I recently found out that there exists an illegal mod-chip that one can have inserted into one’s XBox (I own an XBox, incidentally), so that one can get the disc for a video game, say at the video rental store, and the mod-chip will then enable one to upload the game onto the system’s hard-drive. Therefore, you can “own” the video game at the rental price. I’ll first say that it does not surprise me that such a mod-chip exists. Being an individual who believes in paying for services rendered, this very much infuriates me.

The first reason for this is that the video game manufacturers set a production budget for said game based on projected sales (and they base this projection on market studies and polls revealing popular interest in said video game). The problem is, when people “own” the game without paying for it, the manufacturer must recoup their losses by increasing the retail price on the next game – so people who acquire the game honestly, are punished for their dishonest brothers and sisters.

Now, the critical reader will say: “That’s ridiculous, there is only so much that the manufacturers can increase the price before people will simply stop buying video games and either resort to dishonest means themselves, or just stop playing video games all together”, and the critical reader would be right. So, the game manufacturer must therefore resort to additional means of recouping losses to keep the retail price down.

The first scenario is to introduce product placement advertisements within the game. I have heard many people complain about “those damn greedy, corrupt” video game manufacturers who just want more money, and this is the real reason ads are being placed in video games. If this is the case, then why is it that the insurgence of ads appearing in video games is only a recent phenomenon (ie. after the existence of things like Kazaa – which incidentally, since Kazaa and its contemporaries are spy-ware, they further fuel the insurgence of ads by doing cheap market research, that is, monitoring your web activity – it’s all one big tapestry), meanwhile there have been video games with the graphical capability of supporting product placement ads for at least 15 years? I’ll tell you why, because we are starting to see the response to lost revenue.

The second scenario (and these two scenarios will likely not be mutually exclusive) is that the cost of a rental license for video games will be increased such that either a) the video rental stores will no longer rent video games, or b) the cost to the consumer to rent the video game will be so high, that the few who are renting the game with legitimate intentions will decide that the cost to rent will not be worth the service, and therefore the video store will be losing money by offering video game rental.

In the end, we will not be able to rent video games, and the ones that some of us pay for will be rampant with product placement ads. That is when many people will bitch that the manufacturers of the games are simply being corrupt and greedy. Far be it for the individuals to even consider the fact that maybe they themselves are responsible for the unavailability of rental games and the prevalence of ads in the games. And I would say, what the fuck did you expect? Did you expect the Project Lead for Bioware to walk into a meeting with his programmers and say: “Well ladies and gentlemen, looks like the people don’t really think they should have to pay for our video games. You don’t mind working for free do you?”

Unfortunately, the “real reason” for the advertisements and why the video rental stores won’t carry games, to many people, will be that the video game manufacturers (like all corporations for that matter) are corrupt and greedy.

It seems to me, that anyone who takes and uses a service without giving required compensation is also corrupt and greedy.

And that’s another thing, why is it that the default assumption of many non-upper class (and for those of you who don’t know me, I am by no means upper class) individuals is that anyone who is involved in the upper echelons of government or corporation (whom I’ll simply refer to herein as “the upper echelon”) is corrupt? I’ll tell you why – because it’s easier to deal with. It is easy to say that someone got to the upper echelon because they are corrupt, and to blame society for not being smart enough to stop it.

It is not easy to admit to one’s self that another individual got to the upper echelon because they worked 80 hour weeks and had many sleepless nights – because so many of us know deep down inside that there is no fucking way that we would have had the dedication to mirror that feat. This is exactly along the same lines of what Cynic was saying when he said that it is blasphemous in our society to take responsibility for our actions (or in this case, lack thereof). I am not saying that all upper echelons are not corrupt. What I will say is that there are probably some that are. I will also say that these types are almost certainly not the norm. I will also say that some non-upper echelons are just as corrupt. I will also say that those of you who take and use services without paying for them have no fucking right to accuse others of being corrupt or greedy.

Just because you have deeply held beliefs that conflict with mine, that does not give you the right to violate my property. Granted, it may to some be an offensive joke; however I still have a right to express my views.

I may find some of your Christian beliefs and viewpoints offensive, but that never gave me the right to rip crosses (which incidentally are just as idolatrous as the Jesus fish that the Darwin fish makes fun of) off of people’s necks.

Furthermore, what gives you the right to think that just because your beliefs are held sacred by some, that my beliefs in logic, reason, and science aren’t held in the same loft that yours are? Is this your way of justifying the descent of the beliefs of others – because their beliefs aren’t as important as yours?

How can we learn from a mass-killer like Timothy McVeigh so as to prevent future incidents? I guess we’ll have to wait for the next mass-murderer.

Why are serial/mass-murderers almost exclusively white male? I guess we’ll have to wait for the next mass-murderer to find an answer.

Good day,
I am very disappointed in the Nintendo Corporation. A few months ago I, being a fan of the Zelda series, purchased a copy of Majora’s Mask. Now, this game, as you well know, requires a memory expansion pack. This is not what makes me upset. What upsets me is that I have found it impossible to find a memory expansion pack in retail, and believe me, I’ve checked everywhere I can think of. I’ve given up looking for it. In fact, in order to enjoy the game, I had to borrow my cousin’s chip.

In my opinion, it is poor market strategy to license a product that requires an upgrade, and then make it next to impossible to get that upgrade. I find it irresponsible and unacceptable on the part of the Nintendo Corporation to come out with a product so hastily, in order to compete in the marketplace, as to sell what is in my opinion, an incomplete product, therein requiring an upgrade (ie. purchasing an expansion pack) a year or two down the road – and then make it impossible to purchase said upgrade.

To make an analogy, how would it feel to buy a car, only to have the salesman call you up a year later and tell you “Um by the way, you need to buy a new engine for that car” – and then find out that nobody sells that engine. Now, I realize that your title Donkey Kong 64 comes with the expansion pack, but I don’t want that game, so why should I purchase it just so I can play others? That, I find, is ridiculous – and yet is the only alternative I am left with if I wish to enjoy more of your titles.

I am very disappointed in Nintendo, and am now doubtful if I ever purchase any of your products again.

Thank you for your time.

The other night on FOX, the network aired a show called “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?” Now, I would like to comment on the show. In watching the show, I was impressed by their slick photos, and arguments. I’ll admit that, despite my years of studying science which developed my critical thinking skills on such matters, some of the evidence presented by the conspiracy theorists had me questioning whether men landed on the moon. That is, the first time I watched the show, for you see, since I only get Pauper-View (no cable) I asked a friend in my lab to tape the show for me. In watching the show again, that was when I noticed glaring errors in the items that were in question to me. What I shall now do is highlight ALL of their arguments and explain either a) what is wrong with their argument, and/or b) a more reasonable explanation for what was seen. However, all I intend to do is level the playing field so-to-speak, given the fact that the evidence and theories presented were one-sided and well, wrong.

Argument 1 – In the photos and images from the moon, there are no stars in the background.

There are several perfectly reasonable explanations for this. The first is that, the images were very grainy and noisy, which Bart Siprel (who will be referred to in the rest of this document as “Annoying Crackpot”) was more than happy to admit. Then in the same breath the conspiracy theorists say that there are no stars in the background. Well, my question is this: How the hell can you tell the difference in those pictures between noise and a star? Yes some of those images appear to have been touched up, but imaging technology can only go so far, it cannot distinguish a star from random pixel noise.
The other night on FOX, the network aired a show called “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?” Now, I would like to comment on the show. In watching the show, I was impressed by their slick photos, and arguments. I’ll admit that, despite my years of studying science which developed my critical thinking skills on such matters, some of the evidence presented by the conspiracy theorists had me questioning whether men landed on the moon. That is, the first time I watched the show, for you see, since I only get Pauper-View (no cable) I asked a friend in my lab to tape the show for me. In watching the show again, that was when I noticed glaring errors in the items that were in question to me. What I shall now do is highlight ALL of their arguments and explain either a) what is wrong with their argument, and/or b) a more reasonable explanation for what was seen. However, all I intend to do is level the playing field so-to-speak, given the fact that the evidence and theories presented were one-sided and well, wrong. – In the photos and images from the moon, there are no stars in the background.There are several perfectly reasonable explanations for this. The first is that, the images were very grainy and noisy, which Bart Siprel was more than happy to admit. Then in the same breath the conspiracy theorists say that there are no stars in the background. Well, my question is this: How the hell can you tell the difference in those pictures between noise and a star? Yes some of those images appear to have been touched up, but imaging technology can only go so far, it cannot distinguish a star from random pixel noise.

If you are not happy with that explanation I’ll offer another. The fact is, the moon surface is a very bright place, and I’m not convinced that any cameras today have the dynamic range in order to image both the bright surface and the relatively dim stars (in comparison). An example of this is the human eye, which has a better dynamic range than any camera. In the arctic, where the snow is very bright in the light of day, people have to wear special goggles to minimize an effect called “snow-blindness” which is really an overload of the optic nerves that causes an inability to see things.

Argument 2 – The American flag was waving.

As Bill Keysig (who will now be referred to as “Head Crackpot” – the guy who said that “back in the 60’s the odds of landing a man on the moon were something like 0.0017%”. Okay, I’ll ask it: Where the fuck is he getting these numbers from?) was quite cheerful to point out – there is no atmosphere on the moon (which actually is not quite correct, scientists detected a very weak atmosphere on the moon during a lunar eclipse in the early 90’s, but let’s not split hairs). My point is this – since there is a VERY weak atmosphere on the moon, there is also no air friction, and therefore any small perturbation in the stem of the flag (ie. the astronauts moving it) there would be quite a large response in the motion of the flag.

Argument 3 – The Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) did not cause a blast crater on the surface.

I’m not convinced that it should for two reasons. One is that there’s no way that the LEM was designed to slam into the surface, there was people aboard. And two, the thrust required to land softly would’ve merely kicked up dust. Head Crackpot then questions, “then why is there no dust collecting on the pads?” One explanation is that the exhaust was turned off just before landing, which is entirely probable, since a hot exhaust bouncing off the surface and onto the LEM is not a desirable scenario. But wait! The show mentions that “even according to NASA’s scientific illustrations, their should’ve been a blast crater” – at which point the show displayed an artists conception. AN ARTIST’S CONCEPTION FOR FUCK SAKES! This is hardly evidence.

Argument 4 – Other LEM problems

The conspiracy theorists site that the LEM was far too unstable a craft, while citing early LEM test videos. Okay, number one, those were early tests, and number two, those were on the earth where factors such as wind are factors.

Head Crackpot also mentions that the noise from the LEM landing would have made it impossible to hear the astronauts talking, since as he states that the noise level would be on the order of 150 db. If this were true, then we would also never be able to hear pilots in the cockpits of fighter jets, since this the approximate noise level involved in fighter jets.

The conspiracy theorists also mention that the LEM had no exhaust plume in the ascent off of the moon, while in fact, the exhaust plume is clear. It blasts the LEM of the pad. Yes, the blast is not continuous, and the reason for this is simple, there is no air friction and therefore, no need for continuous thrust.

Argument 5 – 20% of the population believes men never landed on the moon.

So what? People once believed the world was flat too, that never made it right.

Argument 6 – Footage from the 70’s movie Capricorn One (in which a mission to Mars was faked) is similar to the Apollo 11 Mission.

So what? Is it possible that the people saw the moon landing and mimicked the footage from the Apollo mission for their movie to have a sense of realism? Or maybe that it’s a frickin’ landing, and how different should they look?

Argument 7 – Area 51! ARRGGGH!!

Extrapolating from the stories of all conspiracy theorists, Area 51 must be busier than fucking McDonald’s after a 2-year beef quarantine. You know, what with all the aliens, and alien spacecrafts, and now apparently the moon landing props and well, everything secret. The conspiracy theorists here say that the moon landing must have been faked at Area 51. Their arguments are these:

- Satellite photos show warehouse-like buildings similar to Hollywood soundstages.
o Yes, soundstages, they couldn’t be, you know, hangers for test aircraft, no no no.
o I highly doubt that NASA people are trained in movie making, therefore they would’ve had to have hired others to make them, and what are the odds that they would keep quiet?

- There are craters in the region surrounding Area 51 in the Nevada High Desert, which are similar to those on the moon.
o Well of course they’re similar, they’re fucking craters. What the hell should they look like? Giant silhouettes of Queen Elizabeth II?
o My test to the the conspiracy theorists is this: If you can find me a set of craters from the moon pictures, and a matching set from the Nevada high desert, then this argument may have a little validity. Until then, sorry, I don’t believe it.

Argument 8 – Gravity problems in the moon videos.

The conspiracy theorists show that if you speed the videos on the moon up to twice the speed it looks like said things are occurring on earth. The problem with this argument is that the conspiracy theorists are making a terrible assumption about how the astronauts are running. It appeared to me that the astronauts were taking short quick steps, and where not pushing off the ground very hard. The conspiracy theorists are making an assumption that the astronauts are pushing off the ground with the same force as they would on earth, which is just wrong.

Argument 9 – Discrepancies with the still photos.

The conspiracy theorists cite several discrepancies with the still photos as taken on the moon. I will highlight these.

- Thousands of photos were taken with crystal clarity, despite the “awkwardness” of the camera equipment.
o So what? How many photos were taken? Probably many more, this is something that is not mentioned.

- Lighting in the shadows was problematic, for example people and objects that were in shadow were highly visible, despite being shrouded in shadow
o What the theorists neglect to notice, the moon is a very bright place, and the surface itself scatters a lot of light in all directions, which is why we see the moon so well at night, the objects that are shrouded in shadow were lit by the ambient light of the moon.

- There are two photos with a mountainous background, one of which has the LEM in it, the other does not.
o On closer inspection, one may note that the two photos may be looking at the same mountain range, they are not taken from the same location, one of the pictures has a rough patch in the foreground (the picture with the LEM missing) and the other picture does not. What does this say? It says that one of the photos was taken from between the mountains and the LEM; the other was taken with the LEM in between the mountains and photographer. So why does the background look identical? Simple. They are mountains, and are very far away, so (forgive the technical terms) the parallax angle subtended by the mountains did not change enough to notice any difference. What I mean here is, well, you can try it for yourself. If you live in the city, look at the buildings in downtown from very far away, such that the buildings are off in the distance. Now walk 100 feet towards those buildings. Now, from your perspective, do they look any different? Of course not, they’re too big and too far away.

- Shadows in the photos do not run parallel which implies more than one (the sun) light source
o Now, if one examines the photos in more detail, it looks to me like someone is trying to fool us. The objects that were highlighted as casting different shadows were the ONLY ones, that were discrepant, all the rest were not.

- The cross hairs which were etched on the camera, which should have been on top of all the images, were in some cases, behind some of the objects
o There is a very simple explanation for this. Saturation. One may notice that in all the instances of objects being overtop of the crosshairs, the object was ALWAYS bright white. This tells me that the film (in the case of chemical film) or pixel elements (in the case of CCD cameras) were saturated and caused smearing onto other areas of the image. This is a phenomenon which all photographers and people that use imaging equipment know about, in fact it is the reason why you’re not supposed to open your camera when the film is not done, since it will ruin the film. Basically put, when one photographs a really bright source, it causes a smearing effect around the bright source. I’ll make an analogy. Let’s pretend that the camera film is made of many pixels. Now I’ll make an analogy, let’s pretend that each pixel is a thimble, and you have a series of thimbles that make up the photographic plate. Now, take a bucket of water (which represents a lot of light), and dump it on one of those thimbles. As you guess, the water will spill into other pixels, even though the water was aimed at just the one pixel.

Argument 10 – The Van Allen Belt radiation is very dangerous and deadly.

This is hardly true, for those of you who have not taken a course on nuclear physics, the show refers to radiation, which in space is largely of 3 kinds: Gamma, Beta, and Alpha. Gamma radiation is highly energetic light (more so than X-rays), beta radiation is highly energetic electrons, whizzing along at close to the speed of light, and alpha radiation is highly energetic helium nuclei (helium without the electrons). Now, the Van Allen Belts (the little known phenomenon that Annoying Crackpot refers to, did I mention that he’s an Investigative Journalist, and therefore a top authority on the Van Allen Belts) is mainly comprised of alpha radiation, since the relatively sluggish alpha particles are the only form of the three aforementioned radiations that would be sufficiently trapped in the Van Allen Belts. Now, with alpha particles, minimal shielding is required. Tin foil is sufficient shielding against that form of radiation, since alpha particles are relatively large and sluggish.

Another fact here is that the Van Allen Belts are 10’s of thousands of miles thick, and the distance to the moon is 250 000 miles. And now, since the astronauts got there in 4 days, they would’ve whizzed through the Van Allen Belts in a matter of hours.

The conspiracy theorists also mention that the solar wind radiation would also be very dangerous. You know, there are a lot of plasma physicists out there, but I don’t hear any mention about this from them. And yes, our atmosphere here on earth shields us from the solar wind, but if the solar wind were strong enough to kill them in 4 days, we would notice a much larger ambient background radiation here on earth than we actually do, and we (as a species) would’ve evolved to tolerate it.

Argument 11 – Untimely deaths

The conspiracy theorists mention (distastefully, in my opinion) some untimely deaths as being “intentional”. One of which was within a test rocket. Another, who was an inspector for NASA, was killed when a train crashed into his car (now really, a train crash – could there be any more of an accidental death?! Oh wait, no, being struck by a meteor is more accidental, I apologize). In fact they cite that 10 astronauts (more than half of NASA’s astronauts – although, I’d like to see how, if at all, those statistics vary from those of test pilot deaths) were killed in an untimely fashion. News flash guys, they were dealing with very dangerous, untested rockets. Now, this is nothing new, but a rocket is really just a powerful controlled explosion. Of course something could go wrong, those things are hardly the safest form of transportation.

Final Word

There is one piece of evidence that the theorists are missing. On the moon mission Apollo 15, the astronauts left a series of Retroreflectors on the surface. A retroreflector is type of mirror that, rather than reflecting light in the usual fashion, they reflect light back onto itself, here’s a diagram to make it more clear:

The purpose of this was so that the distance from the earth to the moon could be determined accurately using a laser by shooting the beam at the moon.

And remember, in order for the conspiracy theorists to validate a theory like this, it better be damn fucking solid, and their “evidence” is by no means solid. In fact one can present a much easier explanation for all that they presented, as I just have.

And another thing, at Wal-Mart, they had a new edition of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’, and, I shit you not, it was a fucking chocolate edition. Complete with ‘Million Dollar Dark Chocolates’, a whole two of them as I recall.

I suppose I’m supposed to give you a bio… you can call me JG, JGMoney, I’m a 24 year old Graduate Student in Optical Engineering. As I wrote that last sentence, I reminded myself to thank Microsoft for underlining long sentences in Word and then is gracious enough NOT to give any suggestions to fix the “error”, since everyone knows that just because programmers aren’t quite able to master the English language therefore no one else can?! And another thing, why does this fucking program underline multiple exclamation points as an error? Don’t the good people at Microsoft understand the nature of emphasis? Wait a minute… who am I complaining to? You (the reader) haven’t done anything wrong. Well, that was supposed to be a bio… but I sort of went off on a tangent there… well, as for tangents, the following diatribes will be full of them. Anyways, I grew up in the good city of Winnipeg and am now currently residing in Edmonton.

Them’s fightin’ words!

It has become apparent to me that no one has any dignity any more. About 2 months ago I went to my usual watering hole to have a few beers, sing some karaoke, and have a few laughs with my friends. Now, the pub is usually (i.e.. always) a quiet place, you know, people having a few beers, a few laughs and such, but on that Friday all hell broke loose. Why? Well, finger-pointing aside, some people should just relax a little. Aside from that, I don’t mean to bash any of those involved; I mean to slag the mentality of those involved. I’m referring to the sort of mentality that leads to fisticuffs. The sort of he-said-she-said-that-you-were-gonna-do-what-he-said bullshit that invokes the “honour” principle in which “you insulted me, I’m gonna kick your ass”. It is all about honour isn’t it? One truly wonders if it is honour or ignorance… wouldn’t it be more honourable to let the insult slide? Is it really worth a bruised face? Is it really worth broken bones? Or even death?

Now from a civilized perspective… those of us who pride ourselves on being civilized adults who believe that discussing something like a rational human being is the appropriate way to behave. Here’s where some of you reading this will justify your ignorance by saying “but there’s some situations where words just won’t do it… you have to give into your raw emotion”. Completely inappropriate behavior… completely. Now what is it hurting, two guys bringing it down to fisticuffs? They’re only hurting themselves. The point is that it’s a slippery slope… fighting leads to dueling with pistols… where does it end?

I have no respect for such behavior, and here’s why: as a hard working, law-abiding citizen, and an aspiring scientist no less, I (like everyone should) work hard to improve the society we live in and make this world a better place for everyone just by setting a good example… and every time I see behavior like that, every time someone behaves like that, it destroys a small part of the civilization that I, and everyone works so hard to build. And that goes for any inappropriate behavior. But hey, it’s not my place to say is it? Well then those of you who want to fight, go ahead, I’ll just stare on in disgust. That kind of behavior is just more evidence for me that Darwin’s “natural selection” no longer works in humans… the ignorant are still breeding (thank you social programs).

Fussing over cussing, but no stroking out smoking?

Okay, this is going to be a short one, but… it occurred to me while watching the video for Limp Bizkit’s remake of “Faith” that (and no, I’m not bashing Limp Bizkit – even though in my opinion the band is a big rip-off of Rage Against the Machine, except for the fact that Fred Durst is an idiot) smoking is okay but swearing is not. There was a scene in the video where one of the band members gave the middle finger to the camera, whilst smoking a cigarette. So wait a minute here, swearing is wrong and evil, but smoking – something that is detrimental to people’s health – is seen as being okay. Shouldn’t censorship apply to all things that are deemed bad (not that I’m condoning censorship), which brings me to my next rant (which will be coming soon):

Good or Evil – or is it just Govil? The oh so human need to compartmentalize every subject into a case of black or white, good or evil. (working title)

Footnote Dec 19, 2000:
Here’s an interesting footnote, the girlfriend just went to pick up a carton of smokes, and remembered upon opening seeing the package that the cigarette companies are required to add… let’s call them “interesting pictures”. So, wait a minute. It’s okay to display the picture of a diseased organ removed from a dead human being, but swearing is still wrong.