I have finally finished Desktop Tower Defense’s 1.9 “10K challenge”.  This took me literally months to build up the skills required, and the final game took several hours spread out over the course of a week.

Here I am, having just defeated the deadly Level 91 flying creep wave while still having all 20 lives intact.  This was the first time I’d ever managed to do this, and likely the key to my eventual success.

Whelp, I survived the insanity of level 98 and 99… barely.  Since there were no more flier waves to come, I could sell off all of my anti-aircraft defense and focus all of my resources on bash towers.

The trick now is to keep on juggling your creeps until they fall from attrition.  I re-used the centre space, and installed a “pressure valve” in the form of the top centre pellet tower.  This allowed re-balancing if the stream of creeps got too spread out.

OMFG.  I am I actually doing to do this.  Only one more creep remaining, the deadly armoured creep.

SUCCESS.  This is the cumulation of months of determination and hard work.  I actually devised a spreadsheet to compute the maximum damage and cost effectiveness of the anti-aircraft towers and boost towers.  I was ridiculed and told it could never be done.  But here I am.  The victor.

Yesterday I “wrote” a poem about an old BBS game we play at work, “Legend of the Red Dragon”.  It was a particularly good day for my in-game character.

Two turns diverged in an ANSI yellow wood,
And sorry I could not adventure both
And be a level 6 Mage, long I stood
And looked to the forest as much as I could
To see the Dragon in his lair;
Then tried to Slaughter, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because I had Able’s Armour to wear;
Though as for that the forest turn there
Had opportunity about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no Dragon had yet burned black.
Oh, I kept the forest turn for another day!
Though riskier as some might say,
I know tomorrow I would be coming back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two turns diverged in the game, and I-
I killed Krumpet and Steve the Manatee,
And that has made all the difference.

Sometimes you can read the news, and just think “how long before this becomes a Law & Order” episode?  I’m sure this one will be covered by one of the CSI spinoffs, and probably House and Monk and a couple more.

The BSG series finale profoundly sucked.

The first reason is that they used the ultimate cop-out to answer some of the most interesting questions posed by the show.  What was the reason for the Six in Baltar’s head?  What exactly was Starbuck?  The ultimate cop-out: God did it.

Supernatural explanations have been the basis of lazy thinking for thousands of years… first it was water gods that made the river flow downhill, until that could be explained by the science of gravity.  Then they said gods created the universe, until enterprising folks realized the Big Bang had a lot more evidence than the theory that the Earth hatched from the egg of a giant bird.  Then they said the gods were necessary to created life, but Darwin realized that also had a natural explanation.

Now there is no excuse for laziness.  And yet, that’s what BSG did in the finale.  Don’t answer questions, and leave it on the river gods.

I understand most people are still superstitious to various degrees, which is why I accepted the show leaning on themes of prophecy.  It’s unavoidable and I understand that.. and even found that entertaining.  But what I do not tolerate is the lazy cop-out, refusing to put thought into the answers the show had tried so hard to create.

They didn’t even bother to tie together the prophetic elements of the show that had been repeated time and time again since the very beginning.  The temple scene with Baltar, Six, Hera, Roslin, Athena… all of that was basically meaningless.  The final five, basically meaningless.  I was expecting at least a partial resolution to these questions, but instead they just lazily threw something together that was utterly unsatisfying.

What it tells me is that they didn’t have any picture of where the story was going when they introduced those elements in the first place.  Contrast that to a Lost, a much better show, which has shown that they have answers to the mysterious elements raised in earlier seasons.  There, the payoff seems significant because you can see that it wasn’t a waste, they had some idea of the explanation to the mystery.

Now I wish I had never watched the show at all.  I haven’t been this disappointed in an ending to a fictional story since Stephen King’s The Stand, which had a very similar cop-out ending.   LAME.

I cannot find a sane explanation for why the US Dollar has marched ahead of the Canadian Dollar since the economic crisis began.  I believe that as a result, the CAD represents an incredible buying opportunity, and I expect that within one year the value of the CAD to rise at minimum 20% relative to the USD.

The standard explanation for the newfound strength of the USD is that investors are skittish, and have dumped stocks and other investments for cold hard cash.  However the fundamentals of the USD are incredibly weak.  For one, it has a terrible return rate… at or below the rate of inflation last I checked.  This is a TERRIBLE investment, only looking good in comparison to the shocking decline of the stock markets.

The second reason I don’t like the USD right now is that the US economy is still in terrible shape, with what many saw as the core competency (financial sector) now in ruins while the established markets like automotive and aeronautics are surpassed by the rest of the world.  The technology industry is being surpassed by foreigners, and foreigners have the lead in the future “green” technologies which will be the wave of the future.  The collapse of the US education system combined with immigration “reform” will leave the next generation of US startups stillborn.

The third reason is that the government is in terrible shape.  The Bush administration left the balance sheet in ruins, and the Obama administration is unwilling to push the substantial (middle class) tax increases required to correct course.  The massive tax cuts that were included as part of the stimulus bill are worse than useless because they move the balance sheet even further offline, while also failing to provide much real benefit.

Combined all this with two ongoing wars (neither of which will end anytime soon), and I think I’ve made a pretty solid case that the deficits will continue to be a very large percentage of GDP for years to come.  Debt and deficit is not in itself a disaster, however it will sharply apply downward pressure to the USD as they borrow and/or print money to make up the gap.

Enough about America.  The fourth reason is that the Canadian Dollar is in part depressed right now due to the worldwide retraction of demand for resources.  If the world economies rebound because of stimulus, that resource market will again rev up — along with it the demand for Canadian dollars to pay for Canadian resources.  As well, with little military expenditures, healthy immigration and education polices, and relatively solid banking and government balance sheets… Canada is on pretty damn good footing right now.  Not just compared to the US, but to the entire world.

It’s low.  You know that old saying “Buy Low, Sell High”?  Time to buy.

The NY Times today posted a whinge from banks about how they don’t like the strings attached to their bailout money.  Turns out they like free money, but not when it requires them to make real sacrifices.

“On Tuesday, Signature Bank of New York announced that because of new executive pay restrictions in the economic stimulus package, it notified the Treasury that it intended to return the $120 million it had received from the government only three months ago”

In my opinion, this is the greatest development of the economic crisis thus far.  If attaching difficult but reasonable restrictions makes banks think twice and thrice about accepting bailout money, than the public at large wins.  If the banks decide they can survive without the bailout money (and can justify that to their shareholders) it proves they didn’t need it in the first place.  So only the banks which *really* needed the money would accept it — and thus increased efficiency.

I would take this a step further and extend this principle to other forms of government assistance.  For example apply this to all corporate welfare, not just for bailouts — I’d like to see ADM whine about executive pay restrictions.  And even unemployment and welfare recipients, what about a requirement to suspend fast food, cable tv, tobacco and alcohol purchases while on the Dole?  I say this without malice, but it may be a good incentive for some who perhaps don’t really need government money.  And those who need it (corporate or individual) they can still get help when they need it and are prepared to make some sacrifices.

So, let’s see some more whining!!

One nice consequence of the flailing economy… I booked a plane ticket the other day.  Turns out that first class was only a few more dollars than economy!  So after my miserable experience flying back from Maui (suffered some mild panic attacks due to claustrophobia), I splurged.

LIVING THE HIGH LIFE.

Recently I have heard people complaining about mess and untidiness in a group setting.  For example not cleaning up after themselves in the common kitchen area, cleaning out rotting food in the fridge, or dropping paper towels on the floor of the bathroom when the bin overflows.  The solution as far as these people see it is to whine and nag, and its effectiveness is approximately zero.

These “solutions” are quite natural, and by no means confined to this one experience.  At other places you will see signs like “stop stealing other people’s food” posted on the fridge, or many other kinds of nags.  Again, these are near completely ineffective!

As I see it, the root cause for this is that humans evolved in small close knit groups.  In these small groups, social pressures can be quite effective, as everyone feels part of the same tribe.  Once the tribe grows however, group cohesiveness declines.  This means that it’s easier to slink into the background, and anti-social behaviour (messy kitchen) can increase while the value of and pro-social incentives (nagging) declines.  For example, someone may see you leave the kitchen in a mess, but they are less likely to know who you are and you are less likely to care that they saw you because you don’t know them.

Ineffective managers don’t realize this, and try to use the techniques that worked on the small group and apply them to the larger group.  And they get very frustrated when those tactics don’t work anymore, and amplify the requests.

As I see it, the solution is quite simple.  If possible, arrange common areas into smaller groups, where pro-social tendencies will naturally help to control bad behaviour.  If that’s not possible, just deal with it and don’t get frustrated.  Throw away the rotting food, and hire someone to clean up after the slobs.  It’s just part of group dynamics, nothing personal or unique to any one group.

So I’m back now, and I really miss it already. We had a really good time… biked down a volcano, snorkeled with turtles, and saw so many humpback whales that it almost became old hat to see calves playing and jumping.

Flying still sucks.