Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ocean’s Eleven, Reservoir Dogs, Kick-ass, and the Usual Suspects: the four films that come to mind when asked about “G33k Mafia”. This novel follows the story of Paul, a comic-book artist, who after loses his job helps extort a large amount of money from his former employer with the help of a mysterious con-woman called Chloe, as he later joins their crew and their adventures.Like Ocean’s Eleven, this novel jumps right into the action, in which any geek can feel familiar with the crew of characters that include hackers and engineers, who live on the edge life. As the novel progresses, it is later found out that their is a traitor amongst their midst, like with our color named friends in the Tarantino debut of Reservoir Dogs. With the third reference of Kick-ass, Paul finds himself in the middle of the action as his changes his 9-5 comic lifestyle to that of beach parties in California with planning a coup d’état against right-wing radio hosts; either situation seemed like a potential nirvana for me. xDThe only complaint that I have about the book, is that I often felt that through halfway of the novel, there was no over-arching plot, but later, like in the film “The Usual Suspects”, all the parts come together.

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There have been moments before in my lifetime, and I’m pretty much sure in yours as well, that you have encountered that your refrigerator is lacking food. Now, this could be due to not having bought your groceries, or like in my case, the fridge has broken down. Apparently, the motor has overheated, thus preventing from working.

Naturally, all the food was removed from the broken fridge and accommodated to the wine fridge, and the small bedroom fridge, but these small appliances, not having the same power as the large kitchen fridge, have caused the food to spoil early.

Now, this bring me to a new idea: what if there were an app available on your smartphone, in which you could combine the ingredients, or pieces of food, that you have, and present to the user the possible meals, he or she could make. This would be in direct contrast to cooking sites, which present a recipe, and in some sort of way, command you to get certain ingredients, or the meal in question would be unsuccessful.

I’m an easy-going person! I wouldn’t want to run to the local farmer’s market to pick up radishes and eggs, so naturally, this would be a success for any college student. Additional features could also include preference for specific delicacies, wether it’d be Kosher or Thai. I would love that this ideal app be made open-source, but we’ve seen different. If you do create this app, or it already exists, let me know!

Like many trading card games, Magic the Gathering can be described as probably the most famous and the most successful. But with all good things in life, comes a price. In the Divine Comedy, much of the focus has been placed on the seven deadly sins, and if I continued to pursue playing MTG, I would have resulted in commiting each of the “seven deadlies“  along with a serious economic mealtdown, due to the cost of the sport.

When I refer the “cost of the sport”, I’m referring to the amount of money one has to spend if one where to play at an official MTG tournament. Most MTG tournaments consist of two divisions, standard or extended. In the standard division, one has to play with cards that pertain to a recent series (as defined by MTG). Now, I don’t know the average cost of a booster pack (pack of about ten cards), but “back in my day”, they would cost about five dollars. Add that to the amount a basic deck would cost, which was twenty dollars, and you have a basic setup.

This basic setup will not guarantee that you will win. If you believe that you would only have to spend about thirty dollars to be successful in MTG, you are sadly mistaken. If you have ever competed in any MTG tournament, you will soon find players who will own specific cards, which may be worth more than your entire “basic setup”, which would lead to an embarrassing defeat. One simple analogy that can be applied to this situation are NASCAR races. The

better the vehicle, the most likely to succeed.

As a youngster, I did take it upon myself to learn the “in’s and out’s” of the game, after TCG’s such as Pokemon and Digimon solely existed to collect the rare cards, not to compete with other kids. At the local comic book store, I happened to watch the teenagers play MTG, as well as sparring off in Dungeons and Dragons. Eager to find out what they were playing, I purchased a basic 7th edition Blue deck, to see what all the fuss was about.

Video games occassionally came out, including Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds (which I’m actually considering to pick up a copy and start playing), as well as MTG: Online, which one has to pay a monthly fee. This was discouraging, due to the fact, that like now, I’m “broke with student loans”, and one in a position like I am, could not afford to splurge money for magic. There were also previous MTG computer games in existence, but availability was scarce, as well as the lack of updates with the new editions. Instead of playing with all the series that had come out until the 8th edition, I would be conforming, to about half of the series, with cards only available up to the 4th edition.

There are several advantages to this, such as less restrictions, not only on the rules, but cards as well. There are cards, such as Time Warp (to see, click here), which allow you to take an additional turn; whose cost would exceed your whole ”basic setup”.

Now, as an adult, I often have to lead childish things behind. This is easier said than done, especially when you notice that two of your friends have just picked up the game. This is what has happened to me, two friends at YouMedia, got free decks of MTG cards at the CE2E conference, recently held here in Chicago. After seeing them astounded with the amount of possibilities of MTG, I couldn’t turn away.

That is truly “One sick bastard”. At the moment, I couldn’t believe that there would be a more iconic phrase to describe Gregory House. Like many viewers across the world, I’ve decided to watch the FOX television series, House M.D., in which the protagonist is Gregory House, a renowned crippled diagnostician, who seems to lack ability to have a decent relationship with any of his coworkers, let alone his patients. His sarcasm with his boss Cuddi is hilarious and I wonder what future episodes have in store for me. xD

Graham Wright, the keyboardist and vocalist of the indie-electronica band Tokyo Police Club (one of my favs! xD), has his own solo project which is totally worth checking out. His project, has produced one album and a single is available at his site here. It’s a bandcamp site, in which all of the music is available to download in various formats (FLAC is the best, read my article why here) at the “name your own price tag”. Keep in mind, he’s an indie artist, so a donation always helps.

In November 2008, Wright launched his first album, The Lakes of Alberta, which departs from TPC’s electronica style. Wright’s vocals in this album are much more distinguished by hitting higher pitches along his acoustic guitar. As a debut album, it won’t “shake the charts”, but it shows a promising future. Wright would have to handle separating his TPC style along with his solo effort to prevent what happened to The Postal Service, it sounds too much like Death Cab for Cutie.

One year later, Wright launched a single called, Crooked Moon, which isn’t as “folk peppy” as his first album, and focuses more on the pace of his acoustic guitar along with his quaint vocals.

Tokyo Police Club is one of my favorite bands of all time, so I definitely recommend checking out the solo project of one of the guys responsible for bringing to the world the Nature of the Experiment.

Although the national weather reports predict snowfall in the Chicagoland area this upcoming Sunday, March 21st, the Saint Ignatius College Prep Ultimate Frisbee team still has confidence that they will win their first pair of games. The sport of Ultimate may be not familiar concept to the general public, but its core aspects remain in the hearts of all.

Thirty years after the invention of the “flying disc”, Joel Silver, a student at Columbia High School, in 1968 organized a team of fellow classmates in which they would play a variation of “Frisbee football”. The rules were later spread to other institutions, such as Silver’s Alma mater, Lafayette College. Silver’s ingenuity led to the first Ultimate Frisbee held as Rutger’s University during the summer of 1972.

The rules of Ultimate consist of having a range of three to seven players on two different teams, who try to score in their opponent’s end zones. Unlike traditional sports such as football and soccer, the player who has possession of the disc is not allowed to move from his or her spot. The athlete is then forced to pass the disc to his/her other teammates to advance to the end-zone. Teamwork often incorporates aspects of traditional sports such as basketball, in which teammates try to run away or towards the disc, to receive the pass. What makes Ultimate stand out is the fact that if there is ever an incomplete pass or fumble, the disc is overturned to the other team, at that exact location. This allows for a level of unpredictability which allows any team to succeed.

In determining the legality of a certain play, there are no referees. That does not mean that any athlete can do whatever their heart desires on the field; they must follow the rulebook of Ultimate. If there is ever a discussion on a certain play, both teams engage in dialogue to decide who takes possession of the disc. In most sports, this would quickly escalate to a physical confrontation, but in Ultimate, every player lives by the creed of “The Spirit of the Game”, which encourages friendships and cooperation rather than competition.

“The Spirit of the Game” is alive and well within every Ultimate athlete, and as Ignatius engages against difficult opponents such as Norte Dame and Oak Park, team mates will have to remember Joel Silver’s iconic phrase in regards to his new sport: “We will engage in the ultimate game experience.”

This past Sunday, the Saint Ignatius Ultimate Frisbee team suffered its first lost in the Chicago Ultimate Junior Organization, otherwise known as CUJO. Since games were cancelled due to weather conditions affecting the field (Bunker Hill), St. Ignatius did not officially lose the game but, lost the opportunity the put their new plays into practice.

The team consisting of 18 members from all different high school levels has just recently learned three basic plays. Most of the emphasis was placed on securing “the stack”, the technique in which team members line up in front of the handler, the player who holds the disc, and maintain a certain distance between each player. “The stack” would help players take turns to receive the pass from the handler, without losing energy. As co-captain Joanne Amaya stated, “It looked like a mush before the stack”, highlighting the effectiveness the new strategy has brought.

Although the SICP team is mostly consisted on rookies, there are certain veterans on the team such as Dave Barr who help put the team together. Barr, one of the team’s main handlers cooperates between under and upperclassmen in order to maintain unity between the team. One of the biggest problems that the SICP team faces is the aspect of hosting two different practices, one for underclassmen and the other for upperclassmen, during their respective lunch periods. This leads to a disparity between the skills of the players as one group may be encouraged to do certain plays while the other is not.
The reason why the SICP hosts two different practices is the same reason why they lost their first pair of games: the weather. The intense winter weather of the city of Chicago has inhibited many teams from playing outside on the football field. Instead of waiting for the harsh winter to die down, the SICP Ultimate Frisbee team has relocated themselves to the third floor gym.
For those students aware of the existence of the third floor gym, one of the biggest issues is the space constraint. With barely enough room for a basketball court, along with the time constraint of the 41 minute lunch period, it seems to be a miracle how the SICP team ever gets anything accomplished. Facing a difficult situation, underclassmen co-captain Zack Torres, is still optimistic for what he hopes is his team’s future success.
The CUJO league has designated games for every Sunday at Bunker Hill for Saint Ignatius where they will hopefully have the opportunity to play. Next week, they get to play their arch nemesis, Loyola Academy, as well as the Notre Dame High School for Boys.

Definition from Urban Dictionary:

Refers to the friendly relationship between those in charge of defending the homeland and the industries that produce the equipment and weapons needed to fight a war. Could be summarized as a ‘war-for-profit’ scheme.
Person 1: …but why on earth would a nation’s leaders be willing to sacrifice human life as an excuse to start a war?

Person 2: Man, haven’t you heard about the military industrial complex?

When most of the government’s money is headed towards war, and more specifically, private contractors such as Blackwater, what are you truly fighting for?

The highly successful video game, Assassin’s Creed II, is having their PC Game release this March 9th. Gamers, expected to have the same, or better experience on their PC, are now faced with a new issue: Ubisoft’s new DRM.

Assassin’s Creed 2′s PC DRM sucks:

From Steam:

“3rd-party DRM: UBISOFT REQUIRES A PERMANENT HIGH SPEED INTERNET CONNECTION AND CREATION OF A UBISOFT ACCOUNT TO PLAY THIS VIDEO GAME AT ALL TIMES.”

This means that unless you have a constant internet connection, you cannot play the game. In the end, it does not cost sixty dollars to buy AC2, it costs ninety dollars the first month, and thirty dollars (for the internet connection) the subsequent months. Ubisoft believes that this will reduce piracy, but I don’t doubt for a moment that someone will “beat the system”.

If you don’t want to pay for a personal internet connection, you could always go to Starbucks or the Corner Bakery and buy a small snack for the complementary WIFI.

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(reference to the film “State of Play”)

The recent political scandal involving the private military group, PointCorp, and Senator Stephen Collins has highlighted several ethical issues in regards to journalism. Cal McCaffery, a senior journalist from the Washington Post, has obtained information in some ways deemed unethical, thus placing his personal reputation, as well as his employer’s future at risk.

In order to initiate the investigation, the reporter in question sought to use his closest “connections” in order to obtain information. McCaffery, who was romantically involved with the Senator’s wife, Anne Collins, used this special relationship to extract information from her, which normally would be placed on the record; but in this case it wasn’t. By interrogating Anne Collins, who was emotionally distraught due to the extra-marital affair revealed by her husband, McCaffery discovered information such as Anne’s knowledge of Stephen’s whereabouts. He also questioned her if Stephen had other extra-marital affairs, but Anne was in no position to answer objectively. McCaffery’s goal in interrogating Anne Collins was to see if the murder of Sonia Baker, his assistant, was directly related into the congressional investigation into the private military company.

Since Anne Collins “off the record” testimony revealed little into the investigation of PointCorp, McCaffery in an unauthorized manner, seized private information from a cell phone of one of the deceased victims of the investigation. The telephone numbers obtained from the device helped reveal an important suspect of the investigation of the murder of Baker.

The most damaging aspect of this investigation is McCaffery’s tendency to withhold evidence from the police department, in which they explicitly stated that their office, the Washington Police Department, must be on the same page as the Washington Post in this murder investigation. When McCaffery obtains the suitcase filled with the pictures of Sonia, the Senator’s aid whose death is at the center of this investigation, instead of bringing it to the WPD, he deposits the files in his supervisor’s office. After delaying the evidence for 24 hours, with total consent from his supervisor and the company lawyer, they (the Washington Post) notified WPD, in which the law enforcement agency was furious, due to the fact it could have been a day earlier in which they could have captured the murderer, whose actions had claimed three lives up to this point. He also withheld evidence extracted from the PointCorp insider, Dominic Floyd, which linked Sonia to the corporation.

Another aspect of this investigation that is flawed is the whole Floyd affair. McCaffery managed to blackmail Floyd, in which he would reveal his relationship to Sonia and PointCorp if Floyd would not have cooperated with his investigation. Having brought Floyd to a motel room, McCaffery is annotated everything, but little does Floyd know that he was secretly being videotaped from across the hall, something that is clearly illegal to do. McCaffery also brought Senator Collins to the secret videotaping room, in which during the course of his stay, Floyd revealed that Sonia was pregnant, placing Collins in a mood of emotional distraught. After Floyd testifies to this, Collins leaves the room, and attacks Floyd, who wasn’t reminiscent of the senator’s arrival.

Although PointCorp sought for “the Privatization of Homeland Security”, if future practices were to be held by McCaffery’s standard, the whole area of journalism is at risk. If other journalists were to pursue the same thought process as McCaffery’s, it questions the validity of any evidence discovered in any investigation, whether it would be related to journalism or law enforcement. McCaffery’s actions, such as the use of the unauthorized cell phone, as well as Floyd’s testimony, placed the whole congressional investigation at risk, in which the American people would serve as collateral.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.