Euthanasia: Good or bad.

I'm posting this because of some recent events within my family. My great aunt, the wife of my grandmother's brother, recently underwent a procedure where she was put in an artificial sleep left to die. Although, I did not know her very well, she was a very nice person and was a good friend to my grandmother. Has this effected my opinion on euthanasia? No it has not.

I am a proponent for euthanasia. I believe that terminally ill patients should be able to choose to end their lives if they want to. There are of course some limitations which must be placed, like the fact that the patient must be of sound mind, and the doctor can refuse to do the treatment if he/she does not want to (though the doctor must refer to a doctor which will do it). But the common arguments of why it should be illegal do not really make any sense to me.

I understand that people have this idea of the sanctity of life. I would mostly agree and will gladly admit that human life does have an inherent value. However, I think that western society has put life on a too large of a pedestal. It seems that we deem life so precious, that no one is allowed to touch it. Life is apparently so precious that not even the owner of the life can decide when to end it. My great aunt was very sick. She had been complaining many years about pain in her abdominal area. It tuned out to be intestinal cancer. When they found it, it was already in a late state and it was useless to try and treat it. This last, the pain was too much for her and decided that she wanted to be euthanized.

It angers me that there are certain people who want to stop this. Are they wise enough to decide when a person should die or not? No, of course not. Only the patient him/herself is wise enough to make such a decision of such magnitude. It seems strange that these people are convinced that they know what is best for the patient and this is never euthanasia. These people need to understand that not everyone shares their exact moral code and that terminally ill patients who do want to end their lives, should have that choice open to you. Who cares if someone half a country away decides that the pain is too much to bare and decides to end it. When you cannot sleep due to the constant excruciating pain, and death looms over you, then you are more than welcome to just do nothing.

Top 5 Video Games IMO

I haven't posted anything in over a year so I thought it should be time to post something again. I will post what are in my opinion the top 5 greatest video games. Remember, these are of time of posting so they may change. I will limit myself by only choosing 1 entry per franchise. This makes it so that the list isn't filled with games from one franchise.

#5 Brothers in Arms- Hell's Highway Publisher: Ubisoft

This for me a great FPS. It has all the elements of what makes a game great. It looks good, solid game-play, and an interesting story. The story follows Matt Baker as he fights his way across the Netherlands trying to cope with what happened in France and of course his more recent losses. With rumors of a cursed gun, you can feel Matt Bakers pain as you slowly see him try and retain sanity.

Although not as popular as the Call of Duty franchise, this gives a lot more personal look at warfare. Compared to Call of Duty-World at War, which came out at about the same time, it exceeds it in every way. Instead of impersonal openings to levels where war statistics are being thrown at you, you get a great story which only follows one get man. You get a greater sense of how horrible war can be because you see a person live through it. The game-play is also better in my opinion because it isn't as fast passed and hectic as in CoD-WaW. It is slower paced and you need a bit more tactics to kill the enemy. When it comes to graphics, both are probably on even footing when it comes to quality, though stylistically BiA is better.

This game is an all around good game and worth to play. A good story and game-play makes this a fun game .
#4 Grand Theft Auto-San Andreas Publisher: Rockstar Games

It is very difficult to make a top 5 list on games and not include a GTA title. I have spent many hours in this game and even 8 years later, it is still a game which can be played and enjoyed. The graphics are dated yet this does not take away from the fun. It follows the traditional GTA story line where the main character starts at the bottom and slowly working to the top. In this GTA, the main character CJ comes home and finds out that the gang, which is run by his brother and friends, is a shadow of its former glory. CJ embarks to bring his gang back on top. Through his journey, he is accompanied by his brother, his sister and boyfriend, and gets help from such characters as Woozie, The Ttruth, and a secret agent named Mike Toreno through three parodies of famous US cities. He also needs to appease a crooked cop named Tenpenny who wants to frame him for killing a cop.

It has a good game-play and the third person shooting is executed nicely. Vehicle controls are good and flying is easier compared to open world games these days. There are many things to be found and new things will be discovered every play-through. I cannot put a GTA game here without mentioning the radio stations. My favorite would have to be K-DST. The radio DJ's have great personality and the talk radio show is side splitting funny. CJ's journeys bring him through the San Fiero, and Las Venturas, cities based on Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Each location has its own personality and  you can immediately know where you are located. For making a detailed world where you can explore all you want, this makes GTA SA a great game and a worthy 4th place on this list.

#3 Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Publisher: Infogrames

This game is different from the rest because it is the only one which does not have a story line. This is however still a great game. Here you specific goals you must accomplish in different parks. You have a large selection of rides and stalls you can build all nestled between beautiful scenery. There are financial goals where your park must have a special value, and maybe repay that loan you owe. Others want you to have a specific number of guests before a designated amount of time and others just want you to build great coasters. It is the successor of Roller Coaster Tycoon and the predecessor of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Although many people have stated that they prefer the first, the extras they added to RCT 2 make it an all round better game for me.

#2 The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

This is one of the greatest games ever made and the best open world game in my opinion. There is so much content in this game that it is baffling. The game follows you, as you travel though Skyrim as you try and stop the awakening of the dragons, which it was prophesied to bring the end of the world. You discover that you are what is called a dragonborn as you can absorb the souls of dragons and learn their shouts without training. Through your journey, there are groups trying to help you, and to try and stop you. You will discover factions from other games, such as the Thieved Guild, The Blades, The Dark Brotherhood, and Imperial Soldiers, and come across some new ones such as The Companions, The Stormcloaks, The Greybeards, The College of Winterhold, and The Altmer Dominion. There are too many story lines to really talk about so I suggest you go and experience it yourself.

The world is beautiful and incredibly deep. Due to the perk system and the different races, you can play this game almost anyway you like. It is amazing at how this game can be played. What is a bit sad it that the attribute system from Oblivion is gone. It was great that you could choose to add points to certain attributes that make you stronger in different areas. The leveling system is also fixed so you won't see bandits with glass or ebony armor. Though there are bugs in the game, the depth of the game makes up for it. Game-play is very solid and Bethesda really did a good job of making it better. The ability to duel wield and equipping spells makes being a mage much more fun. The beauty and depth of Skyrim with some nice improvements on the game-play from Oblivion pushed it to second place.

#1 Portal Publisher: Valve Corporation

The number 1 choice was easy. Portal really symbolizes the perfect game. It is a marriage of game-play and story telling not found often in games and the voice acting in this game really puts the cream on top. The game follows Chell, a test subject of Aperture Science, as she makes her way through test chambers taunted by the AI persona named GLaDOS. Just before Chell is terminated as a test subject, she escapes and tries to escape Aperture Science. Unknowingly, she comes to the chamber where GLaDOS is being housed. Here she enters a battle with GLaDOS destroying her.

The game-play is incredibly simple. All you get is an apparatus (The Portal Gun) which shoots holes which can stick to certain surfaces. GLaDOS's remarks throughout the game make for some great giggles as you are trying to figure out how to get to the exit. The final boss battle is very interesting because you have to use GLaDOS's weapons against her. The fact that Portal has a new, but great game-play, with a brilliant story puts it on top of my list.

Free energy

One field of pseudoscience which always seemed quite popular is free energy. No, not the Gibbs free energy which is well known in science, but the idea that you can get energy from pretty much nowhere. And there is also a nice conspiracy theory behind it which is why almost no one can achieve free energy. Seems that some people believe that oil companies and governments are keeping it a secret is money. The oil companies are paying the government to keep the theory a secret so that they can dominate the energy market longer. Besides the horrible physics that they present, there is another flaw in their argument. What they see as a strength in their argument, I see as one of their greatest weaknesses. What might that be? It is MONEY!!!

So how does money weaken their argument?
Well that is quite easy. It is scientists. Just like everyone else in the world, scientists want to earn money. If they are able to do research which will earn them more money, they will try and do it. That is why certain research is more popular then others. This is why aids research gets more funding then research of homosexual necrophilia in ducks. How does this relate to free energy? Just think for a second that free energy is true. What would the finder of it get? He would get everything he would want.

But wouldn't the energy companies try and stop this research?
They could try but it would not work. Not all research is funded by the corporate world so that universities and independent research companies would also be able to do the research. Scientists would fight tooth and nail to do the research because it would mean that they would have made what can be considered the greatest scientific breakthrough in history. The research team would without a doubt receive a Nobel Prize and get grant money every single research team would be jealous of. Universities and research institutes like the Max Planck institute would try and hire the research group and give them high paying research positions. The research group would become more famous than Einstein, more famous than Hawkins and more famous than Newton. They would get fame and money that no oil company has enough power to stop this from happening.

Now you might say that the oil companies are still able to keep it a secret but I am not convinced. If you still think that there is a such a thing as free energy please present evidence that there is. I don't want to hear you spout some ignorance about oil companies and governments keeping it a secret unless you have evidence to present which shows that they are. You don't have science backing you up so give up and accept that there is no such thing as free energy.

My first post

I guess allot of people don't know what to write as their first post on blogs but I guess and do a very logical things and write about a first post. So I guess this is my first post. I will of course write about other things than what number this or that post is. What will I write about? I am a bit of a nerd and a science nerd at that so I will write about science. Being a nerd I will also write about nerdy stuff like books and tabletop RPGs. I am also an atheist so I will write about that too and as someone who enjoys some good food and drink, I might write about that too. So I wish all my visitors some happy reading.