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jillofalltirades.com

Is 17 still a child?

There have been a recent rash of child pornography cases hitting the newsstands recently, and they all have one unique thing in common.  The people being accused of distributing or possessing the porn are under the age of 18.  The recent case of 3 girls “sexting” pictures of themselves to 3 guys and being charged with child pornography are just one example of this new trend.  Let me clarify, I do not think that taking nude pictures and giving them to someone special is a new thing that teenagers have just discovered (I am not that dense!); but the ubiquitous nature of cell phones, et cetera, make it possible to send these pictures without that day of thinking about whether it is a good idea while you wait for the pictures to get developed.  As a recent CiscoFatty reminded me, the availability of the internet to today’s youth (and not so youth) is one less barrier between the stupid things that they say and do and the rest of the world.

OK, other than the fact that teen do stupid things; I do not think that these girls and guys should be labeled as sex-offenders for life because of this.  I think that the title of sex-offender is in excess of the crime that was committed by the sexters.  I also find it ironic that another 17 year old girl that was found to be sending pictures of herself to her boyfriend might be tried as an adult.  If she is tried as an adult, doesn’t this mean that she is not a child, and therefore it is not child porn?  Hmmmm, logic strikes again! I think that these cases are something to watch because they will set the precedent for future court cases.

Walmart vs Target

I recently came across a website called Flowing Data, check it out when you have time.  I first saw the visualization of the growth of Walmart.  If you watch the video, it looks like a bioterrorism attack that was orgininated in Arkansas.  It actually looks rather scary.  After that video became popular, a growth of Target video was created.  The Target video does not look like a plague crossing the nation; hence, it is less exciting.  I found it interesting that California had a huge number of Target dots and fewer Walmart, and conversely Arkansas had many Walmart but few Target.  Everywhere else on the map seemed to have a mixture of the two.  Is it just CA and AK that have extreme loyalty to the store that they shop at?

Wordle

Now that I have put that picture up, I will tell you what it is!  It is a word cloud . . . ta-dah!  If you click on the picture, it will take you to the full sized one, and the site that makes them.  I used a term paper that I wrote on malaria vaccine development for this cloud.  You can choose the color scheme, the fonts, and the general shape and direction of the words.  Neat, huh?

I think that this is a very cool way to visualize data.  I first saw this method in National Geographic Magazine; an article showing which authors have been translated to and from English the most.  If you get a chance to pick up an issue and check it out, notice how big J. K. Rowling is compared to some of the “classic” authors.  It suggests that the Harry Potter series will soon become a “classic” to be read in schools.

Sycamore Creek Vineyards

If you decide to go wine tasting in the South Bay, a must stop winery is Sycamore Creek.  This is a very young winery, only about 3 years under the current owners, but they have a very mature taste for all of their new-ness.  To get to the winery, take Watsonville Road until you get to the turn for Uvas Road.  The winery is right after you get onto Uvas Road; they usually have a sign on Watsonville Road pointing you in the right direction. 

When you enter the tasting room, you are going into the barrel room/warehouse.  The tasting counter is made of old wine barrels (which I really liked) and allows for small groups and couples to share one barrel for their glasses; I can see where this would be limiting for a overly large group that is tasting together.  I personally liked the intimate setting that the wine barrels encouraged even though the tasting room was in a large warehouse.   Being the youngest people there (by FAR) I was surprised when we received just as much attention as the other, older couples.  The winemaker spent about 45 minutes pouring our tastings and discussing the wines, the winery, and the wine making business with us.

We tasted many wines there, as is the norm for my tasting expeditions, and two really stand out in my mind: Uvas and Malbec.

The Uvas is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon: 67% and Chardonnay: 33%.  When I first read the description of this wine, I though “Ummmm, ookkkaaaaay???”  Normally, I only get a Chardonnay and Cab blend like this when I am switching what I am drinking without rinsing my glass.  I have to admit that despite my reservations, I was pleasantly surprised by this wine.  Light and yet it still had the flavor I require in my wines.  I would recommend this wine to amateur wine drinkers as a good stepping stone into the full bodied red wines.

The other wine that I remember as being exceptional is the Malbec.  I am very pleased with how many Malbec’s I have been able to taste recently, and this one is the best.  That day Jack and I had tasted twoother Malbec wines and this one was the best.  This one was also the only one that was a pure Malbec, the other two had small amounts of other varietals in them.  If you like Italian wines, I would recommend driving to Morgan Hill just for this one.

The final comment about this winery is the wine club.  Talking to the winemaker, we learned about some of the events that this winery offers for its club members.  The one that impressed me was the chili day.  In the winter months, when no one is really doing anything, the winemaker makes a giant pot of chili and invites the club members to the winery to hang out and have chili.  I thought that this sounded like a lot of fun.  Many wineries have very pretentious events, like caviar and cheese pairings, which are cool but not my style.  I do not enjoy going to events where other club members look at me and wonder if I work there because I am in my 20’s.  I think Sycamore Creek is much more age open and welcoming of every type of wine drinker.

NXE

Hello and welcome to the New Xbox Experience (NXE)!  I have been waiting for this update for about 3 months now, and I am loving it.  The new interface and avatars seem to put the 360 somewhere between the Wii and the PS3 when it comes to target audience.  Microsoft is deffinately trying to get that crowd of casual gamers on board.  Jack does not like the avatars, being too Mii-like for him, but I spent about 2 hours working on mine and his.  I only wish that they had more clothing and hair options.  There is a predominace of straight hair styles, which does not work for those of us who have curly hair.  There are 2 true curly hairstyles, and both of them look like frizzy triangle heads.  The current hairstyle on my avatar is as close as I could get, and my hair is about twice as long as that.  There are not many long hair styles either.  I am anxiously awaiting the first pack of DLC for the avatars.  I am hoping that it will be free, but i highly doubt it, knowing Microsoft.

The Netflix capabilities of the NXE are simply awesome.  Now I can watch something on my TV even if my discs get delayed in the mail!  Boo for Sony not taking the higher ground and allowing their movies on the Netflix Watch It Now.  The only irritating part of this is that you have to set up a queu of movies to stream to your 360.  No browsing from the console.  Oh well, this is not a major issue, and I always have a computer on in the house for one reason or another. 

Another feature that I am enjoying is the ability to delete the 0 Gamerscore Games.  This has really helped increase my completion percentage, and has asthetically improved my gamerscore.  Those 0’s just looked ugly!

I have not had a chance to try out the party capabilities with my friends yet.  Nor have I been able to play a game that utilizes my avatar.  I am looking forward to playing the new Scene It: Box Office Smash with my avatar.

All in all, I think that this was a good move for Microsoft.  It gives their system a whole new look and feel, without them having to produce a new system!  Even though people have been complaining about the themes not looking great on the NXE, my favorite old theme looks great (Think Blue by Disruptive Publishers).  With avatars to play with, and a faster, easier to navigate interface, I give the NXE 4.5/5 stars!

Trouble in Paradise

The new Viva Pinata is HERE!!  The first weekend that I had the game, I played until I reached level 40.  That sounds impressive, but I had to share the 360 with Jack, who is still playing Too Human.  There are good things and bad things about the game.  Mostly good things in my opinion.

The good things:

• Co-op play : Jack and I can play together, and he gets some really cool bonus skills like healing and maxing out candiosity.  This helps with the new challenges format.
• Challenges : Now you have a choice of three challenges, and you can choose to do them whenever you want.  They just sit there and wait for you to accept them.  This is much better than another annoying window popping up when you are in the middle of doing something else!
• New pinatas and plants : I love trying to collect all of the pinatas and grow all of the plants to max growth.  Some of my favorite plants are: garlic, snowdrops, cactus, and tiger lily.  My favorite new pinatas are: Tigermisu, Geckie, Pengum, and Tartridge.
• New variations : Now it is easier to get the special variations of the offspring and twins.  The romance game has been changed, and now after you get the Master Romancer award for a species, it is harder to not get a variant or twins than it is to get one!

The not so good things:

• Co-op play controls : The second player has a severely limited set of basic skills.  Use a shovel, plant seed, water, sprinkle short grass.  No buying, fertilizing, or even selecting pinatas.  The camera in co-op follows the main player, swinging around so that the helper is always behind the player.  ANNOYING!
• Requirements change : Some of the mating, variant, and evolution requirements have changed.  This bothers me because I remembered most of them from the old version, and now they don’t work.
• Graphics : The look of this game is better and more detailed, but really?  Does it really take that long to make minor changes to the graphics?  I was expecting more, personally.

I have not had the opportunity to try the Pinata Vision cards, so no opinion on that front.  I am hoping that I can find a friends with a 360 camera I can borrow to try it; I am not buying one for just this game!

All in all, I am enjoying VP:TIP and I will be for a while yet.  It is a game targeted for children, but it is strangely addicting for adults.  I wish every problem could be solved by starting a new garden and ignoring the bad one.  It would also be nice to gain thousands of monies by harvesting bird-of-paradise flowers.

Commitment-Phobia Gene?

Image of the vasopressin molecule

Recently, scientists have been studying the hormone vasopressin in prarie voles.  The male prarie vole is known for being a hang around kind of husband, and vasopressin has much to do with it.  This hormone is a prepheremone that causes the kidneys to retain water, vasoconstricion, and pair bonding.  This linkage between hormone and pair bonding has been proven in prarie voles, and now is being examined in humans.

The study I read examined the ammount of marital strife in 500 couples, that had been together at least 5 years, by survey.  Then the vasopressin gene was examined for mutations.  They found that a mutation in allel 334 was associated with lower scores in the partner bonding survey.  The interesting part of the study was that with no or one copy of the mutation, 16 percent of men reported marital crisis in the past year.  With two copies of the mutation, that percentage doubled.  Hmmmm . . .

Now, I will be the first one to say that this has not been proven.  These are just preliminary results in humans.  However, it does make you wonder what mutations or lack thereof that your partner might have.  Will there soon be genetic tests for probabliity of fidelity?

If anyone wants to read the full study, here is the citation:

Walum, H., et al. In press. Genetic variation in the vasopressin receptor 1a gene (AVPR1A) associates with pair-bonding behavior in humans. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences

Too Human

Too Human Cover

Too Human is the newest game to be added to the list of “Awesome 360 Games”.  It is an action adventure game set in the far future, with a strong element of Norse mythology to make it stand out.  In short, you play as a cybernetic “god” or Aesir named Baldur.  I am assuming that you end up having to save the world, becuase that seems to be SOP for adventure games.

The first of many reasons that I am currently enjoying this game is the graphics.  I know it is lame for a gamer to admit this, but I love the eye candy!  This game has good enough graphics that I am not complaing and still has unnoticable load times.  The cinematics are not the highest quality I have seen, but that is fine with me if it decreases load times.

Another reason I like this game is the unique combat controls.  I am playing a melee character and I attack by pushing the right stick in the direction I wish to attack.  My character can also slide from enemy to enemy, making it look like a game of pinball rather than hack and slash.  The only down-side I have to the combat is that the jump command is the A button; this makes it difficult to slash a guy to throw him in the air, jump up, and continue to hack at him in mid air.

Finally, I like the skill tree.  You put points in nodes.  More points means the skill gets better.  New node equals new skill.  Simple and efficient, enough said.

Now for the down sides.  My only major complaint is that there is no local co-op play.  I know it is strange, but Jack and I like to play games together, on one system.  The newer games seem to be going towards online only multiplayer and that irritates me.  I refuse to purchase a second 360 just so I can play with my husband!

Bottoms up!

Currently the legal drinking age in the US is 21.  There is a debate going on about lowering the drinking age to 18 (doesn’t this debate come up every few years?).  I am going to have to agree with the lowering of the drinking age.  Each state actually has the ability to set their own drinking age, but the consequence of placing it lower than 21 is to loose 10% of their highway and road funding from the federal government.  This sounds similar to why the schools teach abstinence only, and we all know how well that program worked.

I think that most kids are drinking around 18 anyways, and it seems ridiculous to be able to vote or join the army and not have a beer.  SADD says that in 2005, 28% of kids 12-20 years old were already drinking.  I am assuming that the majority of these numbers are from the 16-20 age range.  So, if the law is being flaunted anyways, what good does it do?  Right now it is keeping kids from learning their limits and realizing that drinking is not some cool, forbidden thing.

I think we should take a page from Europe’s book in this.  In most places, the drinking age is 16 and the driving age is 18.  I agree with this way of doing things.  It gives kids a chance to drink for 2 whole years without driving, hopefully the novelty would wear off by then.  I also think that kids drinking while they still live at home and go to high school would give parents and teachers a chance to teach responsibility with alcohol.  Granted, this would require parents to actually participate in the education of their children and the development of their values (a responsibility that seems to be lacking in many parents).  No system is perfect, but I think that drinking before driving would be a better choice than what we have now.