Around The Sun In 130 Days?

Today’s thought is being brought to you by:  North Korea’s Nuclear Program, Deer, Cars, and  Readers Like You.

If you read my earlier post about Gliese 581G, you probably have figured out that I enjoy staring into the night sky and wondering what’s out there.  Well, I ask and NASA delivers.  They just found a planet, Kepler 186F, that is possibly another Earth, or Earth-like celestial mass.  It’s located in the Kepler 186 solar system, and is located a distance from the system’s sun that puts it in what is called “The Goldilocks Zone.”  I love that.

Which brings me back to something else I mentioned in my earlier post, Drake’s Equation, my single favorite theoretical formula ever thought of by humans.  The possibility of life outside of our primitive field of view is an idea that has always fascinated me.  So whenever we find an Earth-twin, or in this case Earth-cousin, I get all giddy.  How cool would it be to not be the smartest things in the galaxy?

Even if there are no other civilizations out there capable of radioastronomy, if Kepler 186F is habitable, sign me up.  I sure as heck don’t want to die on this rock.  That’s been done.  If space is the final frontier, then call me Davy Crockett.

-Harry

Today, You Go Free

Today’s thought is being brought to you by:  Justice, Samurai, The War of 1812, and Readers Like You.

Today I’m going to talk about my relationship with Starcraft.  The short version is that it’s a one-way love/hate relationship.  The long version is slightly more complicated than that.

Let’s start with the one-way part.  Starcraft has no idea I exist.  I don’t play it.  My Blizzard account is for Diablo.  The only way Starcraft could find out that we are in a relationship is to check my youtube subscriptions.  I am 99.9% certain that Starcraft does not in any way reciprocate my feelings.  That’s ok with me, I think if Starcraft found out about me it would become awkward.

Moving right along.  The vast majority of people who play Starcraft play it for the multiplayer.  In multiplayer, it is a very competitive game.  People play for cash prizes of thousands of dollars.  It’s a professional sport in South Korea, although there were some legal shenanigans over broadcasting Blizzard’s intellectual property for Starcraft 2.  Those have since been sorted out, and now you can watch it there like an American might watch baseball here in the U.S.  This is where the first love part comes in.  I absolutely adore the fact that a video game can be taken that seriously.  I mentioned this earlier, but I’ll say it again.  I spend a lot of time on the computer.  The fact that people can actually make serious money by clicking their mouse repeatedly makes me smile.

Unfortunately, the fact that it is so competitive is also devastating to me.  Why?  Well, I suck at it.  Even though it’s a strategy game, it is also a twitch reflex game.  My twitch reflexes are horrible.  In addition, I have dyskinesia, which only exacerbates the problem.  Therefore, I cannot play multiplayer without getting absolutely demolished.  So to save myself the embarrassment and frustration, I don’t play it.  That’s the hate part of our relationship.

However, Starcraft also has a single-player component, and I love it.  I play a lot of video games, and there are very few that have a better central story.  As far as I’m concerned, the romance of Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan is the best one in any video game.  I know it’s kind of cheesy, but honestly, that industry is not the best when it comes to romantic relationships.  (Mario and Princess Peach aren’t exactly Romeo and Juliet.)  The supporting cast is also well-developed and have their own compelling stories.  The whole thing is just a good narrative.  It’s fun, dramatic, humorous at times, and tragic at others.  It has everything I’m looking for in a blockbuster action story.

So until next time, make sure you’ve always got a card to play!

-Harry

(And fix my damn jukebox!)