Author: LegoDoug

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Game Camp Nation – “Isaacing”

Isaac and David spent two weeks this year at Game Camp Nation, which has been operated for a number of years by our friends Phil Luchon and Steve Deyesso and their staff, originally under the name of “Camp Turing.”

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”11″ gal_title=”Game Camp Nation, 2007″]

All the photos from those weeks can also be viewed here on Google Photos.

David and Isaac were among the first students to test a new curriculum designed for younger students. They developed games using the GameMaker software, which allows sprite-based games to be created using a relatively simple properties-panel-driven model. (Game Maker also features its own scripting language, and the ability to do more advanced things, even as much as a 3D FPS game.) Game Camp Nation also offers courses in game programming using C++ (which will probably be switched to Java next year), and 3D modeling and animation using AutoDesk’s Maya.

Each student gets his own computer to work and play on all day. Attendees also have some non-computer time to play board games and enjoy meals. Still, this was more of a “Geek Heaven” kind of place than one might be expecting in a summer camp. (I wonder if any of the children noticed that the conference room the hotel gave them didn’t have any windows.)


Isaac and David Outside the Conference Center used by Game Camp Nation for their Waltham, Ma., sessions.

Both weasels enjoyed camp immensely, and readily learned to create and debug games. They were up before I was every morning, and I let them stay late almost every night to participate in the network gaming tournaments that the camp runs at the end of the day. David got so tired one day that he fell asleep in the car in the morning, and then on the couch in seconds when we got home, sleeping there nearly 12 hours through the night.


Isaac and David with Game Camp Nation staff members Chris, Steve, and Joy.

We Have a Weiner Winner!

The game tournament is open to all camp attendees, whether they stay overnight or not. To keep things balanced among different types of games, they played FPS games (Halo and Call of Duty), RTS games (StarCraft and Command & Conquer 3), and Motocross Madness 2. Scores were kept all week, and the winner each week got a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy.

Of course that meant that Isaac and David were staying until 8:30 every night, but I figured it was worth the effort for two weeks.

Isaac came in first the first week, despite my dragging him out early one night. During the second week, he was leading by 100% of the second-place person’s score. Steve decided that dominating by that much for two weeks in a row would be called “Isaacing.”


Isaac with the huge Lego set he purchased, #7662 Trade Federation MTT

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Lana Lang Succumbs to Repeated Physical and Psychological Trauma

The Daily Planet, Metropolis, August 23, 2007
Lois Lane

Lana Lang (below) was admitted to the Metropolis Psychiatric Hospital (above) earlier today for an indefinite period of intense psychiatric care, after what has been described as an “intense, psychotic break.” Lana is known for having a number of strange, apparently psychiatric episodes. One associate we interviewed believed she had merely “gone Lana” again, citing events such as Lana’s brutally attacking and nearly killing confidante Chloe Sullivan, editor of The Torch, Smallville High School’s often tabloid-like student newspaper, or another period lasting several days when she believed herself to be the incarnation of a 17th-century French witch.


Lana Lang, an exceptionally traumatized young lady.

A medical professional within the psychiatric hospital provided details under the condition of absolute anonymity:

Miss Lang is the most severely traumatized case I have seen in my career, far worse than we see even from lengthy, close-quarters combat. Lana seems to have an intense fear of nearly everything, including hospitals.

She is recounting stories of being attacked repeatedly at the Talon coffee shop, her parents’ grave site, the Kent farm, Smallville Medical Center, her own residences, Smallville High School, several horse stables, and virtually every outdoor location she has traveled to.

She screams or sobs constantly about being hunted, attacked, and buried alive. There is little wonder her sleep is disrupted by incessant nightmares. Her medical records, among her numerous admissions for injury or unexplained illness, indicate she even barely survived being caught in a tornado several years ago. She often rocks back and forth in a corner, incessantly mumbling that her friends are keeping secrets from her, and she appears convinced that at any moment anyone around her might suddenly turn on her.

If even half the things she describes have actually occurred, it will be a miracle if Miss Lang will ever be able to leave this facility. But we will do our best to help her.

Clark Kent, who has been Lana’s friend from early childhood, appeared nervous, and refused to comment on her condition.

Here’s an interesting bit on what Lana Lang was like in the comic books.

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Why Can’t Things Like This Happen to Me?

A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-meter (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.

:: sigh :: That would have looked sooooooooo cool in my cube at work.

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Bizarre Family Re-Invades Moultonborough


Our boring, personality-less family.

Well, we’re back (again) from our now-annual trip to Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

Highlights:

  • NaNi woke me up every morning by knocking on my head as one would a door, and announcing, “Dad, look out the window.” Thankfully, it was never very early, but to her, daylight meant it was time to do things.
  • Isaac and I climbed Mt. Percival, elevation 2,212 feet, near Squam Lake. (A full 1,000-feet higher than our usual hike across the street.) Nichelle, NaNi, David, my niece Jenn, and my sister Cindy made it much of the way, but didn’t get to the summit. (They were scared off by a report more seasoned hikers.) This is the first “moderate”-rated trail from our new AMC White Mountain Guide, 28th: Hiking trails in the White Mountain National Forest (Appalachian Mountain Club White Mountain Guide), and it was wonderful. While the others went slowly down the first part of the hike, Isaac and I really pushed it to get to the summit, but the view was worth it. The trail back, only 1.9 miles, seemed much longer. I couldn’t have done any of this without the 6-day-a-week weight training program my beautiful Nichelle has me on. (The hike was a great leg and cardio workout; the next two days I could feel muscles I didn’t knew I had.)
  • Neither Isaac nor David caught any pickerel this year. They didn’t spend as much time fishing, but more time swimming. We had bait left at the end of the week, even.
  • NaNi caught the biggest sunfish we have seen to date. It was actually too big for her to hold up the pole as Nichelle took a picture.
  • In an incident involving a fishing reel NaNi managed to disassemble, recovering the same reel from the bottom, getting the line tangled up in the paddleboat pedals, losing the reel permanently in the pond, getting stuck, and prayer … NaNi and David had quite an adventure. NaNi was very impressed that David “prayed to God twice,” and “knew the right thing to do.”
  • One of the few down sides to this trip was that Naomi has developed an unprecedented degree of fear of bugs and spiders, especially considering in whose family she is. She spent an hour or two one night, quite literally screaming, apparently from some nightmare about spiders which persisted into her mostly-woken state. (She was afraid of a lot of things, compared to earlier in her life, and was highly suggestible, but I expect she’ll have outgrown those issues by next year.)
  • We did our first all-family picture at Clark’s Trading Post, and Nichelle and NaNi did their traditional “Southern Belle” photos. I’ll try to get pictures up tonight.

We’ll post a Picasa Web Albums slide show after we go through the pictures.

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Dual-Core Processors and Video Performance

I’d installed Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, a game which is a couple of years old, on my relatively new dual-core AMD Athlon machine at home. (It should run fine on both machines, and I own two copies, making it ideal for gaming multiplayer with the kids.) To my surprise, the game ran absolutely horribly—a first for this box—in fact, it was completely unplayable. The video, even in the opening movie, stuttered whenever it was trying to do a fade affect. In the mission I tried, the characters wouldn’t move, although I could pan the camera, almost like the game was trying to poll the keyboard wrongly. The video seemed far jerkier than it should have been, also.

So, I did the usual bit of updating the video driver and DirectX drivers, but that didn’t help.

After a little research, and a couple of forum posts that didn’t have the right answer, but did point to a related Microsoft Knowledge Base article, I learned the cause of the problem. With visions of having to patch my BIOS (a slightly risky operation), I wen to the AMD Web site as Microsoft recommended, and discovered a surprisingly straightforward solution:

AMD Dual-Core Optimizer – The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer can help improve some PC gaming video performance by compensating for those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing by directly using the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Applications that rely on RDTSC do not benefit from the logic in the operating system to properly account for the affect of power management mechanisms on the rate at which a processor core’s Time Stamp Counter (TSC) is incremented. The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer helps to correct the resulting video performance effects or other incorrect timing effects that these applications may experience on dual-core processor systems, by periodically adjusting the core time-stamp-counters, so that they are synchronized.

A quick Windows install and reboot, and the game ran flawlessly—at 1280 x 1024 with all the video and sound options maxed out. Sweet!

I believe there is a similar utility available for Intel multicore processors.

For the benefit of others:

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NaNi Writes Her Name

I have to be the proud parent and brag about this one. A few days ago, NaNi—who won’t be four years old until October—grabbed an old Sunday school art project off the refrigerator, took a pencil and proceeded to write her name on the back. She didn’t copy it, she just printed the correct letters.


Naomi shows off her writing.

What’s even more interesting, after months of her writing upside down capital As, is that she still hasn’t learned all her letters—she can’t even correctly name all of the ones in her name yet. She’s been able to type her name for a couple of months, and she can recognize a few letters, but we haven’t been doing anything to actively show her how to write her name.


A closer shot of NaNi’s first attempt at writing her name.


NaNi wrote these on Sunday. When she has lines, she writes her name quite neatly.

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The Qur’an and Recruitment of Radicals

Extremist Muslim fundamentalists support their violent view of Islamic teaching by failing to read their own sacred texts in entirety and in context.

Listen to this NPR interview with former Al-Qaeda recruiter and jihadist Hassan Butt; it is extremely insightful.

In the case of Muslims, this means selecting verses which support terrorism and destruction of all infidels. By basing the arguments upon the Islamic scripture of the Qur’an, rather than merely intellectual or emotional basis, Hassan Butt was able to convert those who were Muslim political activists to a more violent agenda. I’ve transcribed portions of his interview below. (Please pardon my uneducated transcription of the Arabic words used.)

[Renee Montagne (Interviewer )] You recruited others. What did you tell those that you were talking to that they found the most compelling?

[Hassan Butt] Obviously we would talk about the atrocities that were taking place in Palestine, in Iraq; the atrocities that were being comitted by Muslim governments with the support or with the silence i guess of the Western regimes. And these would be inspiring factors, but this wouldn’t be the thing that would turn someone from a normal political activist to someone who would turn to militant radical Islam. It became us teaching these people that the only solution Islamically that we have is to fight these people and to kill these people. We would use islamic theology, and we would show them that the work we were engaging in was an obligation upon Muslims, using various interpretations of the Qur’an and various interpretations of the saying of the prophet Mohammed.

There’s a verse in the Qur’an which means “strike fear in the hearts of the unbelievers.” We would actually say terrorism is part of Islam. It’s not something against Islam. This word is actually used in the Qur’an. It comes from the word il-hab.

Eventually, Mr. Butt left radical Islam, and currently works to combat it. His impetus for leaving seems to have been the same kind of unanswered questions which often interest young Muslims in radicalism:

I really began to think, “Is this really being done in the name of Islam or is this being done in the name of some political agenda?” For me these people became murderers who just enjoyed killing and causing havoc, rather than trying to achieve any type of stability as a result of it.

He goes on to discuss how the intentional disregard of certain portions of the Qur’an, on both sides of Islam, allows Islamic terrorism to prosper:

For a long time, a lot of people, especially the moderate Muslims have been talking about how peaceful Islam is and how loving Islam is, and what they’ve tended to do is ignore the verses and chapters in the Qu’ran that talk about violence, that talk about killing, and they’ve hoped by ignoring it, or being in denial about it, that this problem would disappear, and this hasn’t been the actual case. If I’m a young Muslim who’s picked up the Qur’an and come across certain chapters and in there it says, “Kill the unbelievers until they become Muslim; fight them until they say, ‘lahi lahi l’allah.'” [I believe this is, “There is no God but Allah.”] You know, if a young Muslim reads that, and he goes to the mosque and the mosque says, “Oh, don’t ask questions like this,” or the moderate Muslim says, “Oh, don’t discuss things like this,” if they then go to the radical Muslim who is willing to discuss this Qur’anic chapter, then naturally he’s going to become inclined towards him, because this person is giving him answers to questions that his mind has. And so hence what I’m calling for is there to be an open debate, firstly. We need to be able to go back to the books of Islam and to be able to a new what we call itchthihad, or like create a new reality and explain, “Hang on a second, you know, everything that was written in the Medieval times is not applicable today,” and then that new reality needs to be addressed to young Muslims.

One of the things that’s fascinating about this interview is the idea presented that both the extremists and the moderates have the same flaw in ignoring part of the Qur’an, which ultimately serves the radicals.

For further reading:

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Whose Sin? (John 9:1–7) The Necessity of Historical Context

I have several friends who love to study the history of the Bible, and who strongly believe that it’s vital to know all we can about the cultures we read about. I am inclined to agree. (One of these friends keeps stacks of Alfred Edersheim’s Sketches of Jewish Social Life to give away to interested fellow believers—and to kill mice.)

A few days ago, I was listening to a passage I’ve read scores of times in my lifetime, but this time I noticed something that I had completely overlooked:

1As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9:1–7, ESV)

Notice the disciples’ question: “Whose sin was it that this caused this man to be born blind? Was it his or his parents’?”

The part that made me do a double-take was the question about whether it was the man’s own sin for which he was being punished. How can anyone sin before he or she is born?

Now, this gets fascinating. Just from the context of the passage, one can infer that some people (the disciples among them) believed God would punish the sins of parents by causing problems with the children. We can also infer that people believed God would punish a person’s sins directly. In both cases, such punishment could extend to causing physical disability. Another inference—perhaps the most unusual one to us—is that one could be born into a condition of punishment for his own sins.

The text also refutes an idea or two. One false idea, sadly believed by many who claim to follow the Bible today, was that all illness or disability is caused by God as punishment for sin, or, alternatively, by the oppression of Satan. Jesus clearly refutes the former case in his answer to the disciples.

What else can we directly infer from this passage alone? Not much.

How could someone who is not yet born sin? Did he commit some sin in utero?

What light does Scripture shed on these beliefs? The Old Testament talks about divine retribution, even such being passed on to the children of those God is punishing. So, we can see in Scripture the concept of the man being punished for his parents’ sins. (I merely mention the existence of this topic; much further elaboration would be required to address its applicability to a case such as this.) However, nowhere in Scripture do we see the idea of someone being punished for personal sins committed before birth. Was God being preemptive, punishing the man with blindness for something the man would later do?

Ultimately, Scripture does not answer the question about how someone could be born into a condition of punishment for his own wrongdoings. Here we must look to the historical context of the passage.

Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, in this case apparently referencing the work of J.B. Lightfoot, summarizes the historical context of the disciples’ questions quite nicely:

It was a universal opinion among the Jews that calamities of all kinds were the effects of sin. See the notes at Luke 13:1-4. The case, however, of this man was that of one that was blind from his birth, and it was a question which the disciples could not determine whether it was his fault or that of his parents. Many of the Jews, as it appears from their writings (see Lightfoot), believed in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls; or that the soul of a man, in consequence of sin, might be compelled to pass into other bodies, and be punished there. They also believed that an infant might sin before it was born (see Lightfoot), and that consequently this blindness might have come upon the child as a consequence of that. It was also a doctrine with many that the crime of the parent might be the cause of deformity in the child, particularly the violation of the command in Leviticus 20:18.

So, from the larger body of Scripture, the local context of this passage, and some educated guesses, one might derive a number of correct conclusions about what relatively common beliefs were for the subject at hand; but, without examining other historical writings, one could never derive all the possibilities of what was believed—especially the possibility of the transmigration of souls, which is not at all referenced in Scripture.

Despite the fact that our churches extol the study of Scripture in its literal, historical, grammatical context, few believers are taught how to do such historical research, or even have the basic resources to know where to begin. This is compounded by the pseudoscholarly works that abound, produced by both modern skeptics who are willing to ignore history and unscholarly believers who equally ignorant of history—archeology seems to be especially problematic. (One of my favorites is the conclusion that pi is exactly three because it is rounded to that in 1 Kings 7:23.) Sadder still are the many pastors and teachers who believe that no cultural illumination is needed for events that occurred two to six thousand years ago. Although we certainly might be able to derive most of our doctrine sola scriptura, historical, cultural, and even archaeological study sheds light on so much that makes the Bible real.

I’ll conclude with one thought from Pastor Erik DiVietro, from his post about the contextual meaning of “the gates of hell”:

If anything, I think pastors should study history instead of theology. They should be immersed in the worlds (notice the plural) of the Bible and not in the systematic teachings of theologians who probably never cracked a history book except to get a random source for something they already believed. Knowing the languages and cultures in which the Scriptures emerged isn’t just a nice thing—it is a necessary thing. Otherwise, we are no better than the Medieval church that twisted the Biblical narratives to their own schemes.

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Resolved: Things about Which I Will Never Complain

One of Nichelle’s and my most eye-opening trips was our first part-time missions trip to Mexico together, about 10 years ago. One of the first rules we made for the kids (and future children) upon our return was, “No whining.” (Getting the children to follow that rule has been difficult, but we never give up.)

Americans, in my opinion, tend to be really whiney ingrates. As someone who has seen life from “the other side,” here are some of the things I try very, very hard never to whine about:

  • The price of gasoline. (Go check the consumer prices worldwide for those countries not swimming in petroleum.)
  • Government corruption. (When’s the last time you had to bribe someone to get a spot you deserve in university, or paid your traffic “ticket” directly to the police officer?)
  • The food I am served, as long as it’s not spoiled. (Complaining about the food or refusing food offered is a huge insult in countries where people are not certain they will get enough food every day.)
  • The quality of television and movies. (Watch less. Be more selective. Television and movies have always had both great programming and nearly worthless programming. The great programming and films survive and are remembered, which is why we think that all the “old shows” were like “The Twilight Zone,” when most of them were more like “F Troop.”)
  • Being bored. (I honestly can’t remember the last time I was bored. Usually, I have so many things that I want to do, I can’t choose between them.)
  • The American justice system. (I know it’s not perfect, but for the most part, our criminal justice system is very fair, and we’re even finally learning about victim rights, too.)
  • The amount of money I have. (Do you have any idea how absolutely rich we Americans are?)
  • My job. (The US is still, unquestionably, the Land of Opportunity.)
  • The weather.
  • My wife. (Nichelle is awesome, in far more ways than I can count—although I did try once.)

I’m sure I’ll think of a few others.