In a bittersweet moment, it occurred to me this morning as I woke up for the 3rd or 4th time that the solution to the issue I've been having at work, people lack tech savvy to update a webpage, could be solved with a little PHP and XML. This solution would also stream-line the creation process and better represent the template that we're using.

Now, of course, this will all remain theoretical because the powers-that-be have their own tech guys back in Florida somewhere who actually do all the website stuff, and I'm just a lowly temp who's to do as he's told, but still, I like having solved it.

Basically they have me shooting video for training materials. Now I'm a hacker, not a videographer, but they aren't looking for Golden Globe quality, so i think I can handle it. the killer is, after I finisht he video, they've got me embedding it into a Word Document. This si quite possibly the worst thing you can do with video IMNSHO, but hey, lowly temp, right?



The killer is, they then send my Word doc to Headquarters, where they make it into a website. Now we all say "But YOU'RE a Hacker" with a few other hackers adding the desonate "Ouch! That's so wrong." to catch thos eof you who aren't hackers up the main conflicts in this process are:

• Web video can stream, Word video is embedded.
  
• Web documents are of length document, Word documents are of length 11 inches.
  
• Word documents turned into web documents tend to quintuple code length, delete readability, and generally frustate later attempts to alter documents.

 So the article below is short, and to the point, but it's also a perfect example, in my opinion, of what the World of Darkness should look like to mortals. 

Mortals see a politician, who used to be a great reformers, who's fallen. I see a Retainer of a powerful vampire, who was used by his master to disrupt the intests of his rivals. The minion did a lot of damage to teh enemies power base, and his rise to govenor gave greater power to his master. But once the master's pawn gained such power, the others turned on him now, and the pawn is fallen. But the vampires are all untouched, unsoiled by violence or destruction, and a new pawn is alway s waiting just behind the next door.

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N.Y. governor reportedly in prostitution ring - Politics- msnbc.com
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 I've bene thinking a lot about Status si Vampire, and I've come to the following conclusions: Status isn't recognisability, though people who have status tend to be more recognisable. Status isn't respect/fear level, though those who are feared/respected tend to get more status. Status is a measure of how well listened to you are, it's a "on a scale fo 1 to 5, 1 being never, and 5 being always, how likely are you to a) ask this person's advice/opinion, b) do what this person tells you to.

To prove this, let's consider a parnoid prince who never shows his true face. People won't recognise him, but when word gets around the Prince says no hunting the Ducet family, nobody does it, because the Prince has status. Likewise, consider the unaknowledged Carthian childre of an Invictus Prince. Likely EVERYONE knows who this is, and they may flock to him, but in the greater scheme of city politics, nobody's listening to his opinion, so he's maybe a 2 or 3.

So that's what status means in game, but players need to know all three things, not just the last, so I'd suggest finding wording that allows you indicate all three but only give status as the 'listened too' number. Gving us Status (how listened to you are), Regard (how respected/feared you are), and repute(how known you are). Of course, having regard and repute won't affect anything, but it'll help describe your character in standardized terms.

ie. The Phantom Prince would be "Status 5, with a regard of a status 5, and a repute of a status 1."
The Childre would be "Status 2, with an appropriate regard, but repute worthy of a status 5."

I am but young in the ways of the Devine, being named to my calling by my maker but a few years ago, and yet, I feel the need to tell what I know to be true, if only to help educate the few I know to be of my line, and yet not of my calling. I am Uriel, the twenty-first of that name, and I am created.

All that I know I learned from my maker, a fine old man who had carried the Fire of the Devine within his breast for over a century. He was beginning to gutter when he made me, and though he was aged, his righteous vengeance was truly a site to behold. He told me that I was made, as he was, to serve as an agent of Fury for the Restless Dead. He said that the first of our line was made by God himself in Egypt in the time of Pharaohs, and his first task was the death of the First Born of all who did not pay homage to the Devine.

He taught me that there are many kinds of created, and that most he met claimed to follow a Magnum Opus, a great work designed to make them mortal once more. But while we (whom they call Ulgan) are like the others, we are different from them as well, for we remember our death and in that we are set apart. Even our controlling 'humor' in their alchemical scheme of the universe is unknown in traditional alchemy. I call it what it is, a shoe horn to fit all that we are into their model of the Universe. They seem to forget that a great writer once said, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

The true purpose that I serve, the purpose all our kind were made to serve, is that of agent between the realms of the living, and those of the spirit. This is why we corrupt the earth, bringing spirit and flesh closer with our very presence. This is why we can see the beings unbound by physical form. It is our duty, our very nature, to seek out those who are spirit and yet remain in the realm of flesh, and to complete the tasks they lack the flesh to complete. My line, the line of Uriel, are the bringers of Retribution. We seek out those who have died, but not passed on to the next step in the cycle of life, and fulfill their need for balance in the Physical world, so they may pass on. My hands have been stained with the blood of killers and fiends who claim to have human souls, and it was good. For such things were we, whom the call the Ulgan, created.

That is not to say that all of my 'line' are created, as I, to serve as the Fury of the Dead. Just as there are several kinds of spirits, there must be several kinds of spirit helpers. I will not speak for them, for they have tongues of their own. It is enough that I know they exist. I have heard tales also of beasts made of both flesh and spirit who patrol the border between worlds, forcing those who don't belong back across the divide. I have always been inclined to call these tales fiction, but then I am reminded that as I do not serve the Great Work, so the fact that it does not seem to fit my world view does not make it false. I will not make the same failing as my fellows.

My maker was wont to wax philosophical, I fear from to much exposure to those who follow the Great Work. He would say that perhaps there is an economy of soul, as some scientist proposed an economy of energy. That souls, like energy, are neither created nor destroyed, they simply change states. By doing that which do, we free the souls of the dead to be brought forth in new bodies. I would think if such were the case, I would not have had to hold his head in my lap as the divine spark died within him. Surely anyone who served so truly would have earned the right of just one of the souls he sent beyond.