"To infinity ...and beyond!"

-Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story

As some of you may already know, I recently cut my hair significantly. I typically do this about once every 3 months, and because of the time gap I always seem to make one very crucial mistake.

Shampoo. Pretty much everyone I know uses the stuff on at least a semi regular basis, as do I. Here's the thing about shampoo though, when my hair is long I basically need to use about infinity of it to get my hair clean. This is a problem because when it comes to showers I am a creature of habit. I do the same thing every time and I don't really put much thought into it. This is fine most of the time, but when I go from lots of hair (and thus requiring lots of shampoo) to short hair, I always end up using waaaaaaaay too much shampoo in that first shower. All that shampoo doesn't like to stay in my hair either, so instead it just kind of goes... well everywhere. And THAT is why I always regret ever giving up Johnson's baby shampoo whenever I cut my hair.

Look how not blinded this baby is even with that much that shampoo

all over the place!

OK OK, now That I have that out of the way (I've been debating about posting on this topic for about a week now). I have a totally different topic that is much more relevant to my header.

As humans I feel the concept of infinity is rarely discussed and even less understood. It's just TOO big. For example, try and think of the biggest number that you can. How big did you get? A Million? A Billion? A Trillion? Quadrillion? Did you get even larger than that? Well even if you did it doesn't matter, however big of a number you came up with it is less than nothing when compared to Infinity.

Let's try adding a little perspective here. Go Play with this for a bit:

http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/scale_of_the_universe_2012

Feel a bit different now? If you scrolled out pretty much at all there is no way you didn't see how absolutely tiny we are. Here's the thing though, the scroll bar starts at about the 2/3rd's mark. We are almost unfathomably larger than the stuff even a few levels down. At the same time you can't even see the earth anymore if you go up a few levels. I hope you're as blown away by this as I am. 

Does infinity feel like a more daunting topic now? It should, because the thing with infinity is that it is unfathomable. Regardless of how big of a thought you are able to put together it's not big enough to encompass infinity. Even if someone did come up with a thought big enough to rival the size of infinity, guess what, infinity just gets that much bigger. 

I just realized I haven't given out a formal definition for infinity yet... and I'm not going to. After a quick Google search the majority of results returned all broke the cardinal rule of definitions: You don't use the word in its definition. This is fine though, because it just furthers my point that infinity is pretty tricky to understand!

"Bla bla bla, get to the point already!"-You, the reader

"Yes Sir!!!(or Ma'am if you're a lady)"-Me, the writer

I've been trying this whole time to impress upon you at least a hint of how incredibly large infinity is, because without a reasonable perspective my point will lose some of its punch. With that in mind here we go...

I've seen infinity. That unlimited thing we can't hope to comprehend. I see it every day. I see it in the form of GRACE. I've seen INFINITE GRACE. And that grace comes from an INFINITE GOD. Before any of us were born we were cursed with sin, a penalty to which the end result is DEATH. But! "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

We need look no further than Jesus Christ to see infinity in it's fullest amount. Through Jesus God has blessed us with infinite grace. It is only through that grace that we can escape the nearly infinite grasp of sin. 

I know I'm not a great writer, but I sincerely hope you got something out of this. And a special shout out to the person who encouraged me to write on this topic, you know who you are. Now if you don't mind, I need to go give my finite praise to a God of infinite grace.

"Sweet Lincon's Mullet!"-Ron Burgundy, Anchorman

I've decided that I want to lead into every blog post with a quote that is in some way relevant to what I'm writing about. It's like a style signature or something. Anyway onto the topic of the day: the film PACIFIC RIM.

Now I know I just said I wanted to open with a relevant movie quote and it seems like the topic is in no way related to the quote. While part of me wants to just let you figure out the connection on your own, I know the way my mind works is very unusual and people have a difficult time following my logic(that's another topic on its own). So I'll just spell it out for you: Mr. Burgundy's quote is awesome, and I think this movie looks awesome.

If you haven't seen the previews yet take a quick look-see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag

Looks pretty sweet right? I think it does (if you're at the CF opening night premier I'll see you there). It's got one of those classic "TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY" features, GIANT robots fighting GIANT monsters. 

Now I know some people will not like this movie, maybe they don't like sci-fi or they think the premise is dumb. This is America, so it's fine for them to have that opinion. I'll tell you why I'm going to enjoy this movie though -- It's a throwback.

This is EXACTLY the kind of movie I would have begged my parents to take me too when I was a kid. I think if I'm honest with myself I can conclude that I'm still a kid at heart. I'd drink mountain dew before even thinking about coffee, I find "adult" activities, like wine tasting, boring and I still enjoy monster vs robots movies. 

So will Pacific Rim be a good movie? I haven't seen it yet so I can't say for sure, but I think it will be. Or perhaps I'm just ludicrously biased.

"I only speak two languages, English and Bad English"- Bruce Willis, The Fifth Element

That quote might as well be from me. 'Cept lose the "English" part. At least that's the case if you think about the term language in the typical sense. It's not for lack of trying either, I took multiple years of Spanish to little avail. 

That being said, if your definition of language is a bit looser, I probably speak more languages that most people. By my count I can "speak" at least 5 languages well, and I could probably get by with a half dozen more. The languages I speak are not your typical verbal kinds, for I am a programmer. If you want you can call me the "computer whisperer", but that'll never catch on. So where am I going with this?

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned my interest in video games. At the writing of this document my job is actually making video games (every little boys dream job I know). Making video games is fun and I enjoy it, but (and this is the point I wanted to make) there is a down side to being a video game programmer. 

MAGIC. To some people this is how video games and technology in general works. If the person I'm describing is you and you like it that way stop reading now, lest your magical kingdom come crumbling down.

There are a few very generic devices we programmers tend to use a lot, I'm only going to focus on one here though. TRIGGERS. Triggers are a very useful in programming, they are however a double edged sword. 

So what is a trigger? Typically a trigger is waiting for a specific event to occur. When that event happens it will 'trigger' some code to run. In most cases this is fine and works quite well. A good example would be automatic doors. They work in a similar way in video games to the way they work in real life. Automatic doors work by waiting for an object to be in front of their sensor, then the sensor tells the doors to open. In a video game it would probably work about the same, although the way it would get there would be a little different. Instead of the sensor being on top of the door there would probably be something more like a "pressure plate" in front of the door. When an object landed on the pressure plate it would trigger the code to open the door. Take the object off the pressure plate and the code to close the door will kick on.

So that's some of the good things about triggers. The down side for triggers is pretty detrimental though. I'm going to bring up two key examples of bad trigger usage. Example 1: Dead Space. The first time you play through dead space it's a pretty scary game, stuff busting out of walls just as you turn the corner, crazy things happening at just the right time. The first play through is great... unless that thing that popped out killed you. Then you have to play through the spot again, but this time you know exactly when and where that monster is going to be. Those events I just described are all trigger based. While the triggers give the control needed to pull off such excellent scares, they also make the game predictable and boring, at least after the first play through.

Example 2: Halo: Combat Evolved. Near the end of the game you get  in a situation where the ship you're on is getting ready to blow up. The core is overloading and is about to blow any minute!... as long as you hit the trigger. If you would prefer hide in a corner for hours on end you could just do that instead. The game does redeem itself with a totally awesome timed driving sequence. The problem with triggers here is flow of the game, it completely  takes any urgency out of what you might have been doing. I remember when I first played it I didn't know about triggers, so you know what I did? I ran. I ran as fast as I could. Because the ship was about to blow up. Was it actually going to blow up while I was still fighting my way out? no, but my urgency to try and escape was off the charts. And you know what? IT. WAS. AWESOME. 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is this: I wouldn't trade my computer science knowledge for anything, it's gotten me where I am today. But that knowledge comes with a price, I may never get to appreciate the Magical qualities of games the way I did when I was a kid. And while it's sad that I may never have that feeling again, the fact that I can probably figure out how to make my own game that does the same thing is pretty sweet.

That first awkward post that will look NOTHING like the others

"Hold onto your butts"- Samuel L. Jackson, Jurassic Park. 

Congratulations, You have just made a classic internet mistake and clicked on the wrong link. Don't worry, I won't judge you, it happens to the best of us. I'll just wait here patiently for you close this page and do something else.

.

.

.

Still waiting...

.

.

.

And a little more for good measure...

.

.

.

And you're gone!

.

.

.

Ooooooooooor not. Alright, you appear to be here to actually read my blog. I suppose this was bound to happen at some point, So I might as well share my plans for the immediate future of this blog:

1. Random musings. 

2. Attempts at actual advice.

3. Talking about things I like.

4. Talking about things I don't like.

5. Pacific Rim. (see 3)

6. Ian Goldsmith and Chris Bowden. (see 4)

7. Video games.

8. "Is this art?"-Featuring April Czarnetzki(if I can afford her services)

9. More random musings.

10. The mantis shrimp.

You should know that I try not to take life too seriously, and this blog will be no different. 

Some typical background information is in order:

WHO: Kurt Giese (that's me!)

WHAT: I already went over that

WHERE: Cedar Falls, IA. Or the internet.

WHEN: Now. Or when you're reading it, so later.

WHY: Because I like you, and I promised I would. I'm a man of my word

Anyway I suppose I should explain the title, but I'm not going to, so tough. Check back later for something that will inevitably  be wildly incoherent and make little sense.