Geek Smithology

As a software developer, you occasionally hear a conversation like the following:

“You know, this resume looks good, but she doesn’t have a degree”
“Yeah…but seven years of experience”
“True, I suppose it’s a mute point”

Well, not really. First off, mute as an adjective means “characterized by the absence of sound; quiet.” So while you could say that with so much experience, the point that someone should have a degree becomes silent, or no longer necessary.

However, there is an even better word. The word that is supposed to be used, which is “moot”. The definition of “moot” as an adjective is “subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty, and typically not admitting of a final decision”.

So replace mute with moot in the conversation above and you’ll see that someone is saying that while education always matters, when a person has a lot of experience, the relative merit of education in the interviewing decision is lessened.

But not silent.

I loved Fallout.
I loved Fallout 2 even more.
And so far I’ve really loved playing Fallout 3 (yay Steam!) but my love of the previous games has tripped me up. I was developing my favorite type of character, a man who can destroy anybody with a hail of small arms fire, generally going by the name Doc Holliday, I developed my character the wrong way.
Based on my previous experience, I was putting some stats towards Perception, only to find that I should have been putting those stats into Agility in the new game. Well, shit. I begged off the game for a bit, only to find out (thanks to some direction from Foo), that you can edit your stats through the console if you’re playing on the PC.
So for anyone else who needs to change their stats, I just did the following:

(Hey, I don’t wanna cheat, I just want to do things the way I thought I was doing them all along!)

This is a pretty comprehensive list of console commands for anyone else who may be looking.

I’m not going to comment on Rock Band 2 right now (Or it’s relationship to Guitar Hero: World Tour in the rock star simulation firmament) even though I have a lot to say, but I just want to say that as of right now (as opposed to not earlier today), the DLC is finally working on the Wii.

This is a huge deal that really makes the game. I was seriously considering getting another console just to have the ability to download songs, but thankfully the second generation of each game has given us downloadable content on the Wii. Not the best selection yet, but I downloaded a few songs and it’s only going to grow. Where the hell is China Cat Sunflower?

At least China Cat will be available one day. Why they don’t have Friend of the Devil or Dark Star is beyond me…

Heard a remark that this was the last year that people could wear stupid 200X glasses (you know, like this:

However, you can easily see that 2010 glasses would work out just fine. And if you’re willing to go all pirate and see out of one eye[1][2][3] you can comfortably wear hideous novelty specs at lowbrow New Year fiestas until 2111. Of course, that will be year that you can pretend it’s a visor and that you’re a bad ass knight. Or maybe your great-grandkids can pretend to be Sir Ass of Bad, ’cause even if I could live to 136, I’m reasonably certain I will not want to.

Unless either HG Wells or Ponce de Leon were correct, then it could be interesting. For different reasons, one more paradoxical than the other, yet each delicious in their own way. Like cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes. With peanut butter icing. From Crave. With an Americano from Bumpys. Yeah, I gotta run…

[1] Thought the first: if those pirates could duel with only one eye (and the resulting depth perception issues), they must be excellent duellists.
[2] Thought the second: if those pirates are such excellent duellists, why did they lose the eye in the first place?
[3] Thought the third: it is said that footnotes 1 and 2 have the ability to keep me up at nights.

Let me congratulate Team Canada on a hard-fought tournament to claim a fifth World Junior championship in a row – this one on Canadian soil, led by a great performance by the best forward of the tournament, John Tavares.

I’m not sure if you are aware, gentle reader, but our opponents in the gold medal final (Sweden, again) did a little trash talking before the game, about Canada wasn’t to be feared and how we were totally beatable because are goalie wasn’t “that good”. They also said that we’d fall apart if they scored a couple of quick goals.

And well, that might be true, but we’ll never know, because Canada went up 3-0 and despite being outshot, ended up winning 5-1. I’ve got nothing against the Swedes in principal, but there’s a piece of me that loves seeing trash talking mooks lose almost as much as the piece that loves watching my country win. Add to that the gold and bronze Canada took in the Under-17 tournament and our future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades.[1]

This is Canada’s record-destroying 15th title – you need to add the next four teams together to get that total (okay, Russia has 11 if you add the 8 that the Soviet Union won to the that Russia has won, but I don’t). Can’t wait until 2012, when the world Juniors finally come to Calgary (and in Regina and Saskatoon next year for my prairie peeps.)

[1] It’s been 20 years, folks, it’s time to proudly (and without irony) reference Timbuk-3 again! Yeah right, who am I kidding…