The election in November is getting hyped and sold more than most products on the market. To be honest, Obama is not as progressive/liberal/socialist as the right wing pundits portray him. He is rather conservative actually. His political compass is similar to George Herbert Walker Bush. He is right of center on a lot of issues, especially social issues, especially those concerning the LGBT community.
Mitt Romney actually did in Massachusetts almost every single thing Obama proposed on the federal level. He flip flops so often, Heisenberg would have to do a special study on him. Does anyone believe he would actually do anything different than the president who succeeded in taking out Osama Bin Ladin when it comes to foreign policy?
The other alternatives get worse. Rick Santorum has the same doctrine for political compass as the Holy See, or maybe the College of Cardinals. Rick Santorum is evidence that it was a mistake to restore diplomatic relations with the Vatican. If he actually had more than a Seahawks winning the Super Bowl chance of actually gaining the Oval Office, he would turn the US over to Canon law (just like Sharia law, but out of the Vatican rather than from the Imams out of the Middle East). That would include forcing Jewish people to wear yellow stars and women who owned property would be burned at the stake. His mentality is stuck pre-1215 when that minor inconvenience known as the Magna Carta got signed ending Santorum's utopia.
Newt Gingrich, unless your memory fails to go back before 1994, is an obvious lol. He couldn't win a good deal with Clinton during his time as Speaker of the House. What makes you think he would be able to not get the US fucked over by Russia and China? Might have brains, but his inability to use discretion --- just no.
Ron Paul, a better choice possibly. We won't see him in the White House.
Basically Romney or Obama? Time to emigrate to the UK.
Update: 2019
With Brexit, and Trump and obvious Russian stirring of the shit pot we call our sorry excuse of a voting system, things went from bad in 2012 to orders of magnitude worse.
We went from Obama, a pragmatic rightish centrist to Trump, a solipsist criminal without a shred of conscience or humanity in him. With Obama, our objections were about the degree of progress. With Trump, human survival is possibly going to go bye-bye with an extinction event either by a wag the dog nuclear war or simple acceleration of climate change.
Unless Trump is brought to heel forcefully in a coerced manner (since he never does what is right voluntarily), there really may not be an election in 2020. President-for-life Trump ruling over the ashes of a once wonderful nation.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
For some reason I just don't want to do anything today
I just can't get up to play any of my MMOs, or get into a interesting political argument.
The political landscape is a total wasteland. The most interesting thing people won't hear jack about is Pat Robertson advocating legalizing marijuana. Most of the other political "news" is rehashed medieval tripe from retreads of the OCA/Christian Coalition or the latest way the financial institutions screw you over. If we to write down a list of all the ways banks go out of their way to to screw over the working class, it would be longer than the Kama Sutra.
The Portland Trail Blazers actually won a game on the road. In some ways, that may or may not be a good thing. Lottery to rebuild for next year without a lockout and minus a few cement heads might be a good reason for the Blazers to tank the rest of the year.
I might spend the weekend getting bored, and trying to sleep. Daylight savings time... 1 hour less to sleep. Oh joy. And winter has not gone away yet. Going to work in the dark is still not my idea of a fun time. People drive stupid on the roads in Portland. Come on, 15 mph in a 35 mph road designed for 50 mph?
No wonder people spend the weekend getting drunk. There is not much to hope for in sober land. Some days I wonder what drugs the political class are taking because there is no way in hell they can say half the stuff they say without being drunk, stoned, high, spun, baked, (insert other adjective meaning opposite of sober).
George Carlin had it pretty spot on describing how the political system really works. If you are part of the aristocratic class, opportunity is limitless. If you are part of the working class, opportunity is something other people have, and NOT YOU.
Basically the more money you have, the more voice, opportunities for self advancement, recourse for things going wrong you have. We do not have a democracy (democracy is is overrated by the way). We have a republic, swiftly devolving into a fascist society.
Third world nation.
A few potentates controlling all the resources, and everyone else fighting over the table scraps the overlords deign to allow to drop. That is the United States of America, 21st Century. The so called conservatives (who are not conservative at all) are all about increasing American military presence in every corner of the world, while every street corner now has militarized police officers with all the social skills of SS concentration camp guards. We have become what we fought against in the 1940s. The USA is the 4th Reich. Getting drunk is probably the best option for dealing with it. Americans are just too sheep like to be able to do a real revolution like the French did in 1789. The Tea party has become the 4th Reich version of the Brown shirts. The Occupy movement has become part of the traffic report.
Peaceful change would be nice, but change won't happen (corporations hate change). Peace won't happen either because militarized police forces want to use all that nifty hardware to crack skulls, break bones and generally compensate for their completely bullshit existence.
Yeah I'm very cynical about the USA.
The political landscape is a total wasteland. The most interesting thing people won't hear jack about is Pat Robertson advocating legalizing marijuana. Most of the other political "news" is rehashed medieval tripe from retreads of the OCA/Christian Coalition or the latest way the financial institutions screw you over. If we to write down a list of all the ways banks go out of their way to to screw over the working class, it would be longer than the Kama Sutra.
The Portland Trail Blazers actually won a game on the road. In some ways, that may or may not be a good thing. Lottery to rebuild for next year without a lockout and minus a few cement heads might be a good reason for the Blazers to tank the rest of the year.
I might spend the weekend getting bored, and trying to sleep. Daylight savings time... 1 hour less to sleep. Oh joy. And winter has not gone away yet. Going to work in the dark is still not my idea of a fun time. People drive stupid on the roads in Portland. Come on, 15 mph in a 35 mph road designed for 50 mph?
No wonder people spend the weekend getting drunk. There is not much to hope for in sober land. Some days I wonder what drugs the political class are taking because there is no way in hell they can say half the stuff they say without being drunk, stoned, high, spun, baked, (insert other adjective meaning opposite of sober).
George Carlin had it pretty spot on describing how the political system really works. If you are part of the aristocratic class, opportunity is limitless. If you are part of the working class, opportunity is something other people have, and NOT YOU.
Basically the more money you have, the more voice, opportunities for self advancement, recourse for things going wrong you have. We do not have a democracy (democracy is is overrated by the way). We have a republic, swiftly devolving into a fascist society.
Third world nation.
A few potentates controlling all the resources, and everyone else fighting over the table scraps the overlords deign to allow to drop. That is the United States of America, 21st Century. The so called conservatives (who are not conservative at all) are all about increasing American military presence in every corner of the world, while every street corner now has militarized police officers with all the social skills of SS concentration camp guards. We have become what we fought against in the 1940s. The USA is the 4th Reich. Getting drunk is probably the best option for dealing with it. Americans are just too sheep like to be able to do a real revolution like the French did in 1789. The Tea party has become the 4th Reich version of the Brown shirts. The Occupy movement has become part of the traffic report.
Peaceful change would be nice, but change won't happen (corporations hate change). Peace won't happen either because militarized police forces want to use all that nifty hardware to crack skulls, break bones and generally compensate for their completely bullshit existence.
Yeah I'm very cynical about the USA.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl has a lot of importance to me. It's number is the same as my age. One of my favorite teams is playing (NY Giants) against one of my favorite teams to razz (NE Patriots). I have a bet on the coin toss ( I took heads). It used to be close to the day of the wedding anniversary of my now ex-wife.
After this game, I hope when people talk about that great QB Manning, they would be talking about Eli, and his second Super Bowl ring won vs Tom Brady.
I don't dislike Tom Brady. The man has the PERFECT life. A hot wife who is also a perfect sugar momma (she made Forbes), an excellent career he flat out EARNED, and overall he is a pretty good guy. Real men want to be Tom Brady.
I just dislike anything from Boston (except maybe the Celtics, and only because they beat on the NBA team I like to see go 0-82 --- The Lakers)
I was born in New York, and New York has my fave teams. The Yankees, the Jets, the Giants, The Islanders, (I'd even cheer for the Knicks, but I'm a Portland Trailblazer fan).
So I'll be kicking back, having some Budweiser, and watching the best game that can be.
Go GIANTS!!!
After this game, I hope when people talk about that great QB Manning, they would be talking about Eli, and his second Super Bowl ring won vs Tom Brady.
I don't dislike Tom Brady. The man has the PERFECT life. A hot wife who is also a perfect sugar momma (she made Forbes), an excellent career he flat out EARNED, and overall he is a pretty good guy. Real men want to be Tom Brady.
I just dislike anything from Boston (except maybe the Celtics, and only because they beat on the NBA team I like to see go 0-82 --- The Lakers)
I was born in New York, and New York has my fave teams. The Yankees, the Jets, the Giants, The Islanders, (I'd even cheer for the Knicks, but I'm a Portland Trailblazer fan).
So I'll be kicking back, having some Budweiser, and watching the best game that can be.
Go GIANTS!!!
Monday, January 2, 2012
I really need a new avatar
I really need a new avatar for my postings. i change them out every so often because they get... boring?
Anyone able to find a cool picture that I can use, please show me.
Anyone able to find a cool picture that I can use, please show me.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Good riddance to 2011
I fully intend to forget this fail year that wasted so much airtime on anyone named Kardashian, nearly cancelled a whole year of sports (if you aren't into sports, then turn in your man card), and had the government openly flouting the constitution (and that is not partisan either... both parties suck).
Monday, December 26, 2011
From the desk of the Lich King
In Kappa server in AE, the guild I was a member changed theme and I became leader...
So now we are doing a undead theme.
Should be fun role playing
So now we are doing a undead theme.
Should be fun role playing
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Astro Empires Turrets
To study the cost-effectiveness of turrets in Astro Empires, a copy of the table as of 24 DEC 2011 :
=========================
Each cost of a layer of the turret is buying 5 sets of that weapon for that cost total. The power in this table is baseline before the actual tech bonus is applied. The Armor value in this table is baseline before tech bonus is applied.
Start Game Turrets
1) Barracks cost for 5 of them, 5 credits. They do not use any energy at all. base power is 4, the base armor is 4. equal to 2 fighters or 1 corvette. power per credit is 4*5/5= 4 (before tech bonus)
Overall buying a barracks is spending the price of 1 fighter, gets you the power and armor of 10 fighters that don't produce debris when they die. A layer of Barracks does nothing to stop a trade route plunder. So if mister farm guy sees a barracks and 1 fighter protecting a trade route.... drop 12 fighters, take the base for pillage, plunder the route, bring in the recyclers to clean up the 20 credits or so of debris.
2) Laser Turret cost 10 credits for 5 of them. Uses 1 energy. base power is 8. Bites a little harder than a barracks. Sort of like a poodle bites harder than a teacup Chihuahua.
3) Missile Turrets cost 20 credits for 5 of them. Uses 1 energy base power 16. Now this one actually has a bite to it. If you have a guy flying frigates and brandishing a brace of Missile turrets, you got a hard target for the early game. Generally, the better players skip using Barracks and Laser in favor of Missile right out of the gate.
4) Plasma Turrets. With normal techs, has maybe twice the power, and 1.5 times the armor of a missile turret. at FIVE times the cost. Long story short, Plasma turrets SUCK. They also use 2 energy. So for the same energy, half the credits, you get equal power and 1.5 times the armor by simply getting 2 missile turrets instead.
Middle Game Turrets
5) Ion turrets have twice the power and armor of Missile turrets, and 1 other really important thing... they have SHIELDS (albeit weak ones) Ion turrets are the early game "piss off noob" to fighter droppers. They do use 3 energy, so energy tech to make those plants put out more than 3 at a time really important.
6) Photon Turrets Once you got these, Missile turrets are obsolete and you be scrapping them.3 layers Ions and 2 layers photon and the average player just moves on to finding something easier to hit. Until everyone else starts using end game defenses.
7) Disruptor Turrets. When Ions aren't enough to deter the noob, Dizzies make the ouch hurt more; to the point that some noobs lose the entire fleet.
8) Deflection shield. These are the "piss off noob" to mid-game frigate spec players. Paired with disruptors, frigates just have a really bad day with this, early on. Later on when the frigate player masses 150k Frigate fleets, not so much anymore.
End Game Turrets
9) Planetary Rings. The best turret in the game. Does not use area at all. A set of these in the mid-game to early late game is a "piss off noob"
10) Planetary Shields. Better than D-Shields.
Special Mention :
Command Centers
Technically these are NOT turrets, but they are an enhancement on your base to make it more favorable to have a fleet fight over your base. Each CC gives your fleet and turrets a +5% attack power. Useful when you are fighting in orbit over your own bases.
Totally a waste of time on a base no one ever goes to.
Command Centers should be considered optional and should be figured in with the exact conditions that base is dealing with.
Barracks
Help protect your bases, the cheapest defense.
| 5 | Laser | 4 | 4 | -1 | Laser 1 | ||
Laser Turrets
Small defenses, good against small units.
| 10 | Laser | 8 | 8 | -1 | -1 | Laser 1 | |
Missile Turrets
Small defenses, good against small and medium units.
| 20 | Missiles | 16 | 16 | -1 | -1 | Missiles 1 | |
Plasma Turrets
Average defenses, good against medium units.
| 100 | Plasma | 24 | 24 | -2 | -1 | Plasma 1 + Armour 6 | |
Ion Turrets
Average defenses, good against medium units.
| 256 | Ion | 32 | 32 | 2 | -3 | -1 | Ion 1 + Armour 10 + Shielding 2 |
Photon Turrets
Big defenses, good against large units.
| 1,024 | Photon | 64 | 64 | 6 | -4 | -1 | Photon 1 + Armour 14 + Shielding 6 |
Disruptor Turrets
Biggest turrets, good against large units.
| 4,096 | Disruptor | 256 | 256 | 8 | -8 | -1 | Disruptor 1 + Armour 18 + Shielding 8 |
Deflection Shields
Strong shields that increase bases protection.
| 4,096 | Ion | 2 | 512 | 16 | -8 | -1 | Ion 6 + Shielding 10 |
Planetary Shield
Planetary shields that increase bases protection.
| 25,000 | Ion | 4 | 2048 | 20 | -16 | -1 | Ion 10 + Shielding 14 |
Planetary Ring
Planetary defensive ring.
| 50,000 | Photon | 2048 | 1024 | 12 | -24 | Photon 10 + Armour 22 + Shielding 12 |
=========================
Each cost of a layer of the turret is buying 5 sets of that weapon for that cost total. The power in this table is baseline before the actual tech bonus is applied. The Armor value in this table is baseline before tech bonus is applied.
Start Game Turrets
1) Barracks cost for 5 of them, 5 credits. They do not use any energy at all. base power is 4, the base armor is 4. equal to 2 fighters or 1 corvette. power per credit is 4*5/5= 4 (before tech bonus)
Overall buying a barracks is spending the price of 1 fighter, gets you the power and armor of 10 fighters that don't produce debris when they die. A layer of Barracks does nothing to stop a trade route plunder. So if mister farm guy sees a barracks and 1 fighter protecting a trade route.... drop 12 fighters, take the base for pillage, plunder the route, bring in the recyclers to clean up the 20 credits or so of debris.
2) Laser Turret cost 10 credits for 5 of them. Uses 1 energy. base power is 8. Bites a little harder than a barracks. Sort of like a poodle bites harder than a teacup Chihuahua.
3) Missile Turrets cost 20 credits for 5 of them. Uses 1 energy base power 16. Now this one actually has a bite to it. If you have a guy flying frigates and brandishing a brace of Missile turrets, you got a hard target for the early game. Generally, the better players skip using Barracks and Laser in favor of Missile right out of the gate.
4) Plasma Turrets. With normal techs, has maybe twice the power, and 1.5 times the armor of a missile turret. at FIVE times the cost. Long story short, Plasma turrets SUCK. They also use 2 energy. So for the same energy, half the credits, you get equal power and 1.5 times the armor by simply getting 2 missile turrets instead.
Middle Game Turrets
5) Ion turrets have twice the power and armor of Missile turrets, and 1 other really important thing... they have SHIELDS (albeit weak ones) Ion turrets are the early game "piss off noob" to fighter droppers. They do use 3 energy, so energy tech to make those plants put out more than 3 at a time really important.
6) Photon Turrets Once you got these, Missile turrets are obsolete and you be scrapping them.3 layers Ions and 2 layers photon and the average player just moves on to finding something easier to hit. Until everyone else starts using end game defenses.
7) Disruptor Turrets. When Ions aren't enough to deter the noob, Dizzies make the ouch hurt more; to the point that some noobs lose the entire fleet.
8) Deflection shield. These are the "piss off noob" to mid-game frigate spec players. Paired with disruptors, frigates just have a really bad day with this, early on. Later on when the frigate player masses 150k Frigate fleets, not so much anymore.
End Game Turrets
9) Planetary Rings. The best turret in the game. Does not use area at all. A set of these in the mid-game to early late game is a "piss off noob"
10) Planetary Shields. Better than D-Shields.
Special Mention :
Command Centers
Technically these are NOT turrets, but they are an enhancement on your base to make it more favorable to have a fleet fight over your base. Each CC gives your fleet and turrets a +5% attack power. Useful when you are fighting in orbit over your own bases.
Totally a waste of time on a base no one ever goes to.
Command Centers should be considered optional and should be figured in with the exact conditions that base is dealing with.
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