I pledged $25 dollars to support the campaign of anyone running against any Democratic senator who helps the Republicans filibuster healthcare reform.

Below is the copypasta of the email that MoveOn.org wanted me to send out. If any Democratic senators are reading this, though, you should know that I'm fully committed to this and I WILL scrape together and pay the money to your future opponents, should you help filibuster health care reform.

Subject: The nightmare scenario

Hi,

Here's the nightmare scenario: One Democratic senator joins Republicans
to filibuster and 2009 becomes just another year when health care reform failed.

But if thousands of us make it clear that we'd support a primary challenge
to that senator, and Democratic senators know it, we might just be able to keep
this nightmare scenario from ever coming to pass.

I just pledged to support a primary challenge if it comes to that, and it's
critical that all of us who would, say it now. Will you join me?

http://pol.moveon.org/hc_fund/?r_by=17769-9507010-b2c__qx&rc=paste

Thanks!

I uploaded an a cappella of myself singing my song "Dandy" to ccmixter.org. Well wouldn't you know it, someone remixed it! Check it out at http://ccmixter.org/files/unreal_dm/22905

I was extremely excited to find such a high quality remix of a song I wrote. I really felt like I had collaborated with this unknown stranger ('unreal_dm') from the scary internets. I only feel inspired to release more things into the creative commons and see what happens!

If you plot a graph of song submissions to this site by month, you'd notice that I didn't submit anything for like two years....yet in the past two months I've submitted 4 songs. I definitely like the value of my d(songs)/d(t) at the moment!

I only wish I could stop writing techno songs in the dorian mode! A C major scale, with a D as the tonic, gives you the Dorian mode, which sounds minor (and shares a number of tones with the blues scale). For some reason, it's my go to scale for melodies in electronic songs. I'm challenging myself, right now, to go outside my comfort zone when writing electronic music melodies.

Also, I took a look at my site in lynx, while browsing in text mode on my iBook G3 (circa 2001) which I have recently installed Fedora 11 on. it was actually pretty well organized, with all the information being there and being in a logical order to boot! Score team CSS for layout, not tables!

I've had an idea recently for a Ruby project, so I figured I'd offer it up in advance in case anyone is interested.

Basically, I used to be a pretty hardcore MUD'er, doing text based RP. When I got to college I sort of gave it up, because the 'real' dungeon was more fun ;)

Anyways, I started playing WoW this summer while I had time on my hands (I know, I know....). Meanwhile I also got interested in browser-based games like Travian. I was thinking about creating my own browser based game, when I realized that LambdaMOO already has the framework for a multi-user persistent environment, and all it's really lacking is a modern programming language/user interface.

All this said, I thought it would be interesting to create a Ruby shell to a LambdaMOO server! It seems like this old Ruby quiz is a good jumping off point.

Note that I'm not talking about a MUD/MOO/M* client, but rather a Ruby shell for the game environment itself. Basically using Ruby as a bridge to the MOO programming language, to help a new generation of
hackers discover the joy in manipulating an object oriented shared environment.

I think Ruby is especially good for this task because of EverythingIsAnObject, which is the philosophy of LambdaMOO to begin with. If you think of the LambdaMOO server as Moonix, this project would be about porting Ruby to it. :)

I've already got a prototype on OS X that uses the Telnet standard library and connects via a Unix Domain Socket (I compiled LambdaMOO to use file sockets instead of net sockets).

But some of us are more free than others. I'm committed to making this blog more accessible for the blind and those with sight related disabilities. My first main goal is to make sure that you guys can enjoy the music that I've recorded and released here. I'm also concerned with those who have color differentiation issues....though my main scheme is blue-white-grey-red, so I think I should be okay.

Anyways, I met a few people today at different times (Manny and Matt) and we played 2 player New Super Mario together. It was a blast! Tyler Ames, if you're listening....2 player DS New Super Mario is just as fun as Super Mario All-Stars 'battle mode' in SMB3....and I think I might actually be able to beat you!

Speaking of Mario strategy, have you guys heard of the Mario AI Competition 2009? It's over now, but all the software is open source and the winner published his code, which you can see in action on youtube.com. Looks like some fun code to hack on! I'd like to extend the original Infinite Mario Bros to include more complex enemies, or to add a Luigi! Actually, the version of the game engine used in the competition would probably be a better starting point.

"The beanstalk of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of mushrooms and koopas." — Toadstool Jefferson