So I just got back from church, and the fourth and final day of an awesome... I don't know what you'd called it... Revival? Seminar? Something... By everyone's favorite: Peter Heck. Pretty much a four session series explaining why Christians believe what we believe. It's more suited for existing Christians who should be prepared to explain to people WHY we believe what we do. Really nice... It's (sadly) refreshing to have some material directed to Christians. I say sadly because, well... Most churches focus on winning people over who aren't Christians that might happen to be sitting in the audience. Not all the time, though. It's kind of a mix, to be honest. Some Christian-targeted meat, so to speak, and then some basic bits so other can understand, too. I don't think that should be at all what churches are for... I think they should be strictly for training Christians. But that's another story! What I was GOING to say was that Peter talked about Christians not caring what people think about themselves...

If you know me at all, you know I've believed that for a while, and when he said that, I instantly thought "hey, that's what I do... Uhoh!" But then I realized he was talking about Christians not caring what people think about them when they do something that isn't Christian-like. I just wanted to clear this up for myself and maybe anyone else who's interested. When I've said I don't care what people think about me, I always meant that in the sense that... When I know I'm right, I'm not going to back down to gain favor with someone. I'm going to tell it like it is. I don't think two members of the opposite genders should live together if they're not already related somehow. Brother and sister living together is okay. Boyfriend and girlfriend living together is not. The majority of the world thinks it's okay, and they'll tell me I'm insane. That's okay. I don't care what they think. Abortion is wrong, period, no excuses. (I have changed my stance from previous posts, for the record.) People will tell me that I'm against women's rights and tell me I'm insane. That's okay. I don't care what they think. Get it? Stuff like that. Things that are defined as flat out WRONG in the Word of God... I will share them as my own beliefs and I don't care what people may say.

Now, what Peter was saying was that Christians shouldn't behave un-Christ-like and not care what people think, and I agree. This would be like getting a divorce or living with your girlfriend when you are a Christian. It's not right and the world knows Christians think they're not right, so when Christians do these things, people notice. When Christians don't care what people think when they're doing stuff like this? That's what's wrong. Christians who do things that Christians shouldn't do and don't care what people think about them? That Christian undermines the doctrine and influence more than any atheist.

I just wanted to clear that up... And lead into another point I want to make. Ever since I've entered the realm of public education, I've been told by countless people that I shouldn't do anything that will compromise my grade and career future. I understand they're looking out for me, but... I have to take issue with what they're saying. For example, I've had more than one person tell me that I shouldn't make a political statement in my history paper because the teacher might not agree and might dock me some points and hurt my GPA. Now, the political statement I was making was a reference to the fact that the Founding Fathers of the United States believed that government should be there to enforce the freedom to practice all religions, but that they were Christians themselves and based the country off Christian morals and did not at all intend for "separation of church and state" to mean "no religion in government" but to mean "no government interfering with religion" and I gave examples of what happened to countries who declared a national religion and what happened to the citizens of those countries. I showed in my paper the events of the time and the context of the First Amendment and showed my readers that the Founding Fathers were only afraid of the government instituting its own religion, and not afraid of religion influencing politics and laws. That's what I was writing about, I didn't have any other inkling of what to write... I wouldn't really say I was led to write this, but... I very well could have, since I couldn't think of anything else. Anyway... Not the point.

Point is... I made a statement that I believed in. It just so happened to be related to Christianity. People told me I shouldn't mention the political implications in my paper that was intended to be written to show how religion in general affected the United States. The political implications, I admit, were an afterthought, but, to me, it was the sum of the equation, so I put it in... And people told me I shouldn't have because if I made the teacher upset, I would get poor grades. To me, if I would have removed the bit about the Founding Fathers' Christian beliefs? That would have been the equivalent of hiding my own Christianity in order to get ahead in the world. I would be sacrificing EVERYTHING just to be better off in a place that I'm just a-passin' through. It is far, far, far more important to me to declare the truth than to cover it up just so I can get better grades in school. To me, it's inconceivable that I would do such a thing. It's appalling to me, and I can't understand why my Christian friends and family (not my parents, I must say) are telling me to do this. When they tell me to do this, this passage comes to mind:

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 10:32-33)

Which leads me to my third and final related point. Not necessarily related to Christian beliefs, but along the same lines. Since I've started working in public education, I've been told that I need to find what the teacher likes and then pursue the same interests in an effort to get better grades. Short version? I've been repeatedly told to suck up to my teachers to get better grades. This, to me, is a form of cheating, plain and simple. I'm to focus more on learning what the teacher likes and focus on becoming the teacher's pet over actually learning? I am not in the habit of sucking up to people to make them like me better... I think this is painfully obvious when you look at my life in the Myst community. I would rather work for a position and fail than suck up to someone and get a position and realize that I'm not here because I'm good at what I do... I'm just here because I have connections. That, to me, is living a lie. I am going to say, without any intended malicious intent, that most of my friends in the Myst community are in influential positions because they made friends with the right people. They made the right connections. I will also say, without any intended malicious intent, that the people in these positions are absolutely TERRIBLE at their job. Why? Because they were appointed not because of skill, but because of connections. Not only that, but I have noticed that such people in such positions for such reasons are far more apt to get prideful. I don't know why, but those are my observations... People that work for a job CARE about their job and realize the importance of their job and don't seem to be as inclined to "lord it over" those below them.

Anyway... Those are just some thoughts I had today.

Well... I went and got Okami for the Wii last Sunday. Verdict? Curious... I haven't formed a verdict quite yet. Let me start by listing pros and cons, because, oh yes... There are some cons. Some pretty big ones if you ask me. Enough to make me wonder if the PS2 version is better. But, without further ado: The criteria:

Graphics! Man, Okami looks amazing in widescreen 480p. So crisp and clean and you have quite the large field of vision. On the other hand... The paper effect is VERY weak. On the PS2, it laced the entire game. It looked like everything was animating on a piece of paper, the effect was so strong. I've heard reviews mention this difference and to be honest, I wouldn't mention it except that there are places where they cut to video and... Well, it's obvious they took it straight from the PS2, because the paper effect is overpowering. It's obvious that it's a pre-rendered video and not just real-time camera control. A little disappointing and distracting as heck when it happens... On the PS2, you honestly couldn't tell when they cut to a video.

Controls! Celestial Brush... Period. The Wii Remote is FANTASTIC for the brushing. It takes a little time to get used to, at least for me, basically because I'm used to using the nasty PS2 controller... But once you get the hang of it, you're using the brush far more often than the PS2 just because it's so natural and easy. However... There are cons. I don't know if it's my Remote or what, but the primary attack makes you shake the Remote. No biggie... But Okami fighting is all about the combos. The more damage you do without getting hit, the more bonus to defense you get. Sadly, I simply CAN NOT launch a combo by shaking the controller. Sure, I can make Ammy attack repeatedly, but it's not nearly fast enough to start a quick-attack combo. For example, there's a move you can buy that lets you rapid attack something up to 4 times. On the PS2, it was as simple as mashing the button 4 times as fast as possible... On the Wii, you have to SHAKE the controller as fast as possible... Or that's the idea, but I could only average getting to the second part of the four-part combo, and I only got the entire combo twice in my half hour of practicing. That made me mad. But! Each battle is graded to see how fast you go and how much damage you avoid... Even without the combos, I have been getting perfect battles because what I lack in physical attacks I make up for by using the Celestial Brush. So I would say that it's still balanced.

Another gripe... During the load screens on the PS2, you could press buttons in time with paw prints tracking across the screen and if you timed it just right, you could get a Demon Fang. (That you use to buy some pretty high caliber weapons and power ups.) If you were especially good, you could get lots of Demon Fangs in a single loading screen. Sadly, the Wii version seems to be disabled. I've pressed every button imaginable and nothing happens... It really doesn't matter, though, now that I think of it, because the Wii loads far faster than the PS2, so even if they let you try, you would probably never get one. Still, it had you tolerate loading screens... When one popped up, you quickly learned that you could make good money.

All this... And it crashed. Yes, sir. It crashed. Those who've played it will know, but it crashed when it cut to the log ride after Susano charged through on the river and pulled everyone in. When the paper should have scrolled back to let you play, it never did... So I had to restart it. A little miffed at that, too... But it's only happened this once, so I'm not going to hold it against it. Just remember to save whenever you can... Especially after some lengthy combat and stuff.

So, I still give it high ratings. PS2 I would say is 10/10, and the Wii at 9/10, because if you've played the PS2 version before... The Wii version sometimes feels a little off... Especially when it goes to a cut scene with the abnormally high amount of paper texture over everything. But the Celestial Brush is FAR better... And, as a side note, filed under PS2 quirks... When Ammy runs for a long period of time, she'll run faster. She has three stages: slow, medium, fast... On the PS2, if you changed directions while running, chances were that her speed would break and you'd have to start over at slow. This made a few race quests extremely difficult to finish. The Wii, however, doesn't do that. If you change directions, you'll keep your speed boost. It makes it far easier to cross distances that aren't simply straight ahead.

In conclusion? If you haven't played Okami before, and you don't have a PS2, but you have a Wii? GET IT NOW. No doubt about it. But if you have a PS2 and have never played Okami? I would almost say that you should play it on the PS2 to get the full artistic feel of the game... Because that's what makes this game so amazing. On the other hand, the Celestial Brush is far better on the Wii, so if you don't mind sacrificing a bit of graphical quality, you should get it on the Wii. It's really up to your preference. Me? I've got both because I'm obsessed like that. On a personal note, I'm leaning toward considering the Wii graphically superior simply because the actual playing areas you have are graphically better. Widescreen and progressive frame. The PS2 is 4:3 and really fuzzy on my HDTV... But the Wii is crisp and clear. (Until, of course, a cut scene.)

1) I got through the history paper without getting slapped as a plagiarist. I got a 90% on the paper and was told that it was a lot better than most of the papers she'd received so far. 90%, though... Eh. I suppose that's good. Would like a better explanation for why it wasn't higher. If I don't specifically ask for feedback, I won't get it, and when I do ask for it, it's vague... Oh well. I'll probably still get an A in History. Maybe. At this point? I really, really, really don't care. I don't think I'll get an A in English, because a few things have crept up on me and passed me by without telling me it was due. So... Really, "oh well." Just wanted to let you know that I'm not a plagiarist.

2) I've been having a horrible, horrible time scheduling my certification exams. 72-290 and 72-620: Microsoft Vista and Server 2003, respectively. Long story as short as I can tell it: January: Signed up for certification exams. March: No confirmation, so I contact my teacher. She says talk to Kokomo. I email Kokomo and that office is on vacation, which is shockingly similar to last year. April: Kokomo comes back and tells me that I can't take the class there and to go somewhere else. I talk to Marion and they say they can schedule me and send me papers before telling me that they lied and they couldn't offer the exams and to talk to Muncie. Muncie tells me that Marion can't offer the tests and I have to take it there. Then Muncie tells me that Marion CAN do it, but they're new and setting up. Then Muncie tells me that Marion CAN'T do it because they're new and setting up. Then Muncie says I really can take it there if I don't mind that it's new and setting up. I call Marion and they say it's new and being set up, but that I can walk in and take a test whenever I want to... No scheduling.

Two entire months of contacting people and now I'm told I can just walk in and take the test whenever I want to because they're set up to do it that way. Could this be the reason why I was never scheduled? Wouldn't it have made things easier on everyone to tell me this before I started bugging everyone? I guess not. Needless to say, now that I know this, I've rescheduled my exams from tomorrow to after the semester is over, because, as I also learned, I can take my certification exams anywhere between now and June 30th. So why should I bust my tail over cramming for tomorrow when I can schedule for AFTER class and have absolutely nothing to do in the mean time?

Since I'm probably not going to sleep at all tonight, I might as well make a post about it!

To begin with, my online history class? It's been a blast so far, personally. I've loved every bit of it... Not so much the whole "pioneers ruined the American environment" parts of the whole "20,000 years ago, ancient man built giant mound cities"... But once it got into the whole United States actually declaring independence and forming their government? Awesome stuff.

But... Fast forward to tonight. I got an email from someone who was asking about a problem with submitting the paper. I went online and checked it out... Sure enough, someone's sloppy Java programming has exploded all over the server and it wasn't working at ALL. Oh well... I open a help desk ticket and... Then I see an announcement. Apparently, 10 of the around 50ish people in my class have been accused of plagiarizing their papers. At first I thought "oh well"... I'm absolutely sure I didn't outright copy anything and when I did, it was the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and they were properly cited. So I didn't think much of it... In fact, the only thing I thought was: "Wow, I've noticed some poor writing in the English Composition class, but this is insane."

I didn't think much of it, that is, until an accused student made a public announcement of her own saying how she couldn't believe this was happening, and that she was accused of plagiarizing her introduction from a site she'd never heard of before. She's about like me, too... A's and B's... Dean's List... Not someone you'd think would plagiarize, right? Well... She's gathering material on what's happened and she's going to go present it all to an adviser at the campus where this class is hosted. I dropped this student and email telling her to go for it, and that I had noticed that our class uses a computer system to scan for plagiarized lines. I'd heard of this type of system giving false positives on plagiarizing before, but I can't remember from where. In fact, if anyone knows of a service called SafeAssign by Blackboard? Let me know... This is the system I'm entrusting to judge my honesty for the course of my entire career. Plagiarism is no laughing matter.

So now I'm incredibly worried. If it's true that this system is giving false positives, then I don't want to chance submitting my paper, that I worked VERY hard on, only to get a zero for the assignment AND have my academic history get slapped with plagiarism. I would rather NOT submit the paper and get a zero, get a B, and still have a future. I told this to TW and he made it quite clear that I should contact someone high up and at least voice my concerns over the matter... If anything, he said, it would show them that I'm afraid of what might happen BEFORE it happens, so if it DOES happen, I'll be on record for talking about it before my credibility was compromised. I contacted the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs of the campus where this history class is taking place. They were the highest profile people in the department of affairs that I could find... Shot them an email a few minutes ago, asking them to respond quickly with at least where I should go with these problems. If I don't hear from them soon, I'll probably call the campus and get some answers that way.

In the meantime, I've also emailed the instructor to see what she has to say about this whole thing. It was initially a message to let her know that there's some issues with the submission system and to perhaps extend the deadline, but I made sure to express my concerns about being accused. I've only just this semester started to learn about sources, so I don't want some overzealous computer program whine about how I might match some random source it dug up and my citations were bad for the simple fact that I'm in the process of learning how to do it...

You'd think that at this level of college, they'd be more apt to contact the student BEFORE calling them a plagiarist and filing the paperwork to blacken their record until kingdom come. I understand the importance for not plagiarizing for things like a Doctorate Thesis, but come on... This is for a 2-year associates degree. It's the lowest of the lowly courses we can take. It's the ENTRY level courses... We're in the process of learning here. I'm willing to bet that most, if not all, of us aren't plagiarizing on purpose. The college says ignorance is no excuse, but what if you've read all the official papers on the subject and you think you know it well enough to not even CONSIDER asking for clarification?

This whole thing reeks and it only adds to the stupidity of this college that I've been facing since day one of my very first semester. I had a moron teacher who read broken sentences out of our own text book that he made us read during the week... Then I had a moron teacher who wouldn't bother to check up on his online students... Now I have a moron teacher who can't bother answering questions about what was wrong with my paper to get a 80 of 100, I'm dealing with a network of campuses who can't seem to get their certification system up and running even though the forms at the beginning of the year led us to believe everything was ready to go BACK THEN, and now our history papers are getting rampantly tagged as being plagiarized without contacting us?

Yes, I'm completely upset... I want this to be over NOW, not in two weeks. I want to take my certifications so I have at least something to show some companies, and I want to leave this sink hole of academic quality as soon as possible. I think I officially have one semester left, but I'm not sure, because they keep changing that on me. I'm sure I'll go in this fall expecting to do certain classes that are on the schedule, but because they were too dim-witted and short-sighted to see it when they PLANNED my classes? They learn that I have to take more pre-requisite classes so I can take the classes they said I could take. When the question is raised about how something like this could happen? The adviser laughs and says nothing's perfect. I about walked out on him right then and there...

Anyway, I'm done ranting... I'll keep you apprised of the situation.

My remote linking rules effectively break RSS readers. To be specific: online RSS readers. For example, Google Reader? Since it's a website that sends a referrer line, it trips the rewrite rule and blocks images and links to music that I've posted. FeedBurner SAYS there are 15 subscribers to my feed, but... I don't get comments on my blog from 15 different people, so I'm inclined to take that number with a grain of salt.

However, for all you out there who are reading with RSS, I need you to verify if you can see images or use links to music. I will provide an example at the end of this post. My theory is that only online readers akin to Google Reader are affected. Offline readers, when you click a link, are going to open a browser and (hopefully) navigate straight to the link and be able to bypass my filter... If it doesn't, tell me the name of the reader you're using and I will attempt to manually allow you access.

Of course, I expect nobody to leave comments, because I've just invoked that age-old rule that when I specifically ask for input, nobody responds... If that's the case, I will assume that nobody cares and I'll leave things the way they are! Thank you for your attention! And now? The links!

Everyone enjoyed that Big Brain Academy music (haha, not)! Let's link that: Title (Big Brain Academy)

And here's an image of... Gilligan's Island?

If the music link doesn't scream Forbidden, and you see the DVDs of Gilligan's Island, then your reader works.

I didn't tell anyone, but I was forced to disable remote linking due to some... Unforeseen consequences with folder indexes. Where when you access a folder without an index page, you see a list of files instead? That was broken due to the rewrite rules I had in place, and I didn't have time to fix them, so I just shut them off. Of course, I still really don't have the time, but I did spent the morning fixing it!

Now, all images people link to from their own sites will get that lovely little paw-print image instead, as it used to be. But now folder indexes work! Turns out there was a problem with the .htaccess files in each of the folders that were broken. In each of those folders, you need to put Options FollowSymLinks Indexes if you want the files to show up. Otherwise you're slapped with a lovely 403 Forbidden! I read where it's sometimes a good idea to forbid images, but that makes it look like your site's broken... And I think it's far cooler to have an unexpected image to pop up on the perpetrator's site! BUT! In addition to images and indexes working properly now, I went ahead and prevented anyone from remotely linking to any MP3 file I have hosted anywhere on my site. Those dudes are far larger than any image, so I thought I should do something about it. The audio files, though, WILL slap you with a 403 Forbidden... Can't really redirect those.

Unless... I make a recording of myself SAYING that "no linky lol" thing. Hmm. Or, better yet, make it so when people link to an MP3 of mine, they hear TW screaming about Zadok shaving off his beard. Either way, MP3s can't be remotely linked anymore. Plus, I was also able to completely lock down certain folders that I only ever intended to be personal hosting folders... They have indexes, however, so someone could discover them, and that's fine. If I wanted them hidden, I'd password protect it. I'm not stupid! But now nobody can remote link what I don't want them to... And with my new-found understanding, it will only get more restrictive from here, bwahaha! But never fear! Everything on this blog still works perfectly, and the links I share with people will still work perfectly. You just need to navigate directly to the location rather than use someone else's link.

For the record, WWW2.RIVENWOLF.NET is now an invalid address...

For those of you who still use it, you've had PLENTY of time to switch to WWW.RIVENWOLF.NET.

In an effort to streamline my remote linking rules, I've decided to remove that access point.