Greetings.

Lots on my mind tonight.

First, how can I keep putting off the "weekly-update-no-matter-what" after my self-disciplining tirade I made so long ago? Ugh, I swear I'll get better-organized, even if it means skipping eating or sleeping.

Second, in regards to last time's post...
I talked about MyMindShare, gave y'all a little run-down on how it works, and its goals and such. Well, about a week ago, I received an e-mail from Jim Bursch, the guy behind it. He thanked me for the write-up and went more in-depth on how they do the monetary calculations. As of last week, MyMindShare's cash flow is something like negative 640-something. Quite a jump from 15,000, huh?

I reckon Jim's a decent guy -- he comes off likable and knowledgeable from the way he writes, and I caught a bit of an "excited developer" feel from him too. Seems like he's kind of in the same boat we are, a little guy trying to make an entrance into a huge market. At any rate, we'll see how this turns out; I'll be checking up on MyMindShare periodically to see how things are going.

Third, I'm in a bit of a rut, if this month-plus-late update is any indication.
I started my second year of college about three weeks ago. It's fun, and challenging, and while I'm not burned out completely, there's quite a bit more going on over this time last year. In short, I'm pulling a bit more workload from my courses (plus two semester-long projects), more hours working (money, money, money), and the time left is spent decompressing, usually with video games, friends, et cetera. No, I won't pull the "no time to do stuff" crutch again, because as I've already said, it's not true. I could easily pull a few hours from decompression and still fend off a burnout...which I may end up doing.

The recent rut I've hit with ZHP development isn't helping, either. Here's the problem: I want to work on it...but at the same time, I don't want to work on it. Attributing this to laziness or time would be incorrect (as I've discussed above). In either case, I'm left with a "network" that I truly want to see realized, but can't make it happen...yet. Quite a paradoxical conundrum.

So lately, I've been tossing around a few ideas as to how to regain the "spark" of development. Part of me says I should quit bitching and do it anyways, but the other part (and vast majority) says that when I do stuff like that, I burn out. Experience dictates that the majority is right, so I'm left with the question of which idea to implement.

Truth is, I've basically made a decision -- I'm going back to modding UT. When I left long ago, I had a bunch of stuff unfinished (and even more not even started), including one project I essentially attached the existence of my eternal soul, contingent upon completion. That is...the Perfect Dark mod. If memory serves me correctly, I stopped at BetaV3, perhaps...20% completion. Lots of maps to do, lots of weapons to do, lots of gametypes to do...Oh, just tons of stuff to take care of! But in reality, it's all stuff that I like to do, and I'm really kind of excited to (eventually) be doing it again, even if it is obsolete by eight years.

So...yeah. This time, ZHP goes on the back burner. I may keep building it in between everything else, so I guess the status-quo has returned. Jack of all trades, master of none...that's me. I'd prefer it to be master of all, but what are you going to do?

Fourth (and final for the night)...ad-blocking.
Disclaimer: what I am about to say next (and, come to think of it, what I've been saying forever) is completely my opinion. I don't care whether you agree or disagree. So long as that's clear...
I forget when I first came across...this. My first reaction was disgust -- why block FireFox, the bastion of all things good and pure in the (virtual) world? You may be confused at this point -- if you scroll down the page, you will see the first post that provoked my disgust in its entirety.

Two thoughts at this point -- how serious is this, and why block FireFox at all. Reading the entire post cleared up both those points...but...I was still angry. Here were people telling me that I couldn't visit certain web sites because of the browser I used. Now, if I were using Mosaic or similar, it would be my own damn fault. But when one denies "visitation rights" (that sounds kind of weird in this context) to an estimated 25% of the web-surfing public, that's downright...mean. Granted, they weren't blocking FireFox for being FireFox. Rather, they were blocking FireFox for one of its most popular extensions: AdBlockPlus. The name is self-explanatory as to what it does, but here's a run-down on how it works (to my understanding)...

Everything on a web page has tags (or rather, should have tags). Advertisements are generally tagged as advertisements (for the HTML-literate, most likely using the "id" attribute). Call it an "invisible courtesy" from the advertisers to the consumer. AdBlockPlus examines everything on the page, and anything that identifies itself as an ad is not rendered. The object is still loaded, but is invisible. How, exactly, AdBlockPlus identifies an ad beyond the tags I mentioned before (if it even does that), is a mystery to me.

So the major beef that they have with AdBlockPlus is that it blocks all ads, regardless of their intrusion or annoyance. And, as we all know, on the Internets, ads = money. For some sites, ads are the only revenue they get; so while I can understand why they would get upset, I simply cannot relate with the mindset that the money is worth aggravating visitors. Granted, a very small minority of ads are actually non-intrusive, non-aggravating, and actually contribute to the page; they still get blocked.

HOWEVER! The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority (...vast) of ads are intrusive, exasperating annoyances that really deserve to get blocked, even if it means some webmaster won't get his penny for my (never-ever-would-think-about-clicking-that) click. As a webmaster myself, I can fully understand the appeals of the irresistible lure of money for putting a little banner on your site. I can't, in all good conscience, subject my visitors to ads, no matter what sort they are, even it it would mean the difference between being rich and being a college student. That's just simply against my principles.

I use FireFox, and I use AdBlockPlus, and together, they make the Internet a lot more enjoyable. Even if it isn't written down somewhere, we have the right to uninterrupted, unharassed, and unsolicited surfing.

That's all for now. If I keep my promise, there will be another update next Wednesday or Thursday. Maybe if I do this more often, the posts will be shorter and more readable in one sitting.

Old Perfect Dark mod stuff can be found at http://zerohour-productions.net/transfer/pdark, and, as always, forums are available for your discussion pleasure.

Mr. Bond, signing off.