Rico Penguin

  In an almost impossible manner, while all Isles are separated to the most extreme of degrees, the Forbidden still exist. More widely known as “The Cult of the Forbidden” these groups of beings, each a select few from the races of their staple Isle, are searching for rare artifacts known as the “Shards of Thanatos”.

  No group has ever met another and yet they each work hardily and without halt towards this ultimate goal. Each connected by some dark event in their life, murder of a loved one, theft of innocence, or some other agent that drove them to the darkest of followings. None of them knows for sure what will come of their acquisition but many pray that it will bring closure to their tattered souls.

  Assassinations, disappearances, and other acts of secret destruction can safely and accurately be tied back to these groups. Even on the most pious of nations these groups exist and they seem almost unstoppable, if only because so few believe they exist. A slick sliver of steel stabbing deeply into the spine without ever being seen are they.

  Some forty shards are all that stand between the entire planet of Scion and what many assume to be the darkest of days. The ceasing of time and quite truly the ultimate end.

  The Isle of Tartaro is a land of ever raging flame. Seas of Magma and Streams of Sulfur travel through the valleys paved from the hardened lava rocks of ever present Volcanoes. The reach of the isle grows as the years pass from the rolling molten landscape.

  Citizens of Tartaro, and fauna in general is largely stone and metal based, beings of immensely long age. Because of these long lifespans everything in Tartaro moves at a different pace than expected, commerce, religion, war, birth rates, each has been changed over the centuries.

  Tartaro is an Isle of ever changing and ever growing wonder, new pieces of land are exposed as explosions tear the land asunder. Forests of crystal reflect the heat that beats down from the clouds of debri and sulfur above the Isle.

  While utterly inhospitable to anyone not accustomed to the land, Tartaro is truly a land of unique beauty, a place that few can traverse but none can deny.

  ~~~

  My plan is to begin writing a short story about an explorer who has recently discovered an onyx forest and the ruptured cave within (and finally what is found within there…oh my). I haven’t named them yet but that should come very soon! Likely within the next 24 hours. Much like my previous story about Calmius this will actually be a very important story to keep in mind in the not too distant future.

  I often wonder how many people are overlooked in the world. There are something like 7 billion people in the world, that is an absolutely astounding number. While we all generally have similar organic configurations the slight variations in each person entail that something amazing can be done by them.

  But it troubles me that so many could die before their talents are discovered. So many people who can actually sing overlooked because they aren’t as attractive as “Generic High School Voice #4”, so many folks who could build grand buildings but don’t get the proper education, discover the cure for cancer but never get the proper science education, great writers who never flourish because of illiteracy.

  7 Billion people in constant rotation. Amidst these folks are some of the greatest ideas of this generation and certainly many of the greatest ideas never thought in the past. Where once great ideas found persecution we now likely are amidst an equally devastating situation of being overlooked.

  I wonder honestly how many great ideas and how many fantastic talents will die by the end of this month. How many of these people will even have close friends or families that knew of their abilities. Just how much have we been stunted technologically and culturally because of trivial issues that could be resolved with an ounce of common sense and maturity.

  For me it is a startling thought, an unsettling pool bubbling at the base of my stomach. Even at the most emotionless level, just thinking of the lost data, it is shocking. At the emotional level it is a good bit heartbreaking, to think of all the lives that could have been great, how many flames merely flickered instead of burned.

  I wonder if we’ll ever reach a point where people will all be granted the chance to do what we do best. Where we’ll credit those who truly earn what they get, where each death can be one of completion and comfort as opposed to another instance of lost opportunity and shattered dreams.

It has come to my attention that paypal isn’t working for folks. I’ll look around but if anyone knows of a better donation service (as opposed to just telling me to find one, since that isn’t entirely helpful) I’d love to know. Feel free to comment here or use the more popular option of emailing me via the ask rico function on the site.

Thanks much and hopefully soon I’ll have more here. Been working mostly on my book lately (and admittedly playing a bit too much).

  I’m sure at this point most people know how futile the “Terror Alert” system is. There are no guidelines for how to act nor is there really a good outline of “Why” or “What” the increased or decreased terror alerts entail.

  If you go back far enough they essentially had a system like this during the cold war. However it was pretty straight forward. You knew if it was going we were being nuked and you needed to go to a shelter. It’s not fun information but at least in that situation it may have been necessary.

  The Terror Alert system however is entirely fruitless. It has been little more than a campaign tool. During the 2004 election campaign the Bush camp intentionally raised the threat level to help secure the win. You can find various websites and newspapers that covered this, if it so suites you.

  The goal of terrorism is to remain on peoples minds. I highly doubt that people will ever forget the events of Pearl Harbor, yet you will not find people incessantly reminding anyone to ‘never forget 12-7"’, it is this never ending push to not allow it to settle that feeds into the entire mechanic of terrorism. While at this point it is painfully clichéd I would say that the moment we decided to not let it rest was the day that the terrorists “won”.

  I realize they can’t win, I realize in death nobody wins, but egos demand that in all conflict there be a winner. While you will never truly find one you will at least find someone who claims to be that one. For as long as we have a terror alert level, for as long as we act differently because of what happened, for as long as we allow this facade that we are in any more danger now than we were before the twin towers, we have lost.

  The Terror Alert system was a failure the moment it was unveiled, it was an insult to intelligence and currently a tool only used for political gain. It is the demand to never forget terrorism that fuels terrorisms growth because it proves to them that they are successful.

  Then again, a simple plane ride, ferry ride, or train ride will prove to anyone that they were successful. How pitiful it is to watch 300 million change their lives because of the actions of a dozen.

    The US and likely most people who are attached to the capitalist system believe that money can heal all wounds. However as nice as that would be it is generally not the case. It is incredibly pleasant for me to see that I’m not the only person that sees this and indeed I’m not the only one that sees the true cure for many many wounds.

    The one of the two fellows who spoke at my Graduation Ceremony mentioned that he was running a project to educate Kenyans. This project wasn’t to throw money at them, nor to throw food at them, nor to assign them to any subjective system of beliefs for personal gain. This was and is a system that I can strongly support, the idea of educating the uneducated.

    There are no negatives to a proper education, it helps expand the understanding of the world around us as well as our own bodies. A proper education can and will provide people with a better personal attitude. Unfortunately in the US we’ve got small groups of people fighting a proper education in order to push their subjective systems of belief (again for personal gain). But as Mr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has stated before, nations that break away from scientific discovery also break away from financial security, and he has said that this is why we will never nationally support the destruction of scientific theory or a proper education, rich folk don’t want to die poor.

    But back to Africa. There are three major things that every person not only needs but they deserve, without exception. These three major things are Healthcare, Housing, and an Education. There is absolutely no exception at all period. Now I am a bit loose with Housing, because I actually include food under that domain but if we wanted to expand so it was less abuse able, you could say “Healthcare, Housing, Sustenance, and Education.” Regardless all these things are required for a nation to be just and if it doesn’t have ANY piece of these, regardless which one, it is an unfair and unjust society.

    In the case of Africa they are largely missing all four. However the foundation for this pyramid is Education, above all else. Without an education the people are left to believe not what is true but what is most convincing, the most charismatic or more likely the most violent rule in lands that are lacking in education. Many times these people are not the best people for the job. With an education comes an understanding of proper healthcare and proper home construction techniques. Renewable systems of living are also built in the architecture of education so that people do not strip the land they live in bare and end up greatly diminishing their chances of survival.

    I could go on and on, but it is quite simple, if a nation is to succeed financially and quite frankly in any other sense (even *bleh* morally) they must have a strong and legitimate educational system. Such a system is not a democracy either, just because you do not like Gravity does not mean it doesn’t exist. But that’s a post for another time.

  There is something remarkable about video games. The sheer scope of what can be done even in the simplest of senses is astounding. Frogger even presented you with a universe (however small) where you interacted with a moving environment and dealt with ever present adversity. From there it has gotten all the more complicated, with creatures and characters becoming more and more lifelike. Spore even presented an entire universe that was diverse, sure the game play was as stale as year old bread, but it was a diverse universe regardless.

  So I’ve been thinking, relatively recently, about what this plays in the understanding of creationism. Creatures in video games are alive, but they are alive just because, the creator said they are alive and thusly they are alive. There are no complex mechanics within their bodies, they are solid blocks that function just because. They are held to the ground not by gravity but instead because the creator says they are held to the ground. When they eat the food just vanishes, it doesn’t flow through a series of complex systems. The sun above shines just because, there is no complex system of physics going on in the background.

  These systems exist as they do because they were created. There is absolutely no reason to add organs, if you are creating all the laws of a universe you do not need them. There is no reason to make the sun complex, it can be just as beautiful as our own just because. Indeed the suns in Spore are stunning. Water can be gorgeous just because, trees can be there just because, and indeed all live can exist just because. It doesn’t have to degenerate, there is no necessity for cancer, and with the proper knowledge even intelligence can exist just because. It does not require an incredibly complicated interconnected system to function, it can just be. Yes sure the code can be a little complicated but even that gets ever more streamlined as the understanding of creating grows for people. There is nothing stopping us from making something ultimately incredibly and infinitely simple but time.

  To me this is the big problem with creationism. It is not to say that a creator couldn’t just be very terrible at their job, that’s true, perhaps they added in a bunch of systems because they are batshit stupid. That’s fine and I can accept that. However it could not go hand in hand with being all powerful, all knowing, or all anything. These sort of mistakes are almost below human, they are insanely complicated mechanics to pull off tricks that could be as easy as a single switch. The sun is the sun because it is the sun and it glows because it is the sun. There should be no underlying mechanics beyond that. If there is that is a very distinct example of poor coding.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
  –  Antoine de Saint-Exuper

  So that is my problem I think. We exist in a fantastically imperfect universe and are fantastically imperfect beings. For each reason there is a previous reason and for each of those reason their exists a previous reason. All of these are unnecessary and should really boil down to “because”. The problem is that our universe does not function on a single “because” yet we try to explain it as such outside of science. That to me shows a severe disconnect between fantasy and reality.

  To think, that sort of thought all stemming from a bout of World of Warcraft. Goes to show that gaming really is rotting my brain.

  Now I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of killing anyone. I find it highly unfortunate that we at times place ourselves in situations where people are killed or where it becomes difficult to support the sustained life of a certain person. It’s a shame and indeed is a global problem.

  However on that note of killing there is another major problem with (at the very least) the US’s general take on problems. Militant cures to social problems has been an issue that has unfortunately reared its ugly head many times in the short History of the US. We often have situations that require a small amount of regulation and instead assault them with a violent fervor that is unnecessary and in the end entirely destructive and unhelpful.

  While this might look like its obviously leading to any of our various failed “wars on X” I’m actually looking more so at Abortion. Abortion is an issue that we are told is very much on the forefront of people’s minds, I disagree, I do think though that it is largely blown out of proportion and discussion on it are wrought with misinformation and deception.

  When looking at a problem that you see the first response should not be to outlaw it. Outlawing something does nothing to lessen the issue. The people who would have done it will still do it, the people who were unlikely to do it will not do it, and the people who would have never done it are still never going to have done it. What you do do however is create criminals for no better reason than to justify a crusade against differing life views or styles.

  Abortion really should just be a last response to medical problems with mothers and the birth of their children. I recognize that it isn’t and that is what we’ll look at. First the answer to nearly all problems is education. Believe it or not if you educate people honestly and openly about a situation they will inevitably come to an educated conclusion about it. I’ll admit that doesn’t happen 100% of the time but nothing ever does that humans can verify.

  So first you educate people fully about what? Well sexual education, abstinence education is an entirely unscientific system presented to kids for no better reason than to push religious beliefs on them. This is a terrible idea and it has been proven that it doesn’t work, how is it proven? Well unwanted pregnancies are a good example. I can educate people not to breath because it makes me feel better but it is their biological need to breath that will override my personal views.

  Once you have educated people and they know of all the highly effective methods (as opposed to ones that only work in theory) to prevent pregnancy until they are prepared. After this we move onto the next issue. What if people take all the proper precautions and are still finding themselves in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy? Well we take after various wonderful places (such as Sweden) and we make it feasible for them to still be able to raise the child or at the very least we make the time between conception and birth as non traumatizing as it can be. Strong support for the expected mother and all the information necessary to be a strong parent. Or even explaining the possibility of Adoption (albeit that is for many just as tough a question as abortion, its not easy for the mother at all).

  So we’ve accomplished two fold a fix. First we educate people openly and honestly treating them as they should be treated. Then for the people who may still get pregnant (a very small percentage assuming the first step) we treat them with respect and help give them all the available options. You will find that the amount of abortions in the country would indeed drop dramatically.

  The stories about fun time weekend abortions are likely as strongly based in factual events as reefer madness. Don’t allow people to take extreme militant approaches to problems because it will never do anything but make it worse. Historically this has and likely will always be the case. I just hope that with my generation growing, more intelligent and grounded people will take control of governing bodies. Who knows.

  I’m a bit embarrassed that it has been this long and I haven’t given official names to the warring nations of Bellum. So without any more shenanigans I’m going to do so now and give you some understanding of them.

(continue reading…)

  I’ve finished up the last of my college so expect updates (some very noticeable even) to be coming on a regular basis soon. Maybe not daily, but we’ll see what we can accomplish . So much like the future, while not technically existing (misleading headers tisk tisk) it is certain to come.