We need to talk about Elite: Dangerous

My brand new very old game!

Thanks NASA!

So, I've been playing Elite:Dangerous quite a bit recently. So much in fact that I fried my computer back in December and had to rebuild it. I felt rushed to do so because I'm enjoying it so much.

Some history of my life as a gamer: way back in the day, I was quite enamored with flight simulators. Mostly, I loved them because those were the only video games I was allowed to own (well, that and Myst). I dutifully flew around in Microsoft Flight Simulator '95 for a few months until I was able to convince my family to let my buy X-wing vs TIE Fighter. I freaking loved that game and flight sims were my go-to games until about 1999 when I discovered Homeworld.

Elite: Dangerous is in many ways a flash back to my childhood in a X-wing cockpit. There's nothing between you and the cold black of space except some windows and a shimmering blue force field.

This is just a random screenshot, not my cockpit. 

Space; the final Frontier. 

But, I've grown up a little bit and merely making a space combat flight-sim wouldn't ordinarily be enough to entice me. What I also love about E:D is the developer's comittment to building an accurate representation of the the Milky Way. Here's a small bit from a recent Polygon article:

To create Elite’s gamespace, Braben’s team started with as much information as they could gather about 160,000 known star systems from our galaxy. The trouble is, so very few planets have been discovered outside our own solar system. To fill the gaps Braben’s team created the Stellar Forge, a methodology that uses procedural generation to extrapolate out the composition and orbit of all the undiscovered exoplanets in our galaxy.

Braben used acutal models from the ESA and NASA to build his procedural generation engine. At this point, the game is capable of accurately (to the best of our current knowledge) recreating 400 billion stars systems! Moreover, the developers continue to update the galaxy with new information as it becomes available. About 1 month after the game was released, NASA's Kepler telescope found the most earthlike planet we've ever found, Kepler 438b. The next game patch featured this little gem:

- Updated exoplanets Kepler 438 b and 442 b

That's a pretty cool commitment! Although, exploration is only one aspect of the game, some of the community seeks to explore. A group of around 1000 players have organized an expedition to explore as much of the galaxy as possible. The game allows exploration as a full time pursuit with players able to sell planetary and celestial data to various entities. The logistics of long distance trips are pretty interesting. Ships need fuel and repairs but the galaxy is only populated within a certain radius of Earth. From what I can tell, it's about 300 light-years in any direction. Without nearby stations, ship captains have to employ the dangerous strategy of scooping hydrogen from stars. Of course, that it limited by how much heat damage the ship can withstand.

This image is a lie. You never get to exit your pilot seat.

Such complexities draw me further into the environment created by E:D. Heat management is actually fairly crucial since there aren't easy ways to rapidly dissipate the heat generated by ship components. Similarly, ships have limited fuel and limited power generation capacity so a balancing act is always required. Want to load your ship up with freaking lasers? Be careful not to use so much power that your engines and shields are weakened. Want that 20+ light year jump engine? You'll have to sacrifice cargo capacity and armor.

Pew Pew!

Oh, and there's the option to fly with nearly full Newtonian flight rules applied. Traveling at 400km/s in one direction? Then you'll have to work hard to cut that speed before you can suddenly turn around and head in the opposite direction. Luckily, you can enable a flight assist computer to make flying much easier but (those trade-offs again!) you'll handicap your maneuverability a little bit. The game is rather unforgiving in that way. You'll never really get a single ship that excels at every role. While a well rounded ship is possible, it'll always have limitations which a specialized ship doesn't.

Trade is another major aspect of the game. Populated systems have multiple stations each with multiple factions offering a variety of missions. Some are for smuggling, some are above the board. Some are bounty missions. Or, you could just buy commodities from a station and go off in search of somewhere to sell your cargo. Some systems even produce rare goods which increase in value the farther you get from their originating system. You're incentivized  to spend time finding profitable trade routes. Just watch out for pirates: both NPCs and players can attack and take your cargo.

Yeah, you flight straight inside the station and land. It's always fraught with danger. Just looking at this docking bay makes me nervous. 

Trading is how I spend most of my time in game. I bought the game's equivalent of a U-haul and ferry precious metals and mineral extractors back and forth between a high tech space station and a small orbital mining platform 9 light years away. It's super routine and repetitive and I love it. No, you don't understand. I LOVE it. Days that I'm not working, I wake up, get Lisa out the door in one piece, make some coffee, and settle in for some trade runs. I keep some interesting reading or Netflix on the laptop while I pilot my ship around. The turnaround time between stations is about 5 minutes so I only have to complete a few runs before I can invest the proceeds in a new ship or some kind of upgrade. If I get bored of the trade run, I can swap my space U-haul for a sleek fighter and go hunting criminals or I can get my long range exploring ship and take a few rare goods across colonized space while gathering some map data at unexplored systems along the way.

Technically, Elite: Dangerous is an MMO. There are thousands of players active at any given time and the number is growing. But, remember that space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly bit it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's juts peanuts to space. The starting positions of players are not random but they are fairly spread out. Since leaving the systems I started in, the only place where I routinely encountered other humans was when flying around Sol. That's not to say I haven't had a few run-ins.

Cool Story Bro.

Right after I bought my shiny new space U-haul (literally like 10 minutes), I was ripped out of hyperspace by a player who kindly requested I eject some of my cargo as "toll" for passing through that system. I put max power to engines and began a wide spiraling turn away from his Cobra. I had no weapons and only basic armor and shields. Escape was the only option but his ship was faster than mine. He asked again for my cargo and in a volley of laser fire my shields were down. He didn't press the attack though and my jump engines were back online. Just as I hit my jump button, the HUD flashed red and informed me a missile was launched.  At the point it was a race between the missile and my hyperdrive's time to spin up. The ship computer counts down: 4...3...2...1... and I jump away.

This is what a space U-haul looks like. 

I was secure in my victory for about 2 seconds before I was again interdicted. As my ship dropped out of hyperspace, I pulled up my sensor menu and saw that the same player had somehow followed my jump and nabbed me immediately. My shields were still down and my ship was spinning from the interdiction. The player didn't say anything this time. He began pelting my bare hull with laser fire and warning messages began coming up over my HUD: Thruster failure, life support failure, sensor failure. Then the warning I was sure would kill me: incoming missile.His range was so close I had no time to maneuver. With a loud clang, the missile latched onto my hull and began drilling into my cargo bay. A limpet drone! Valuable metals began jettisoning into space ans the drone reached into my hold and pillaged my ship. I tried to spin up my jump drive but the drone also stops your ability to jump. I'd have to wait until it was done and my cargo hold was empty. I was still spinning but I had managed to get a little more distance between me and the player. A message came across my comms: "There, that wasn't so hard was it?"

"Okay," I though to myself, "this guy is flaunting his superiority." Fuming, I wheeled my ship around and saw that he was slowly gathering the bits of cargo which trailed my ship. The drone had stopped by that point and most of the cargo was gone. The Cobra's pilot (Cobra Commander if I'm feeling cheeky) wasn't pay any attention to me. A quick glance at the senors showed he had his cargo scoop deployed and was moving about very slowly.  My ship, however, had largely recovered from the attack and I still had several minutes of oxygen left. I could either limp away with most of my cargo gone, or I could try to take him out. Now, my ship had no weapons so the only way I could hope to damage his ship would be to ram it.

All power to engines, maximum thrust, and shields up, I hit the unsuspecting pirate squarely amidships. His Cobra was only about half the size of my cargo ship but my hull was at about 50% integrity. It was enough. We both spun off in different directions and as my ship broke apart I saw his Cobra explode, followed shortly by my own ship's fiery death. I re-spawned at the last starport I'd been at and repurchased my space U-haul. I also spent the remainder of my funds on defensive measures. Next time a player tries to rob me, I'd have a better chance of escaping and fighting back. Only, nobody's tried to rob me since then. In fact, I haven't even seen another player for about a week. For me, that's appealing.

Nobody's perfect.

Now, just because I love the game doesn't mean it's perfect. Bugs are becoming more and more scarce with each patch but they are still a bit too frequent. And there are a lot of features still to come. At this point, you can't exit your ship and walk around on the space stations. You can't land on planets. Players can't trade directly with each other and they can't really play as a group easily. (It pretty much involves each player following the one in front of them to go to the same place. They're technically together but they're not really grouped like you'd expect from a multiplayer game.) Moreover, Frontier, the developer, got in a lot of hot water by promising completely offline gameplay  during their crowd funding campaign and then backing away from the promise just before official launch. Some of their announced features are also planned for paid expansions which irks many potential players. Sure there are no monthly fees but who wants to buy a space game and then have to pay for the expansion which lets you exit the ship and walk around?

There's also a big competitor around the corner, Star Citizen. It promises much of the same kinds of gameplay but they are taking their time to slowly implement every feature before launch. But, as good as that game looks, E:D is playable right now and SC is slated for launch in 2016. That's a lot of time for E:D to shape up.

All in all, I think I enjoy Elite: Dangerous so much because it fits my lax style of play so well. Sure, I can enjoy intense TIE Fighter throwback combat but I can also relax and run cargo around while reading blogs or watching a movie. The fact that the game doesn't really penalize me for doing either is something which I think any MMO could learn from. There's really no pressure on me and that means I never feel like playing is a chore. If you're itching for some fun and often difficult space fairing adventure, take a look a Elite:Dangerous.

Oh, and you can't have crew members so that other chair will always be empty. 

1/29/15 Today's Inquiries

Poverty + Distance = Crazy grannies trying to bite the ER staff. (Also, I think I'll be parenthetical today.)


The Links:

Here's your quote of the year about Mitt Romney: (oxymoron much?)

If he runs again in 2016, Romney is determined to rebrand himself as authentic...

More on the Scam PACs out to take money from well meaning conservatives. Or is this the same article I linked before? Who knows. No word on whether the GOP has realized the entire right wing election industry is designed to separate fools from their money.

Topic of the Week: Secession! A quick overview by Arnold Kling. I think there is a place where his #1 is in effect right now: Syria.

1. Alex endorses the idea of a region in which several governments compete to offer public services.

A good piece about how the social safety net enables entrepreneurialism.

In a 2014 study, he found that food-stamp assistance makes people significantly more likely to start businesses. Again, the data supports the hypothesis that “cuddly capitalism” boosts risk-taking, rather than discouraging it.

42 states saw a decrease in unemployment in December.

Obama scraps his plans to tax college savings plans due to the disproportionate impact on hedge fund managers.

Glenn Greenwald really hates the journalistic establishment. So, it's no surprise that he goes to the mattresses over Johnathan Chait's recent article about political correctness and free speech.

Being aggressively, even unfairly, criticized isn’t remotely tantamount to being silenced. People with large and influential platforms have a particular need for aggressive scrutiny and vibrant critique. The world would be vastly improved if we were never again subjected to the self-victimizing whining of highly compensated and empowered journalists about how upset they are that people say mean things online about them and their lovely and talented friends.

Smart words about terrorism. (Or: The Empire Strikes Back.)

…the truth is, in the contemporary world, Christians won big. And the frustration and humiliation that Muslims now feel as a result can help explain terrorism. That frustration and humiliation is rooted in politics rather than sex and in modern experience rather than deep history. And it has little to do with the Koran.

Oil and the North-South divide in Nigeria.

Is Sweden overrated? The Norwegians say yes.

What Silicon Valley thinks of women.

Anita Sarkeesian posted all of the threatening tweets she received in 1 week. There were 157 of them. Needless to say, trigger warning.

"Racially progressive" millennials are pretty much just as racist as the generations before them. Never underestimate the effects of privilege.

Such studies serve as proof that the white community tends to be extremely disconnected and oblivious to the realities of racism in America and what impact it has on people of color.

If Frodo had Google Maps: (or: One does not simply ask Siri how to walk to Mordor.)

Ta Nehesi-Coates writes about changes coming to the Spider Man comics.

I was 11 years old when Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were married.

1/27/14 Today's Inquiries

These snowstorm spectaculars remind me exactly how much Ney York has an outsized influence on the media. 

The Links:

I'm trying to wrap my head around the situation in Greece this week. Krugman has a pretty good summary with links to some other pretty good summaries. Basically, we're not in the same boat as we were in the Summer of 2010 and again in 2011. Back then, all the greek debt was held by German and French banks. Those banks' positions were so large that no single country in the EU had enough money to bail them out if the Greeks defaulted. The solution was to have the ECB and other central authorities buy that debt. And they did. Today, the vast majority of the Greek debt is held by the public - that is, by the ECB. I feel like that makes an EU exit far more likely but far less damaging. Also, I like the point that the debt is basically a phantom at this point: an imagined sum which could be anything depending on what the policy makers decide to do. Maybe they roll it over. Maybe they ask for lots of concessions. Maybe they seek payment in gyros and olives. At this point, it is all a political game and not an actual financial problem. More here. 

You probably aren't surprised, but Wall St. is the biggest threat to the American middle class. 

What role did credit play in replacing wage growth in the 2000s?

But when Adelino, Severino, and Schoar look at the individual level they find a positive correlation. In other words, mortgage credit was going to individuals who were seeing positive income growth. The authors show that the borrowers who were receiving the credit weren’t those at the bottom of the income ladder, but rather those at the middle and the top. And the credit growth appeared to be in proportion to income growth: The debt-income-ratio didn’t appear to change much during the bubble years.

Good news everyone! The Obama administration is going to open the Atlantic coast to oil and gas drilling. Still think he's not a republican?

The bottom line is this: Energy has contributed to job creation, but so have many other industries.

Were oil and gas jobs the primary source of job growth following the great recession? Not so much, but that doesn't stop people from saying it like it's true. 

Nursing homes are increasingly asking to have power of attorney over their patients. Mostly so they can extract income from their senile and demented patients. 

The Koch consortium is planning to spend a record amount of money on the next election. Remember, it's not just about the presidency. It's also about state and local elections, which have been areas of success for right wing activists. 

So let's watch several 2016 hopefuls try to be one-up each other in praising the Kochs.

RUBIO: No, here's the point. I believe in freedom of speech. I think that political spending and political activism is a form of protected speech. There is a gentleman out there who has radical environmental ideas, who has spent tens of millions of dollars, lost most of his races but spent tens of millions of dollars attacking Republicans who didn't want to support his radical environmental agenda. He has a right to do that! I believe in freedom of speech and I believe that spending money on campaigns is a form of political speech that is protected under the Constitution. And the ones who seem to have a problem with it are the ones that only want unions to be able to do it, their friends in Hollywood to be able to do it, and their friends in the press to be able to do it.

Here's your roundup of the latest anti-science bills in front of state legislatures. I wonder how many states have passed the same bill year after year?

So, business leaders in Iowa are worried that climate change is going to harm corn crops. How will this play out when all the climate denying republicans show up for the primaries?

Nursing homes are increasingly asking to have power of attorney over their patients. Mostly so they can extract income from their senile and demented patients. 

Politicians are supporting the Comcast Time Warner merger with letters ghostwritten by Comcast.Corruption comes to Roswell, GA. 

On August 21st, 2014, Mayor Jere Wood of Roswell, Georgia, sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission expressing emphatic support for Comcast’s controversial effort to merge with Time Warner Cable.

Climate driven technical change: seasonality and the invention of agriculture. Well, at least there's a precedent for humanity surviving climate change. 

Cities and he environment, a first order effect. 

So a one percentage point increase in urbanization is associated with an 81 mile per year reduction in driving.

I'd describe this as the mad scientist's solution to a goat invasion. Although hunting them did fail...

And there's apparently a similar plan in the works for mosquitoes in Florida. 

The German government is funding a BSG LARP on an actual destroyer. Which is, I suppose, as close to a battlestar as you can get. 

1/25/15 Today's Inquiries

Buttered Coffee


The Links:

Global Warming is going to make living in the midwest suck. Chicago is going to become like Texas.

Yemen is looking like a wonderful place. First a coup and now a divided government. Glad to see the anarchy keeps spreading. Contrary to popular belief, middle east anarchy and internecine warfare is good for US security. As long as we stay out of it. D'oh!

Fascinating look at the labor force participation rate. Basically, the poorest portion of the population is working more while the moderately wealthy (3rd quartile) are working less. Evidence of both the hollowing out of good middle class jobs and that the poor are working more than they used to.

In the bottom 10 percent of households by household income, 33 percent of individuals participated in the labor market in 1998-1999. By 2011-2013 this proportion was 44 percent. At the other end of the household income distribution, the rate of labor market participation fell from 81 to 76 percent. The largest decline was for individuals living in households in the third quartile of the household income distribution, where the participation rate fell from 74 percent to 68 percent. ...

Most of the decline in participation occurred among teenagers and young adults. The finding that these effects tend to be larger in more prosperous families points strongly away from much of a role for rising influence of benefit programs, because these programs, especially food stamps, are only available to families with incomes well below the median.  

Redefining full time work, Obamacare, and employer benefits.

One of the U.S. Congress’s first acts of 2015? Trying to redefine what counts as full-time work, from 30 hours a week up to 40. 

Just over 50% of Americans want single payer health insurance.

The battle between capital and labor. Here's my advice: invest like "capital" but vote for labor.

Wealth is not income, income is not consumption. This is a bit of a critique of the recent Oxfam report on global inequality and coverage of that report. For example:

Oxfam report (and in the report on which Oxfam study is based, Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report for 2014) that among the bottom decile  of adults, that is, among those with zero net wealth, there are about 40 million Americans and more than 50 million Europeans. That came as a shock: how can almost 100 million people from the rich world be among the poorest people on earth? ...

Finally, wealth, especially when we look at the rich, is the source of both economic and political power. It is not people who are running huge, and hard to repay, credit card debts, who are likely to be "players" by contributing to the political campaigns, influencing policy and setting legislative agenda. It is the global top 1% who own half of world's wealth, or within the United States, the top 1% who own about 35% of net wealth, who wield political influence. 

Grading the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's annual letter.

to preview, my overall grade is a B.

I have three reasons:

1. Over-claiming: Making big steps sound like monumental leaps
2. Providing solutions that will work best in the countries that will probably grow anyways
3. Downplaying the harder barriers these breakthroughs won’t solve

Last week's Economist correctly blamed energy subsidies for a large chunk of carbon emissions. It's generated some buzz. Followup here.

By one count, such handouts [energy subsidies] led to extra consumption that was responsible for 36% of global carbon emissions in 1980-2010

Speaking of subsidies, Joni Ernst, who bragged about her family's self reliance and wore breadbags on her feet, received $460,000 in farm subsidies.

Romney is not polling well vs Clinton right now. There goes his biggest argument, that he can beat Hillary.

Are we going to see a bloodbath among tech startups valued over $1 billion?

Stop me if you've heard this one: video of a NJ cop shooting a black man with his hand up in the "don't shoot" position.

Gaming while black. One reason I don't play much multiplayer is exactly the casual sexism, racism, and generally threatening environment which seems to pervade much of the experience.

"I'd love to say no, but the frequency with which I'm called a nigger by people while playing Counter-Strike begs to differ," he said. "It's worth noting that every slur thrown out on voice chat – 'nigger,' 'faggot,' 'pussy,' 'dyke' – is really code for 'different', in the same way that 'relatable' when spoken by a marketer is shorthand for 'straight, white and male.' But I don't think it's unique to the game industry at all. The racial issues we deal with are endemic in our society; just so happens the gaming industry is a part of society as well."

The "secret" Douglas Adams RPG people have been playing for the last 15 years. Except Starship Titanic is hardly a secret. I can remember looking at it's box in the various stores where I bough video games.

1/22/15 Today's Links

Mmmm...cliff bars. I have many links to share today since I've been slacking recently.


The Links:

I'm not going to post on the SOTU speech except to say that it's too little too late. Where were these left-leaning measures in, say, 2009?

Bush's 2003 cut in dividend taxes did nothing to improve the economy. Yeah, but it helped the 1%.

The US and UK will be holding joint cyber warfare games to protect Wall St. and other large financial firms. Great.

It is the government's job to respond to cyber attacks. Yeah, which is why Cameron was on TV calling for mandatory back doors in all software and for outlawing all forms of encryption. You know, to keep us safe.

More abuse of power by Comcast et.al. as municipal broadband is blocked in Missouri through heavily lobbied legislative work.

The 1% tend to underestimate the effects of good fortune.

Are the returns on a college education going to decline in the future?

How middle-class black kids become poor black adults.

The explanations for this phenomenon are varied, but largely hinge on many of the criticisms that already exist in regard to socioeconomics and race in the U.S. Economists cite lower educational attainment, higher rates of single-parent households, and geographic segregation as potential explanations for these trends. The latter determines not only what neighborhoods people live in, but often what types of schools children attend, which could play a role in hindering their educational and professional attainment later on. According to Reeves, "In terms of opportunity, there are still two Americas, divided by race."

Feel really sad for rich kids. They're orphans with parents.

Why yes, our state and local taxes are regressive, why do you ask?

Once again, poor people were not to blame for the housing crisis. The givernment didn't force banks to lend money to the poors so they could buy mansions.

When we break out the volume of mortgage origination from 2002 to 2006 by income deciles across the US population, we see that the distribution of mortgage debt is concentrated in middle and high income borrowers, not the poor. Middle and high income borrowers also contributed most significantly to the increase in defaults after 2007. These results are consistent with an interpretation where house price expectations led lenders and buyers to buy into an unfolding bubble based on inflated asset values, rather than a change in the lending technology.

The effects of school spending on educational and economic outcomes.

Exogenous spending increases were associated with sizable improvements in measured school quality, including reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries, and longer school years.

What can SimCity's problem with homelessness teach us about real world perceptions of homelessness?

Mitt Romney believes in Global Warming again.

He also tackled climate change, describing himself as "one of those Republicans" who believe the world is getting warmer and people contribute to the temperature changes and calling for "real leadership" to deal with coal emissions.

Let's revisit Paul Ryan's 2009 OpEd about the looming danger of inflation. Yeah, about that...

Since 2016 is in sight, let's start smearing the reputation of potential GOP candidates. Here's Dr. Ben Carson, John Hopkins neurosurgeon:


More news on the Grifters-gotta-grift front: Heaven is not for real. Child who allegedly died and went to heaven recants his testimony. Apparently his dad just wanted to make a bunch of money selling books.

If you challenge authority, you are now considered mentally ill. Strangely, I feel like we live in an age where authority, expertise, and hard data are utterly meaningless to most of the population.

QVC is for stupid people.


Here's a bunch of pictures of babies about 20 seconds after they were cut out of the womb. This is what my wife is going to spend her life doing.

A good take down of the privilege inherent in how we think about kids and the internet.

Andrew’s depiction of his peers’ use of social media is a depiction of a segment of the population, notably the segment most like those in the tech industry. In other words, what the tech elite are seeing and sharing is what people like them would’ve been doing with social media X years ago. It resonates. But it is not a full portrait of today’s youth. And its uptake and interpretation by journalists and the tech elite whitewashes teens practices in deeply problematic ways.

Bitcoin, GoldBugs, and Money. Yeah, my 0.0076 bitcoins aren't really worth that much anymore.

O’Brien is correct. The reason for bitcoin’s wild price volatility is that many people -- not just O’Brien’s “libertarians,” but many others -- fail to understand the difference between money and risky long-term assets.

So just how great was that whole Caliphate thingy anyway?

Finally someone acknowledged that Ralph Waldo Emerson is full of shit. As are all transcendentalists.

The effects of stories on the brain. For some reason, we have a picture of Hemingway in a completely absurd writing locale.

The dog that played Toto in The Wizard of OZ was paid more than the actors who played the Munchkins.

Top Gear with Legos:


Every single user interface in Star Wars IV.

I finally rebuild my computer.

You may recall that I wanted to rebuild my machine a few months ago but planned on waiting for holiday sales and what not. In early December, my PC bit the bullet and mostly stopped functioning for tasks which required the graphics processing unit to, well, work. That meant my gaming had to go on hiatus until I replaced that part. But why replace a single part when the whole machine is getting on in years? I originally built my PC in January 2009 with fairly top of the line parts which had been released just prior to the holidays in 2008. It was time to rebuild my PC.

Many people are proponents of buying low cost but with an upgrade path. Maybe you spend $60 on a cheap dual core CPU and a $150 on graphics and another $100 on a motherboard. Add in some RAM, PSU, hard drive, and a case and you're going to be able to build a decent gaming PC for about $500. The idea is to have a gaming PC that's competent enough now and that you can put better parts into later. Next summer you get a better CPU. After that you upgrade the graphics. Later still you buy an SSD or more RAM. I typically find people express this as the best approach because it allows you have a system that grows with your needs. At the start, it's about a costly and efficient as an X-box or PlayStation but can be improved later in ways they can't.

I reject that approach entirely. When I built my first gaming PC in 2005, right at the end of my freshman year of college, I was totally in the "build now upgrade later" camp. And guess what, by the time 2009 came around, I hadn't upgraded my PC at all. Maybe it was laziness on my part but the changing technology also played a role. When I started looking into improving my machine, I realized that the newest CPUs and GPUs wouldn't even fit because the physical slots and connectors had changed and improved. The best CPU I could buy was the top of the line CPU from 2004, not the top of the line CPU from 2008. The same goes with almost every other part of that machine.

When I built my PC in 2009, I decided to spend lots of money up front so that the hardware I used would remain current for as long as possible. That meant shelling out hundreds for the first Intel true quad core chip, the i7-920. Also, that chip was an epic overclocker. It ran at a stock 2.66ghz but I used it at 3.8ghz the entirety of the time I owned it. It meant buying a motherboard which used the brand new DDR3 memory which both had a big price premium attached because they were new. I bought top of the line graphics and an interface (PCI-express 2.0) which was set to remain the standard for several years. The results were stunning at the time and rarely required an upgrade. I changed 3 things with this computer. 1. I upgraded my graphics card to play Skyrim. 2. I bought an SSD. 3. I bought more RAM.

So, strangely, the computer that I didn't plan on upgrading got more upgrades. It had the benefit of being fast at the start, powerful enough to handle new games as the came out years later, and advanced enough that new technologies wouldn't pass it by too quickly. For example, I could very easily have purchased a new GPU to replace the broken one and kept playing brand new games at high settings on my Hi-Def monitor for, I don't know, 2 more years probably. So, yeah, that's my philosophy of gaming PC building: Go big or go buy a console.

Which brings us to today's build. I've basically replicated by 2009 build using today's newest top of the line components. I'll put a list a little bit later but I want to give you a summary. First off the CPU/Motherboard/RAM are all part of Intel's new X-99 chipset. Basically, they're the features and parts that mainstream computers will see introduced in the next 2 years: DDR4 RAM, high efficiency 6-8 core CPUs, and faster onboard interfaces like PCI-express 3.0, USB 3.0, Sata 3, M.2 Storage, and numerous other things. I picked the GPU with a lot of trepidation. Right now, I wanted a GPU which did 2 things: 1. vent hot exhaust from the rear of the case. 2. Could play any game currently out at 1080p with max settings and achieve more than 60fps. I my mind that makes the card a little future proof so I won't have to upgrade for a while. With 4k displays growing in popularity and dropping in price, I needed a card to last me until I make the switch to a 4k display. I wanted a case with good airflow and low noise. I opted, controversially, for a case without space for a DVD/CD drive because Steam, Netflix, YouTube, etc. Also, I bought the fastest SSD. The end. It's actually faster than the Sata 3 interface I just told you was top of the line.

Here's the list for any who are interested:

[PCPartPicker part list](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/T9KsWZ)

**CPU** | [\*Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor]
(http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80648i75820k)
**CPU Cooler** | [\*Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-cpu-cooler-h100i)
**Motherboard** | [\*Asus X99-A ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-x99a)
**Memory** | [\*Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m4a2800c16)
**Memory** | [\*Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m4a2800c16)
**Storage** | [\*Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7ke512bw)
**Video Card** | [PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB XLR8 Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/pny-video-card-vcggtx9704xpb)
**Case** | [\*NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case]
(http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-cah440ww1)
**Power Supply** | [\*Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-ax760i)

Rather than bore you any more than I already have with all the build details, I'll put some pictures up of the build.

Here's the new motherboard.
You'll notice I am trying to follow a black and white theme. 

For comparison, here's my old motherboard. 

The new CPU.

My new RAM with some of the fans I'm using in my build. 

Here's the CPU in socket with cooling compound in place.
You can also see I've put the RAM in. 

This is looking through the case toward the front.
I've put the radiator right up front to give it the most cool air. 

This is a view of the front with the cover off.
The red fans are special high static pressure fans
designed for use with a radiator. There's also a
dust filter which covers the front fans so the case
stays nice and clean inside. 

An outside view of the case with all the covers off.
There are three fans up top for exhaust and another in
the back. I shouldn't have to worry about airflow.

The GPU prior to installation.

Everything's wired up and running. I didn't have a very clean build last time so I prioritized getting as many wires out of the way as possible.  Hopefully this will translate into better airflow to the motherboard and GPU. The black and white theme looks pretty good. 

Here's the completed product under my desk with the requisite rat's nest of cable and wires. Luckily, the insides are nice and clean. 

That's pretty much it. The PSU and hard drive are in the large space hidden below the main compartment. I do plan on overclocking but I will use the computer at stock settings for a little while to be sure it is stable. I'll probably post a quick piece about the overclock sometime in Feb. when I attempt it. Overall, I've accomplished my goals and added a little bit of vanity to boot (it kinda reminds me of a storm trooper). Now that it's a fully functional gaming machine, I plan to write more about This War of Mine and probably some other games I'm playing.

1/15/15 Today's Inquiries

Good morning.


The Links:

Some more good economic news: job openings were up 21% year over year for November. It remains to be seen whether or not that will translate into rising wages since companies aren't in much of a hurry to fill positions. More here.

But, full employment won't solve the problem of stagnant wages.

So, Barry wants to let localities set up their own internet (something which various state legislatures have blocked at the behest of internet companies). With local government spending on all other infrastructure falling, is this the best idea? So, I'm torn. While I don't know that many localities will be able to afford running fiber everywhere, I support any action which challenges the current ISP monopolies. The fact that private investment is growing doesn't necessarily mean that competitors are emerging.

Here are some staggering statistics: Since 2006, state and local real investment in highways and streets has fallen by 22%.  Their spending on sewer systems, in real terms, is also down by 22%. And real investment by state and local governments in water systems has fallen by a stunning 34% (chart below).

Meanwhile, over the same period, private real investment by telecommunications and broadcasting companies is up by 13%, according to statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Conservatives in name only. Yeah, it's never been about principles or making the country a better place. The only point to politics today is to generate rents for your patrons. For example: The Republican assault on Dodd-Frank intensifies. Dodd-Frank was deeply flawed to begin with but it gave away more to left-patrons than right-patrons, hence the GOP move to dismantle it.

The term corruption is so inclusive as to be almost meaningless.

Which Mitt Romney is going to run for President this time? There's only one Mitt Romney, and that's the one he pretends to be in order win. So, we had moderate Romney, then "severely conservative" Romney, and next we'll get populist Romney. Just how empty is this guy? His team criticized Jeb Bush for being out of office for a long time. Guess what? Romney and Jeb left the governor's office at the same time.

How should the left look at finance?

This tells us two things. One is that markets don't give a toss about government borrowing. Negative interest rates are a strong argument against austerity. The other is that low rates reflect low growth expectations - secular stagnation (pdf) if you will. This is consistent with the Marxianclaim that capitalism has run out of oomph, that the relations of production have become fetters on the economy, perhaps because inequality holds back growth.

Secondly, the markets should teach us humility. Anyone who's worked in them for more than a few moments know that trades go wrong, that regulations backfire and that we are often surprised. Most unit trust managers under-perform (pdf) their benchmarks, and the performance of many hedge funds is mediocre.

Secular Stagnation, the US recovery, and Houses. A follow up to the Summers/Andreessen conversation which kicked off earlier this week.

I will discuss why I like Summers’s list of possible causes of secular stagnation after the jump, but here I just note that it is appropriately long. A model adicted economist would look at one possible explanation and assume away all the others. In fact the point (if any) of this post is to add another explanation — lower demand for housing.

The Big Short is being turned into a movie. I doubt it can do the financial stuff justice but I'll see it anyway. I'd really like a movie made of Liar's Poker.

Ta-Nehisi Coates visits Paris. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

I am here for a little while longer. My hope is that by the time I leave I will have graduated from "Internet smart" to the ranks of the "sort of knowledgeable." I'm talking to everyone I can. I'm reading as much as I can. I'm endangering previously agreed-upon deadlines. History is happening around me and I am not equipped to understand. I am mostly unequipped because I only have the barest understanding of the emotional aspects of patriotism. I have spent the past week asking people what,precisely, they believe themselves to be defending. The answers have been fascinating

The NYPD will end their practice of arresting people only when it is absolutely necessary.

The plight of the bitter nerd: why so many awkward shy guys end up hating feminism.

Is bitcoin a Ponzi scheme for redistributing wealth from one libertarian to another? Real nerds mine Dogecoin anyway.

An interview with Agent Carter's Hayley Atwell. I've watched the first two episodes and I rather like the show. It has the depth of AoS and the various Marvell films, which is to say not much depth, but I love the feminist angle. It's somewhat blunt but, I think, adds some levity to patriarchy. Hey, it's network TV, you can't expect too much.

Billy Dee Williams will voice himself in The Rebels.

Whale testicle beer. I'd try it.

1/13/15 Today's inquiries

Why yes, Christmas blend is still the only good Starbucks coffee.


The Links:

Despite everything, Charlie Hebdo doesn't miss an issue.

I can only call this an excellent takedown of the Obama admin from a critic on the left. I agree with probably 90% of what's written here.

The notion that Democrats might have agency is shocking, I know, since it means they bear some responsibility for our unhappy situation. However, once you acknowledge that it might be true, it occurs to you that this simple and direct explanation might also be the key to all kinds of Democratic betrayals and failures over the years, from the embrace of NAFTA to the abandonment of the Employee Free Choice Act. Maybe these episodes weren’t failures at all. Maybe it’s time we confronted the possibility that these disasters unfolded the way they did because Democratic leaders wanted them to work out that way.

The percentage of government workers is at a 54 year low.

A small progressive victory as Warren et.al. stop Obama's treasury nominee. Because he's a complete banking industry mole.

The enforcement "slowdown" by the NYPD has cost the city $46 million in revenues. I'm glad to see that law enforcement is pretty much a profit driven enterprise. Also, makes the policies in Ferguson appear more widespread. What's interesting is that crime levels have remained low. Maybe that'll change if the slowdown lasts but I doubt it. I think the biggest impact on crime came from the gigantic ramp up in property prices making all the poor people leave the city.

Some Canadian guy gets Oxycodone from an urgent care clinic in the US. Decuded the entire US healthcare system is a scam. Per his Canadian doctor:

And just to be clear, you were deliberately underprescribed antibiotics to keep you from getting well so as to ensure that you’d keep going back for more visits and repeat oxy prescriptions. And your doctor was obviously in on some kind of racket with the pharmacist — all that coupon nonsense

Demographics, Unemployment, and Inflation.

It's a great time start subsidizing home buying. Well, it's always a "Great Time (tm)" to subsidize housing. Details here.

Larry Summers responds to Marc Andreessen's thoughts on secular stagnation.

Are we in for secular stagnation or stagflation? Quick, somebody call Volker.

Why aren't wages responding to a tightening job market?

Because it’s not as tight as that 5.6% unemployment rate would lead you to believe.

Everything is becoming like Uber. It reminds me of the article a few years back about standing in line at Whitewater water park and watching all the rich folks pay to jump to the front of the line. When surge pricing is the norm, only those who can afford to pay more will have access to services.

Silicon Valley turns its eye to education. Again? Wait, I thought we already disrupted things with MOOCs and iPads for every LAUSD kid? Also, I like the mental image I'm getting of Silicon Valley as Sauron.

2 promising things about US education.

First: Neerav Kingsland says that SAT scores of new teachers are rising and that most of them are staying in teaching for at least five years.

[Second] some charter schools appear to do very well, and on average charters do better at educating poor students and black students 

What can the Napoleonic Wars teach us about protecting infant industries? Apparently, the naval blockade of France acted as a protectionist measure allowing domestic French cotton and textiles to prosper.

Can the Black Death explain the industrial revolution?

Philosophy is for posh, white boys with trust funds. At what point do we acknowledge that every profession is great for rich white people? CompSci, STEM, Finance, Journalism, all are tons of fun if you're me.

Ghost in the Shell is Japanese. It's heroine, Major Motoko Kusanagi , is Japanese. Yet, the upcoming reboot is probably going to star a white lady like Scarlett Johansson.

The sad state of "lady tech."

You can't trust people who are nice all the time.

Those who are described as "agreeable, conscientious personalities" are more likely to follow orders and deliver electric shocks that they believe can harm innocent people, while "more contrarian, less agreeable personalities" are more likely to refuse to hurt others.

People are hacking their vehicles into self-driving cars. I'd love to find an old diesel Merc and put a self driving kit on it. Have it drive me to Atlanta and never have to stop because the range is about 700 miles.

1/9/15 Today's Inquiries

It's been a long time since I posted. The flu and a hectic work schedule have kept me from blogging.


The Links:

Here's your monthly employment report. 252k jobs, 5.6% unemployment. Commentary and analysis here.

Frontline, as always, is quality. However, the free video can not be embedded. Here it is on Youtube for some money:


It's best we don't forget how the Iraq War made some people very rich. I daresay that Fairfax County, VA would not be among the highest incomes in the nation if it weren't for all those lucrative government contracts.

Someone did the math on all the fossil fuels we need to leave in the ground. Guess what, it's pretty much all of them. So, we're pretty much farked. Drill baby drill! Keystone Tripple-XL! frack the planet! More here.

Is life better in Red States? Comment from Brad Delong:

This is why I think that the winning strategy for America over the next ten years will be to figure out how to make homeownership in Blue States much more affordable--via a combination of anti-NIMBYism, investments in transportation and other infrastructure, and a reconfiguration of housing finance, with appropriate subsidies for those trying to buy and appropriate wealth taxes on those who have benefitted from antisocial NIMByist local-government policies. Our current situation is one in which relatively small amounts of induced migration from Red States to Blue States would bring with them enormous economic-growth benefits, after all...

The new republican controlled state legislatures have just started. What do they have in store for us?

So, what happens when a robot breaks the law? Nobody knows. In this case, it's a "bot" whose algorithm led it to purchase drugs. I'd imagine that makes the programmer liable. But what if it's a self driving car that runs a red light? Or worse? The law is hardly ready to keep up with the automation of crime.

Harassed by algorithms. Yeah, what if we literally write privilege into our code?

Because, Move Fast and Break Things is a terrible motto if those "things" are people.

The Tech Elite is getting behind the idea of a universal basic income. Presumably as a way of driving down labor prices.

The rich believe the poor have it easy. I see lots of poor people with the physicians in the ER. I do not want their lives. Its hard and nobody cares for you or helps you out. Indeed, people seem more apt to shit all over your day for no real reason.

You know, like so called "Broken Windows" policing which acts as a tax on the poor because, well, they're poor. Somewhere along the line we started to believe that lots of government services needed to start generating their own revenues: police, student loans, the post office, just to name a few.

At least they get "free" community college. Lucky duckies.

Blame the rise of plutocrats on politics not capitalism. As if capitalism isn't a political system...

There may be no proven alternative to capitalism writ large. But there are stark choices, nonetheless, for there are different kinds of capitalism. What makes many people uneasy is that Anglo-Saxon capitalism is heading towards a plutocratic model. The economy is run by the rich for the rich.

There are more jails than colleges in the US. That's not counting the local police departments where they lock up drunks for the night.

A wonderful list of racial biases with the research linked. Now I can prove you're racist!

We've perpetuated the myth of "Women and Children First" when the reality is every man for himself. So, patriarchy was a myth but chauvinism is quite real.

Differentiation doesn't work. Yes, but it helps school systems justify large class sizes and keep budgets under control.

Being empirical about teaching is hard.

Some thoughts on the Null Hypothesis in education and property values.

In Bryan’s story, the educational credentials play a causal role, because if you don’t get the credentials, you send an adverse signal. In my story, educational credentials are not a cause. They are a symptom of your future affluence, which is caused by the personality traits you inherited from your affluent parents. So when we observe clusters of well-educated young people in particular geographic areas, what we are observing are clusters of children of affluent adults.

Forbes highlights the to 30 under 30 in education. But there's a problem: none of them are teachers and only one works in education. Welcome to the future of schooling, where students are just another source of rents to be extract from the public by the government on behalf of industry. Or maybe they're just clusters of of well educated children of rich adults?

While Forbes is first and foremost an industry publication, a list about education naturally begets the question: where are the educators? Only one of the 41 honorees this year is working full-time within a school: Elena Sanina, blended learning manager at Aspire Public Schools. 

An economist evaluates the job market for English PhDs. It ain't good unless you went to Harvard or something. His recommendation:

“The majority of English graduate programs are preparing their students for jobs at research-focused universities, but most of their graduates do not get such jobs, and cannot expect to get such jobs,” the paper says. This suggests that a significant change in the content and structure of many programs is called for, with much more specialization in programs that train English generalists appropriate for more teaching-focused academic jobs and private sector jobs. They would provide far less preparation of students for academic research jobs that few of their students will get.

Nat Geo is giving NGT his own late night talk show based on his popular podcast. Stellar.

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