Friday, April 27, 2012

MoP: What Happens In Beta Stays In Beta....

Yesterday:


Today:


We shall never speak of this again.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

TLU: They're Not Alone...

Him: Indeed. I've seen religious wingnuts (of the Muslim variety, at least) argue that women get raped for dressing down.
Me: err, we've had Toronto Police Officers state this; how do you think we ended up with Slut Walk? This preconception is not remotely a Muslim only issue.
Him: Yeah, but Muslims...
Me: I'm sorry, before you go any further I have to ask: have you missed every single "Family" TV show/movie in the history of North American Television? Of the ones that have kids growing up, how many are there without a very special episode/segment where innocent little Tina turns 15 and decides it's time for Mini-Skirts, Tube Tops, and makeup* and dad doesn't go apeshit while mom tries to talk him down.

The opinion that what you wear somehow influences your chance to get raped is not remotely limited to race, religious creed or culture no matter what spin you want to put on it. Hell, from the strict perspective of a risk analyst - that one is increasing their visibility over someone else who "fits in" - there may even be some validity to it. But, as a society we need to throw that line of thought out because the simple fact is that there can be no acceptable justification for the act of rape and when we think otherwise is when we risk going back to the days when "look at her, she was asking for it" saw guys walk because the people in charge of protecting the victim agreed.

* Or the "scandalous" thing of the day - for example I seem to recall an ad for Degrassi:TNG episode all about the "appropriateness" of visible thong strings in the middle of the Thong Song craze

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

TotD: Really?

Actual Headline: "Police handcuff, charge 6-year-old girl after kindergarten tantrum"

I'm sorry: what planet do we live on now where you call the cops because someone you can likely pick up with one hand is throwing a fit? I understand we exist in a world where discipline by schools has come under scrutiny but come on: be a fucking adult and do your job...

Saturday, April 14, 2012

MoP: Want This as a Mount

These huge ass detailed lizards brought to you by the Valley of the Four Winds.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

TT: No... Just... No...

The Toronto Star ran a story earlier this week about how a Downtown Relief Line would make life easier for the suburbs by relieving congestion on the main lines. This is not incorrect. The following image from the story however...
... yeah, kinda flawed.

The main problem with it is the assumption that the line should run to Union. This would be a categorical mistake because we already know Union will approach capacity around the middle of this century and we need to divert people from there. Not only that, but where's the incentive to users to get off the Bloor line to goto Union to get onto the Yonge Line and backtrack north along one arch or the other? There really isn't one, so the argument that we're going to free up space at Bloor/Yonge this way is flawed.

Because of this, any Downtown Relief Line needs to cross through at Queen so that you both relieve traffic at Union and allow people to cut off some subway stops if they're heading mid-downtown. In fact, an older Toronto Star story about the capacity issues building up shows an Metrolinx projected route that does just that:
This route makes much more sense because you're both intervening further out to divert people from the far east end from Bloor/Yonge and you're diverting them through Queen - Within walking distance or 1 stop from most of the business district where people work/shop.

My primary problem with this later plan is the swing south to Exhibition Place which seems unnecessary given the seasonal use nature of the place at the moment. I'd rather see the west end run straight through to Dufferin/Queen, link up with a new Go Hub there, and divert people from Union at that location before eventually extending through into Etobicoke. With the Streetcar right-of-ways currently in place to service Exhibition Place likely capable of handling the traffic, we could then look to a north/south midtown line to run there in the future should the nature of use for the location change.

Likewise, traffic could be further relieved upon the Yonge line from the East by making use of the Don Mills rail right of way to build out a surface transit line that would run down to the Port Lands as envisioned in the first Toronto Star graphic and could serve to move people between the Bloor, Sheppard, and proposed DRL.

Monday, April 9, 2012

MoP: Because Rubik's Cubes are Cool.


I suspect there's not a Panda friendly model yet.

Friday, April 6, 2012

MoP: Gatekeeper Quest

Sooo, after dealing with my ISP's subcontractor de-provisioning my modem I finally get into the Beta for MoP and run into this 4 quests into trying to roll a Panda:
Why are all those people there? Because someone thought it was a good idea to have a quest where you need to click on an item to get credit and then didn't stop and consider just what would happen if there was only one of the item available for everyone. Little hint: it's called a choke point.

So, now there's 60 some odd toons sitting there; some trying to be "first", some just griefing by body blocking and jumping through your way, and others spamming some macro (that, depending on who you ask, either works or doesn't), in the hope they can progress though the zone. Grouping can help you try and get it done, but the /s spam makes it damned hard for anyone to announce a group. It's poor quest design and really needs to be addressed before the game goes live. Two ways to do it would be:

1) Phase the event so it's your solo run to your solo scroll

2) Change the quest so people in proximity can get credit. This has been done for other quests in the past so shouldn't require much if any new tech.

Hopefully they'll accept that something needs to change because even if this quest is "just fine" 12 months after launch, it's going to be a meat grinder for the first two weeks as is for anyone looking to roll a Panda.