets, I should be on NR more often, right?

I'm still looking for work in Construction Management. So far I've had one company that interviewed me say no, and I'm waiting for a second interview with another company.

I've been looking for work as a field engineer or estimator in practically every state in the US. I may be moving to Illinois or Texas from Kansas - I'll miss my big, flat, open spaces if I have to move.

Of course, money is no problem right now. I'm living at home, (in my sisters room... while she's away for the summer...), so I can leech food and such off my parents. I have a car, so I have to pay for gas, but its an old Honda with really good gas milage. AND, I actually overpaid for my last semester at school; I thought that I would have to pay the school rent for 12 months for the apartment, but only had to pay for the time that I and my room mate were there. YAY! An "extra" $1000!

Now to start paying off my loans. I calculated that if I payed about $400/month for 5 years, I could pay off the $20,000 and only pay about $4000 interest.

This last weekend, I spent some time installing Windows XP and Freespire onto a dual-boot hard drive, my first dive into Linux. After I had all the updates, etc, I went to my brother's house, and played a lot of CoD 4, with about 14 others. They actually blew the breakers afew times, because there were too many computers linked to one set of outlets. Eventually, the computers were spread out through the house by use of extension cords. I may not play FPS but four times a year, but I still managed to have only 2x the deaths as kills against people who play Every Single Day.

Well... as soon as I find a job and can move out and get internet, I'll be back on Napalm Riot. I'm not dead... I just have a really bad respawn time.

Edit:

You can check out http://spreadsheets.googl…18NxUlUSSK8zaMSvxdA&hl=en for the newest version of FAQ I've worked up. It will be easier to keep track of things using Google Docs, I think.





I don't think I'll be around very much in the future. I have about 5 weeks till I graduate from college, and need to find a job somewhere in the meantime. Then, I'm off to slave away for whoever deems me worthy to do construction estimating or management for them.

I think the FAQ journal I started may start to be inaccurate, because problems I listed will be solved, and new ones will appear. I'll still be lurking in the Site Development forum though.

Its official, people. If not even Google can find aliens on Mars, there must not be any at all. (I couldn't find your mom, either.)

http://www.google.com/mar…map=infrared&q=aliens
http://www.google.com/sky…mp;mI=1&oI=2&by=1

So... If you listen to Jonathan Coulton's music, you've probably already read this. BUT! If you don't, read on.

Scientists have successfully used a monkey's brain impulses to make a robot walk, on the other end of the planet. http://www.jonathancoulto…-this-really-a-good-idea/ Sweet stuff.

The FAQ has moved! Look here for all your FAQy-goodness:
http://spreadsheets.googl…y=pH7U18NxUlUSSK8zaMSvxdA
(PS. If you have a Google account, I can share the editing function with you, or you can copy the spreadsheet, change it, then change it's ownership to me.)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

If there is a FAQ that I don't have, note me and I'll categorize and list it here! Just refer newbs to this page, and let the un-newbing begin. Lets see if that actually works.

General Stuff
Total Time Online, User Ratings, Gamer Meeting area/Marketplace

Profile
Currently Playing/Games box, Problems saving profile info, Friends, Friending, and Friends vs Associates, Finding users with similar stuff

Forums
Adding new forums, Formatting, More on formatting, Editing posts: short answer - Yes, but not yet ; Long answer - (scroll down 8 posts)

Message Center
Wierd numbers for the message center, Double Notification, Messages not clearing

Other modules, etc
Favorite Servers, Discuss: User titles, Suggestions: User titles

Money
Subscribing/Founders Circle

People who run things
http://forum.napalmriot.com/topic/10132/
http://forum.napalmriot.com/topic/1359/
http://forum.napalmriot.com/topic/2791/

Off-site
Banners/Ads/Stamps for other sites
Invitations

In random browsing, I found this evaluation listfor Web 2 sites.

Allows users to create posts? (yes)
Allows users to create reply to the posts? (yes)
Allows users to talk to each other? (Wut?)
Allows users to rank posts? (No)
Allows users to rank replies to posts? (No)
Allows users to get a system ranking against other users? (Yes)
Allows users to tag posts? (No)
Allows users to tag replies? (No)
Allows users to mark a reply as an answer? (No)
Allows categorization of posts? (Through use of subforums)
Users aquire badges of honor in the system? (Yes)
Users can have a profile of themself and their activity? (Yes)
Can easily follow a posting? (Yes)
Can easily follow a grouping of posts? (Wut?)
Allow users to delete posts? (No)
Allow users to delete replies? (No)

I'll add more to this when I have more time. I am majoring in Construction Management, and minoring in Business and in Graphic Design. Quite a mix, eh? I grew up playing a lot of board games like Risk, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers, Clue, etc. The computer games I played were mainly strategy and puzzle games, with a few arcade-style blow-up-lots-of-stuff games to round out the mix. (see: Overkill) As for computer games now, I like RTS. I would say I like FPS, but I don't practice and therefore LOSE. Board games are still fun, too. I go to a game night every Wednesday, to play European(could someone define this for me?) games like Ticket to Ride, San Juan, Plague and Pestilence, and other obscure games. School this semester is pretty boring. I have 12 hours of classes... I'm a 5th year senior, so most my friends here have graduated... need to get a job... (or at least money) :) I've been programming a database in Microsoft Access and Visual Basic to handle CD and DVD info, to kill time. I don't know much about Access and have only ever worked on one other project in it, partly because I don't like programming. But, hey, I need to do something at least a little challenging, right?