Saturday 28 April 2007

Rant 054 / Eleven-Year-Olds Should Stick With Lego And Get The Hell Away From MMORPGs!

Watch Code Geass! It's good stuff! D/l while it's still unlicensed. More details in previous post.

1 more week till school starts.

What is school?

Hell returns!

Today I woke up with nothing on my mind. How many more times will this be repeated?

This is so sad. No more sleeping at 4am and waking at 2pm anymore.

This is so sad. I can't watch the first 13 episodes of Eureka Seven within the next 3 days.

Soon, I will have to reset my body clock to suit my classes. Will have to wake at 7am...

That's... 7 hours earlier than usual.

1 week to change my sleeping habits.

And within the week, I have to visit the Skin Centre for an appointment, renounce my British citizenship at the British Embassy, and get a loan for uni fees at the nearby DBS.

I am planning to do all these on the coming Monday.

Skin Centre appointment is set at 5pm, so it will have to be the last.

Getting a loan will not take long, so I can do it right after I wake up... at 12pm.

The problem is with the renunciation process, because I have no idea how long it will take.

And I want to do all 3 consecutively, so I will have to plan the times.

So I will:

12.30pm - Walk to bank
12.45pm - Get a loan
01.15pm - Take a cab to the British Embassy
01.30pm - Renounce my British citizenship

Here lies the friggin problem. When will this end?? Though my guess is half an hour, I cannot be sure!

If I do as stated above, and it takes only 1/2 hr, then I will have nothing to do from 2pm to 4.30pm!

If I start the 4 steps at 3pm, arriving at the embassy at 4pm, but it takes longer than 1/2 hr, I will be late!

Alas, it is too late to call them. They do not work on weekends either.

Why are you reading this anyway?

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne is a good game.

It is like a much better version of Diablo.

This is my first attempt, so naturally I chose the easiest style - pure magical POWAH!! aka Druid ( Storm + Nature Mastery).

In Storm, I concentrate mainly on the ice projectile spell, and maxing out the number of projectiles per shot a soon as I could.

I used 2 points to get Chain Lightning(for boss fights), another 2 for Wisp with buff(occasionally casts automatically to give me a 40% damage boost for 30s), and another 2 on a semi-decent 150dmg anti-Ice/Lightning shield.

Consequently, I find that my energy is being drained like water through a tap at full blast.

So after that, I got the aura in Nature, purely for the maximum 28% chance of casting any spells at 50% mana cost.

At lvl 26, I am now going for the magic resist, though I am still 5 points short to hit 24 points in Nature Mastery.

After I max the resist, I wonder what I should do.

Maybe I will max the buff ability of my wisp.

Then, max my ice projectile damage + speed.

Then I will go for that shield I saw in Nature.

It's got that 30s buff that increases energy regen.

Maybe when I beat the game I will try out Dream + Spirit Mastery.

Spirit Mastery has some obscene summon spells.

It beats my wisp big time, and my wisp has 99% chance of avoiding any attack.

But the best summon spell in Spirit Mastery lasts only 30s.

Papaya milk is good, but avocado milk is better.

In fact, avocado milk is the BEST!!!

Perhaps someday I will make some at home.

Someday.

Why are you reading this anyway?

Thursday 26 April 2007

Rant 053 / Ridicules, Discoveries and Animes




"Studies have shown that most accidents occur at home."

Surprising. To me, it surely is. How they can spend good tax-payers' money on such a cool research amazes me.

"Studies have also shown that the bathroom is the most dangerous part of the home."

All those electrical appliances, razor blades, power points and fragile mirrors lying everywhere near the tub of water and, not to forget, the slippery floor.... No, I don't believe you. :P

"The second most dangerous part of the home is the kitchen."

I wouldn't have realized this if I hadn't read this! All those sharpened knives, metal utensils, machines that generate dangerous amounts of heat looked so safe...

I'm glad I'm not living in America.




I had not realized teleportation is no longer fiction until recently. Apparently it is only possible for atoms and photons. It isn't precisely "teleportation" where the exact same particle is transported to another location spontaneously, but the information of the state of the particle being "teleported" is relayed to a machine some distance away and in that machine, the characteristics of the particle is somehow imbued into a new particle.

This is like cloning, but the original state of the original particle is destroyed in the process, so there is only 1 particle with the characteristics. And the process takes mere milliseconds to happen.

This is seen as a possible means of transferring data instantaneously. LIGHT SPEED INTERNET CONNECTION!!! NO MORE LAG!!!

Sources 1 and 2 here.



Code Geass is a relatively new anime that seems very good. It's on the same level as Naruto, and its style is somewhat akin to Death Note, with its main character outwitting everyone to achieve his goals.

It was originally planned as a 1-season anime comprising of 25 episodes, but its tv ratings were so good they had to remake its last 2 episodes so that they can have a 2nd season. The last 2 episodes were supposed to be released some time ago, but no news have been released so far.

This anime poses some questions on morality to us. Are results the only thing that matters, and any methods are alright to reach your goals? In the plot, the hero is a person who is willing to kill anyone to further his plans, whether they are against him or not. Though his cause is just, his methods are highly questionable.

Surprisingly, the hot-headed, saintly dude with the big heart is not the hero in this series. Even though he focuses on saving everyone without resorting to killing, he is not even on the hero's side. How, you may ask. Just watch it.

This anime is not suitable for kids! There is 1 scene in one of the episodes that shows a bare breast of one of the women, as well as several almost-nude scenes(eg shower scenes, etc). Worse still, the plot contains hints of incest(sisters loving brothers, brother loving sisters in the wrong way mentioned in the some of the dialogues), so don't let your younger siblings watch until they're 18!

Assuming that this series ends at episode 23 this season, be forewarned that the events in episode 21 and 22 are tear-jerking. You may even feel like crying if you are focusing totally in the show. Of course, you can't appreciate a good anime series properly unless you can focus entirely on it, so you will most likely have tears.

Personally, I never expected the director to go as far as he did. I had thought good people will never die in Japanese anime until the very end, but I am proven wrong here. What's more is that not only did they use the classic method to make a death look tragic(touching speech by dying person and emotional response by people at the side), the reason behind the death, and the method of death are heartrending too.

I look forward to the next season of Code Geass, simply because there's a huge number of things unexplained, like the price of the special ability the hero received. C'MON DRAW FASTAH!!!!! I WANT TO SEE THAT FINAL FIGHT!!!!



On a side note, DON'T WATCH TSUBASA CHRONICLES!!!! It's the sort of anime that is about a never-ending cycle, like Power Rangers, with the hero jumping through endless worlds to find pieces of memories. Well, if you like this sort of thing, then fine, whatever.

I will be trying Gundam SEED Destiny and Eureka Seven soon. They seem to appear in many people's top 10 anime series. Maybe in 2-3 days.

Monday 23 April 2007

Rant 52 / Yesterday No Longer

It seems that the salaries of our Singaporean ministers have caught the attention of more Singaporeans than any other negative news before. I can't say this is bad; I mean, their wages are more suitable for Bill Gates or something.

True, this does seem like legalized corruption, but at least in this way, we know who's bribing them. If their income is reduced to "more suitable rates", we know they will be more susceptible to bribes. How many people believe that the U.S. government officials are incorruptible?

And the fact that the pay of our ministers caught more local eyes than before tells us something about us Singaporeans. The government is the product of the people. The people is the product of a certain Lee family. And what has LKY caused Singaporeans to evolve into?

Mercenaries.

LKY didn't do this to ruin the country, that's for sure. He was smart, no doubt, to build an empire like this in such a short time. Even if his strategies were not entirely his own, the fact that he chose those ideas out of so many other is an example of how good he was.

But LKY is a product of the past. He no longer belong in this age. Times change faster than anyone can adapt. He is a product of a time when information was hard to get, and everyone was working their asses off too much to care about political stuff. Don't forget, those days were merely years after WWII, and as long as the government isn't caught embezzling, and the gov seems to be working for the people(like the commies in PRC), no one really minds.

But this is no longer those good old days. Information is only clicks away. We can find out anything we want, in mere minutes. Just google for forums, check them out, register to see all sections and keep an eye out for links, and bingo, we know everything. Only catch is whether we care enough to click at all.

If anyone really cares to look, one can probably even find out if LKY has a mole on his left butt cheek, and what size it is, in inches, and if there's hair growing from it. It is easy, unlike during the 1970s when people had to go to whatchamacallit to search for files and papers and shit.

It no longer works, this method of making everything look beautiful by telling only the sweeter part of the truth. No matter how you dress an ugly old hag with herpes, she's still one ugly old hag with herpes, however you look at her. And no matter how much you cover her, or how dim the room is, you're still going to get herpes. And you don't want to get herpes.

Well, this would have worked if the gov had made all this information secret. Not doing so had worked in the past, but the Internet has made this obsolete. If you do not want people to know, to compare this information with others, don't let it out.

We must understand that LKY loves his sons. With that sort of power he welded in those days, who wouldn't have done what he did, training his LHL and all? But that doesn't make this right. It's not exactly wrong, but LHL hasn't shown much talent the way his dad did, so it's not right either.

Just because a man is talented in some ways doesn't mean his kids will be the same. History has taught us as much, but few fathers can learn that lesson. It is human nature, and this is undeniable. But since it is not always right, someone needs to do something to fix the matter when it gets wrong.

People have tried, no doubt. All the best guys opposing the God of Sg are either exiled, bankrupt or in jail. So even if we were to vote for someone not from PAP, we don't have any capable guys to choose from. This isn't cool. It's like an MCQ in which they have cancelled all the wrong choices. Dude, you don't have any other options, and if you dislike the right answer that much, leave it blank and fail the fucking paper.

No one is happy about it, no one except his henchmen. They are not gay, they are not retards, and they are not stupid. They are just fighting for the obviously winning side of the war. And that is pretty smart, I can tell you that.

As long as the God is around to bless his followers, anyone who's unhappy about the situation should just quit the game and leave. Return when the Lord Almighty has left, and fight when the conditions are more in your favor. Right now, it's an uphill battle and the slope is as steep as LKY's left butt cheek is soft.

AAAAAAAAAAAA... must.. stop... imagining... butt.... cheek.....

Phew!

Friday 20 April 2007

Rant 051 / My First Attempt At Nothing

To begin this rant, I shall state the definition of the topic.

Nothing
[nuhth-ing]

–noun
1.no thing; not anything; naught: to say nothing.
2.no part, share, or trace (usually fol. by of): The house showed nothing of its former magnificence.
3.something that is nonexistent.
4.nonexistence; nothingness: The sound faded to nothing.
5.something or someone of no importance or significance: Money is nothing when you're without health.
6.a trivial action, matter, circumstance, thing, or remark: to exchange a few nothings when being introduced.
7.a person of little or no importance; a nobody.
8.something that is without quantity or magnitude.
9.a cipher or naught: Nothing from nine leaves nine.
10.(used in conventional responses to expressions of thanks): Think nothing of it. It's nothing. Nothing to it.
–adverb
11.in no respect or degree; not at all: It was nothing like that. Nothing dismayed, he repeated his question.
–adjective
12.amounting to nothing, as in offering no prospects for satisfaction, advancement, or the like: She was stuck in a nothing job.



Nothing is the most special idea in existence. The number that represents this was so hard to think of, it was the last to be invented. It is impossible to truly understand nothing, and even the existence of nothing is debatable.

Ask yourself this question: does nothing exist?

If it does, nothing exists! But that's not true, since I'm pretty sure
I exist.

If it doesn't, nothing doesn't exist, which is not true either, since there are many things that have been thought of but do not exist, like a Singapore not ruled by the PAP.

Therefore, how do we prove that nothing exists? Or not?

Let's assume it exists. How did the Indians come up with the concept of the zero? To draw something that means nothing, why can't we simply not draw anything? Nothing means nothing, and to have something for nothing is an impossibility. Yet the zero is here, so whoever made that first zero was an absolute genius.

The first people to come up with the idea of a zero was the Babylonians in the mid 2nd millenium BC, but it was not the zero we use today because it was not used alone - it was used in numbers with more than a digit eg 10, 20, 100. The first numerical system to use the modern zero was the Hindu-Arabic number system.

This amazing system was developed by this smart guy called Brahmagupta. His most famous book, the Brahmasphutasiddhanta, was full of his rants on mathematical ideas, and he was just about right in everything but one very special thing.

The funny thing about nothing is, when you divide nothing by nothing, you don't get nothing as a result. That's what that Brahma-whatever guy got wrong. No, 0/0 is not 1 either. The answer to this equation 0/0 is undefined, ie doesn't exist.

It may be easier in most cases to assume that 0/0 is
∞, but ∞ is not a real number, and therefore not always applicable. See how complex the simple zero is?

Nothing is the only value that cannot be divided by itself. It is perfect and is better than anything in any way possible. Heck, it is even better than sex, and that's saying a lot.

So, is this proof that nothing exists, since we know it so well?

To go further, let's try our five sense. It is very easy to see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing and smell nothing. Is that proof that it exists?

Not really. Nothing has no mass, and it does not have a place in the electro-magnetic spectrum. Energy has no mass, but it can be converted to mass. Nothing cannot be converted to mass even though it has no mass. Everything that exists has a natural frequency, except nothing. That is the ultimate and undeniable proof that nothing doesn't exist.

With such solid proofs from both sides of the argument, anyone can understand why the existence of nothing is not confirmed.

To get on with this mad rant on nothing, let's discuss the usage of nothing.

Nihilism is the philosophical position that nothing is the ultimate truth. It is not belief that one would subscribe to, but more like a description of something a person would argue against. When you believe a certain set of beliefs seem to be about nothing, you say it is nihilistic. Or it can be used to describe a period of time or people who embrace nothing.

Nihilism is such a fantastic idea numerous famous people wrote countless books on nihilism and anything nihilistic. Essentially, they are far ahead of me in the sense that they have written books on nothing, while all I have accomplished is a lousy rant on the same thing.

To write books on nothing and become famous must be the ultimate dream of writers anywhere. I have considered the idea of writing nothing and selling the book, and make a fortune by having created the world's first bestseller that's 500 pages thick but only contains the table of contents.

Not only do I know it will not work, I have also figured that people have been doing it all along since decades ago and calling their work foolscaps. Though the empty book must be the most widely-printed work in the history of written works, it is also the least mentioned and valued masterpiece that ever came into being.

Nothing only can you think nothing(nihilism), print nothing(foolscap), you can also create music that has nothing! Composed by John Cage in 1952, 4′33″ consists of 3 movements, but not a single note. To play this piece on a piano, simply sit down for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

This is merely an example of the immense popularity of using nothing as an artistic expression. Blank sheets of canvas, cans of air, empty exam papers and the name Anon are just a few of the other ways to use nothing.

Anon is a guy who doesn't exist. His reliability is unquestionable, leading to the great success of the thousands of his work. The tales he has told throughout the milleniums are some of the most popular fiction ever produced.

Because of his absolute integrity, he has been the source of news for many reporters around the world. How he gets the info is unknown, but no one cares about that. Everyone trusts that what he says is true, even though it isn't always the case. He has also written endless posts in most forums, proving he is able to work on multiple tasks from multiple locations at the same time.

Recently, his productivity has increased tremendously with the usage of the internet. He has written extensively on any subject a person can think of, with varying degrees of success. His popularity has been maintained over the centuries, and now this has only inspired more imitations.

Nothing is frequently used to mourn dead people. In many regions of the world, having a period of time saying nothing is a sign of respect to someone dead. And in some strange cases, it is used to express respect for someone alive.

Like in classrooms, where students are forced to be silent so that their teachers can talk. Often, this results in incredibly boring monologues, but governments around the world figured that making the damned kids sleep is way better than letting them run loose and learn about smoking weed or having wild mass orgies outside.

OMG 3.40 am. GEEGEE! LOL! I'm sorry to end this here but... IT'S FUCKIN 3.40AM!!!

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Rant 050 / You're So Short Whenever You Look Up, Girls In Miniskirts Sue You

Yesterday I met this taxi-driver who reminded me how fortunate I am to be able to get a place in an university. Not that I needed one, but some taxi-drivers like to talk when they drive. I believe it helps to give the image that they have godly driving skills and are able to drive at break-neck speeds on the AYE without concentrating on the road.

Drivers need car insurances, and passengers need life insurances.

He was talking about how he couldn't get a job after years of working at some construction company and got retrenched even though he has so much experience. I was suggesting that he could try SIM, since he looked like he was in his 20s, and I assumed he was just an unfortunate poly grad.

That was when he told me he was 34, with 3 kids, and only managed to study up to Sec 1. He had many certificates of all the courses he had attended during those years at the company, including courses on "fork-lifting", "crane-operation"...

Ouch.

Indeed, the government has encourage us to "upgrade" ourselves by attending courses to learn stuff that will make us more "useful". But I do not believe this is what they were thinking about when they said it.

My impression of what they mean by "upgrade" had been to learn things that cannot be learnt easily through a day of On-Job-Training, a.k.a. job orientation. There is a vast difference between learning how to fully utilise MS Excel and a cash register. (Well, if there is a course on fork-lifting then what's wrong with a course on cash register operations?)

It's like making a librarian-to-be attend a course on how to manage a library. I'm sure there are such courses somewhere, in the U.S. if not Singapore. They probably squeeze 50 bucks out of you and, in exchange, teach you how to avoid paper-cuts in 5 days of 2-hour lessons.

"And tomorrow, we'll show you how to wrap plasters around the cut when you do get a paper-cut..."

Okay, I admit there are many people who find it difficult to learn things some of us take for granted. But some things seem so simple I cannot believe external professionals are required to teach them to employees. It can't be too hard to find an older veteran of the job to show the newbies the ropes.

Maybe it's a new company, then there's the need for external professionals. Or maybe they got new equipments. Fork-lifters with many new functions? LOL! Hmm... Then what I don't understand is how he expect to get jobs with such certificates. It may make him better than foreign workers, but their incredibly low wages more than make up for their lack of experience. And those guys will kill to work for peanuts.

And for him to get an O-level cert and then a poly diploma is not much better. By the time he's done, he's in his 40s and who wants a 40-year-old poly grad with experience in nothing but construction work and taxi-driving?

Sad. With 3 kids, I do not see how he can make ends meet when they're older. No doubt, he won't be able to support them if they ever make it to any universities, and though insurances may help, it won't be easy for him to pay the premiums in the years to come.

And on the subject of foreign workers, I once knew this Indian air-conditioner technician who's got a diploma. How can we compete with such over-qualified people who are willing to work for less than a thousand, with no year-end bonus and welfare stuff?

And China is worse. Not only do they have such people, they are able to produce goods at obscenely low prices too. Some may not understand the depth of this problem, and I can only recommend playing Civilization IV(or I, II, III, for that matter) to fully comprehend the power of massive numbers.

In the Civilization series, I find that if I can create as many cities as I can in the beginning, while ignoring just about everything but avoiding bankruptcy, I can prosper like Bill Gates with his Windows 95 at the end. I do not bother to build any armies except for a few units to protect me from barbarians.

When anyone dares to attack me, I simply put all my cities' production to military units. Yes, they may take a few cities at first, but my overwhelming production rate can produce an obscene army in a few turns. Nothing can kill me, but I can kill anyone, if I feel like waging wars.

There is no way Singapore can compete with the PRC in the future, when it prospers enough to be considered a developed country. What stops China's cheap goods from taking over the markets of many countries, including the U.S., is that they all have quotas on Chinese goods.

For now, Chinese goods are still notoriously unreliable, especially since the authorities are unable to fully control the quality. It is not unheard of for their factories to use toxic dyes that are banned in most countries in the clothes they make. Frequent checks before they ship the stuff you ordered are necessary if you want to import goods from China and still maintain your reliability.

But no one can resist the low prices they offer! When the prices are low enough, people are willing to take chances even when the consequences are really bad. A few months ago in a Taiwanese news report, they interviewed a Chinese factory where they package pork taken from pigs that have died from diseases. Such pork are really cheap, and many restaurants use it.

Would you stop eating there when you've read this? Of course not. You'd take the chance when you see the prices of the food there.

Another time they interviewed a factory that makes "wine" from water, grape juice and industrial alcohol. This wine was sold at less than s$0.50 each! That's cheaper than mineral water! And they were packaged in boxes that looked exactly the same as those you'd see in wine shops.

If someone offers this sort of wine for sale at decently low prices in Singapore, anyone without experience in wine would fall for it.

Singaporeans cannot compete with such unscrupulous people, trusting as we are in the clean environment we grow up in. Someday when more of them expand their businesses outwards, they will bring their ways with them and push this sort of low cunning to a whole new level.

Someday in the future when they are rich enough, they will no longer have problems in reliability. What then?

We need to learn about corruption. Not legalised corruption, but the illegal sort. We need to learn to bribe cops, and local cops need to learn to accept bribes. Our authorities need to be bias towards stingy companies, and suck up to the richer ones. Bigger corporations need to find ways to monopolise the markets to some extent, and let the smaller fishes die.

PAP needs to get fundings from more private companies, especially oil companies, not just from the current sources. We need to drive in the opposite lane once in a while. Someone need to give the local triads a boost in the entertainment industry. And we need a porn industry.

Students need to learn to smoke weed. Condoms should be sold in schools. Ecstasy should be made more accessible to the public. Alcohol should be legally sold to anyone of any age, but minors should be banned from drinking. I need my kids to go downstairs to buy beer for me, and not drink it for me on the way up.

Smoking should be made legal anywhere. I mean, you get the same sort of shit from having one-night-stands, yet no one's making a fuss about it and creating gross posters on the dangers of STDs! Shit, I want to see advertisements of syphilis-infected vaginae on TV! Let my kids see what they'll get if they stick their manhood in too many holes.

We need Soylent Green.

Thursday 12 April 2007

Rant 049 / I Came, I Yawned, I Concurred

The last 2 movies I watched involving magicians and their acts were really interesting. The Illusionist and The Prestige were pretty cool. Usually you'd know, roughly, what to expect in the end of most films, but in these two, the plots are similar to good magic tricks - the actions of the artists always guide your minds away from the truth.

The plots in both are deeply intertwined with two magic tricks, one for each. Each magic trick is fascinating by themselves, and immediately sets you thinking about how they accomplished the tricks.

Warning: The following text might contain spoilers. This makes the article more aerodynamic, and thus more maneuverable at high speeds. Take caution and carry a first-aid kit at all times if you don't know that Snape kills Dumbledore, Prince Arthas kills his father and, in the expansion pack, merges with the Lich King, the Elites, Hunters, and most of the Grunts all rebel against the Hierarchs and civil war ensues on High Charity, Church gets killed by Caboose by accident, but then comes back as a ghost, Tony gets shot by Chino and dies in Maria's arms, the *real* final boss isn't this guy, it's the Ur-Grue, the Wizard of Yendor comes back to life, Michael Newman wakes up in Bed, Bath and Beyond and discovers it was all a dream, Nately's Whore falls in love with Nately, but only after he dies, and Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!

I copied the above paragraph from Uncyclopedia. And it's true. Spoilers below. And above, if you're unfortunate enough to be reading/going to read or watch the stuff mentioned. LOL!

In The Prestige, the secrets behind the trick for each of the two magicians involved are nothing the viewer could have expected when watching the film. Even the seemingly fully described mechanism invented by Dr Tesla in the film has a stunning secret behind it. Well, not anymore if are reading this LOL! After watching it, one of the words that may very likely be in your mind would be "Whoa!"


In The Illusionist, the whole plot is a trick! Everyone gets tricked, except the magician and his lover. Yes, everyone including the audience. In fact, there is a trick in this movie that makes you think it is done in a way that it is not, even though they have shown you how they do it. A trick behind a trick, I guess.

I like watching magic tricks. And it's true that I don't search for the secrets behind tricks because I want to be tricked.

Btw I only understand the parts about Snape/Dumbledore, Arthas/Lich King and Soylent Green. I hope I won't be reading anything that involves the rest of the characters LOL!

And all the blue words are links to articles. Uncyclopedia is so crazy it has articles on "This guy", "That guy" and "Some guy" ROFL! 3 different articles, I assure you. Other seemingly pointless articles include "Me", "You", "Him", "Her", "Them", "They" "I", "It". Most of them aren't as funny as the fact that they are actually there :D .

Uncyclopedia has many of its articles themed according to their titles. Like the article on "Morse Code" is entirely in Morse Code, the one on "Binary Code" is completely typed in binary code and etc. Heck, even "Dyslexia" is created such that it appears like what dyslexics see words as. Just search for "Dilsexya"...






It always amazes me what people can whine about. Like in this C&C3 forum I visited, someone was complaining that players can't build walls in the game. I'm waiting for someone to whine about why players can't build concrete floors the way we did in RA2.

Tanks/planes can shoot over walls, obviously, so they don't protect anything against these two. Infantry cannot get past walls, but who uses only infantry to attack any bases?

And why would anyone need walls, since a defensive stance has never won anyone any tournament? Turtling is only useful to a degree, but to go to the extent of building a walled fortress is pointless - artilleries will raze the defenses.

In Supreme Commander, players can build walls, but they're never used in normal games. They're there only to make the campaign scenarios look good.

This is not the first time I'm stunned by this sort of thing. We call ourselves intelligent lifeforms but obviously this doesn't apply to some.





What makes a good conversationalist? I know how to be a bad one, too well for my liking. I don't talk much to anyone simply because I cannot think of anything interesting to talk about with anybody.

Maybe it is because I have nothing in common with anyone? Maybe I have to fake interest sometimes. I am never interested in talking about things that I know the other person already knows, because we both know them!

Many times I have found myself disagreeing with people simply to lengthen the conversation. I mean, what's there to say if we all agree on the matter? We all say yes and that's it.

Do I gossip? I don't know. I don't bother to remember rumours and stuff anyway.

And I don't volunteer my opinions on most things because I'm usually not interested in your opinions. Unless it's a place I'm planning to go, or something I'm going to be involved in.

I haven't been observing my own actions enough to understand what stops me from talking. Usually I'm the one who stays silent in conversations and only interrupts once in a while to contribute a comment here and there. I do not initiate conversations, but I do end them often by being silent. Hell, maybe I can be considered as a good listener LOL!

Even if I can somehow chat for an extended period of time, I cannot focus on any one topic throughout a conversation. I do not have much to say about anything, and I noticed I tend to "jump around" during any chats.

Sometimes people ask me questions that I have no decent answer for, like "What's up?" In my present situation, nothing's up. I'm staying home all day playing pc games and reading and enjoying my last days of worry-free holidays. How many words can I use to describe nothing? Well, a lot, actually, but none are things that people would say in most conversations.

What sort of a problem do I have, if it is a problem at all?

If this is not a problem, then I have just described nothing with 9 paragraphs. LOL!

Wednesday 11 April 2007

Rant 048 / If You Fight Death, You Live For Nothing

Someday, if I open a restaurant, I'm going to name it This Life Or The Next.

If it is going to offer set meals, I'm going to name them My Second Childhood, My Previous Marriage, Pre-Nuptial Agreement and The Next Phase Of My Life. If more is needed, more will be created then.

If you don't understand, imagine a customer inviting a friend to eat at my restaurant. He's going to say something like," Let's eat at This Life Or The Next!" or "I'm going to eat at This Life Or The Next. Wanna join me?"

And when a waiter introduces customers to the set meals, they're going to say something like," In My Previous Marriage, we have chicken chops with..."

Or when a customer orders a meal, he might say," I'd like to have a Pre-Nuptial Agreement."

Makes the place easy to remember, eh?

And maybe the meals will be themed according to the name. Like My Second Childhood will have more traditional food or maybe it will contain more dessert like ice cream, My Previous Marriage will be a cheap meal(or call it "economy" if you like), and The Next Phase Of My Life will be something modern, whatever is considered modern or even futuristic at the time.

And I can name the chocolate sundae "Day Dreams", the vanilla milkshake "Sweet Dreams", and a dessert for two "Wet Dreams".

Heck, maybe I'll name a dish "Rentboy". Something really evil, really sinful. Maybe the chocolate-coated insects I saw somewhere. That's bound to confuse the police. "Yea, we have Rentboys here!"

And I'll name a pasta dish "Wife", and another "Mistress". "Wife" will be something more filling but has only average taste, and "Mistress" can be a really sweet and colourful dessert! Maybe they will even be the components of The Next Phase Of My Life!

And maybe a set called "Husband" that's basically beer and peanuts. LOL!

A restaurant like that is going to cost a bomb to maintain, with the variety of food that will be served.





C&C3 is good! The campaign is similar to Tiberian Sun in that all 3 campaigns revolve around the exact same story in the same time-line and that each campaign reveals different parts of the whole. And the Brutal AI is tough. Even Hard is pretty hard.

A Feast for Crows is very good too. Just what I expected from George R.R. Martin. Except that the book only focused on several of the current main characters.

And a "good" character dies again! Hanged by another "good" character gone mad! Talk about sudden twists. If you follow the series you'd never have expected that person to be the one to hang her.

But my favourite Tyrion is missing! The author has stated that he will appear in the next book along with the rest of the missing people. That means another year or two of waiting. Again :/

But at the rate the deaths are going, much of the plots in the series will be obsolete, and useless if you just want to understand the ending, because there is almost no connection between some of the dead people and the final part of the story. It's simply too long a chain.

Sunday 8 April 2007

Rant 047 / Aren't The Fruits Of Your Loins The Nuts?

Even without religion, everyday we have good people doing good things, and bad people doing bad things. But for a good person to do bad things, or for a bad person to do good things, that requires religion.

Hence, if religion doesn't exist, we would be living in a very boring world. Everyone would only do what they are expected to do, and no one changes, for better or worse.

But our world doesn't like straight lines. People want good events, in exchange for bad things coming with the good. Everyone wants to see something different once in a while, and they are willing to pay the price.

Therefore, religion.

With religion, you have a powerful tool to convert people from one side to the other. In the name of their religions, good people have commited heinous deeds that can exceed the limits of our imagination. Numerous "justified" wars were started in the name of religion. The Crusades, the Reconquista and the French Wars of Religion are a few of the more frequently used examples.

And don't forget the Holocaust. Without Judaism, Hitler would have needed another reason to start the war. But then he wouldn't have had to go to Hell either, since Hell wouldn't exist if not for religion.

Often, the worst sort of people are those who do the immoral things that they do and see them as good. With religion, its easier to do so.

But with religion, criminals have turned good. Great things have been done in the name of religion. The construction of great wonders, like the Temple of Solomon(aka The First Temple), the Hagia Sophia in Turkey and the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, are the results of religion.

On a side note, the Sistine Chapel was built to look like the Temple of Solomon, as described in the Old Testament. Copycat :P

Damn, but the Papacy sure serves their god in luxury.

Not only does religion do wonders in the field of architecture, it has also brought us many wonders that we take for granted these days. Like weekend holidays, for those of you who have them. Or Christmas - the day we consumers burn holes in our pockets just for the hell of it.

Or the Karma Sutra(कामसूत). Never forget the Karma Sutra, for without it, what sort of hell we would be living in? People should worship Mallanaga Vātsyāyana for displaying such intelligence and wisdom.

Consequently, in exchange for numerous public holidays, some nice buildings and a sex guide, humanity has killed innumerable lives and created Hell on Earth once in a while.

Let them kill me, as long as I get to sleep on Sundays.

This is what people want. Not eternal peace! They want to live lives that have their good times, in exchange for an equal amount bad times. Eternal peace would be boring, 'cause there wouldn't be hunger, which means no need for work.

So we would stay home all day and watch TV and/or masturbate on internet porn. Heck, there wouldn't be TV, since no one would be working at the TV station. So we would stay home all day and masturbate like wild baboons. On nothing, 'cause no one's working in the porn industry.

And eternal peace means there will be no deaths. So we would masturbate for eternity. Yea no girlfriends and shit 'cause love causes a lot of trouble, which ruins the peace.

With eternal peace, we will sit in our caves(no one would be building anything) and... just sit! Because cleaning up the mess afterwards also ruins the peace(hint: no tissues/condoms).

Whoa!





The Knife of Dreams is much better than many books in the series. Must be cos Robert Jordan finally decided to finish his work before he dies. Though I wish he'd decide to do that sooner. Now the tempo is completely off. It's like going at gear 2 for the previous 7 books(well, maybe not book 9) and suddenly at book 11, its gear 5. Almost makes it seem like it was written by a different author.


Scoop is a really bad movie! Woody Allen is good, but all his stuttering in the film really got on my nerves, not to mention gave me a headache. Grr..

Thursday 5 April 2007

Rant 46 / Thou Shall Not Admit Adultery


LOL!

"I can feel it kicking!"


It is found several years ago that green algae can produce hydrogen when deprived of sulfur. Researches at University of California have found that hydrogen production in green algae can be increased greatly by changing one of its genes called "hydrogenase".

By using the new version of this gene, hydrogen production has been increased by a factor of 100k. But to be commercially viable, it needs to be increased again by a factor of 100. One estimate is that an algae farm the size of Texas can supply enough energy for the whole world then. But it's still theoretical.

This sounds very exciting. Though the process is anaerobic, there's no way it can beat the CO2 output of oil usage. Hydrogen cars!!

Right now solar power is the best option, but solar panels are big and expensive, and not reliable enough in places with wet climates.




In PRC, there are places where you can eat human fetuses. They are believed to be very nutritious. And they're not cheap.

But there are other things that are just as strange. Like in Chinese medicine, the deer's penis is a cure for impotency. Usually they use a dried penis. Imagine using a fresh one... LOL!!!

But in Singapore, most people are ignorant of many herbs that are used in traditional Chinese medicine, even in "Chinese pharmacies". When I came to Singapore, my mum was quite shocked to find so many herbs unavailable in the so-called "Chinese pharmacies" in the neighbourhood.

Heck they don't even know those herbs when she mentioned them. In the end she had use what is available. Maybe she'd have better luck in the bigger pharmacies somewhere else but those will not come cheap.




I blame Confucius for making the Chinese lose in the race of technologies centuries ago!

No doubt he did many great things for our race like strengthening the belief in filial piety, among many others, but it was people like him who caused the Chinese to embrace only the old and distrust the new.

I can't deny it wasn't him alone who caused the ancient Chinese to be superstitious people, but he's a symbol of all the scholarly wisdom of the Chinese past. He almost made the Chinese who we are today, even though the first emperor of China burnt almost all his books back then.

Did you know that before that happened, days have to be chosen even for things like searching for thieves? For example, if a criminal was known to be born on the day of the Rat, constables to not look for him on all days of the Rat because he'd be doing everything better than he would on the other 11 days.

And by the way, back then there was no year belonging to each of the 12 animals, but days. Day of the Rat, then day of the Bull, etc.

Imagine how that hindered the productivity of the empire!

China was winning the race at the start, with its invention of the gunpowder. And the compass. And the earthquake detectors. And surgery. And ship hulls divided into multiple compartments(Titanic wasn't the first ship to use this concept!). And many others.

China did rule the sea with its technologically advanced ships, but they didn't like the idea of trading with foreign nations. The main objective of the fleets was to impress other kingdoms, exchange gifts with them, and collecting tributes.

The Chinese back then did not try to explore much, nor trade, which were exactly what the Europeans did later. Thus while the Chinese was having a great time being the greatest empire in Asia, Europeans built trade empires everywhere. Especially after the Napoleonic War.

Later the Spanish and Portuguese each created some of the greatest empires in the Americas by exploring new lands. The Spanish got filthy rich, with all that sacking and looting they did in the great cities on the American natives.

And what were the Chinese doing then? Because defending its northern and eastern borders was more important than impressing the kingdoms to the south, its navy was neglected while money was transferred to the armies from the navy. Soon its fleets were forgotten until one day the Japanese pirates arrived in large numbers. By then it was too late.

Even when European troops began improving on their muskets, the Chinese did not make enough advances in this field. True, muskets and cannons back then were unreliable compared to bows and crossbows. The first muskets could only be loaded and fired once before the enemy troops reach the musketeers.

Cannons were NOT accurate at all. Not that muskets were much better. None of their accuracy was really worthed a damn until someone discovered that a spinning bullet flies straighter.

But it was really too late by the time the Qing rulers finally saw that their armies and navies were hopelessly obsolete. Even though its armies were the first to use guns. Even though the Chinese invented the FLAMETHROWER!!! Even though the Chinese invented a primitive form of gunpowder missile!

(Yea this is the point where you should be thinking along the lines of WTF! and WTF?!?!?!)

Stagnation is the key point here. They believed themselves to be the greatest kingdom in the world, and were not interested in knowing the progress of the "barbarians".

But the Qing dynasty did try to improve its military in the end, and great generals did emerge. But its modernized armies, Beiyang Army for example, did not fare well at all in the wars to come. Its efforts to improve, like the Self-Strengthening Movement, was like a last-minute attempt to save the country.

And in the end, Qing collapsed and Yuan Shikai tried to be the next emperor and succeeded for a while. Sun Yat-Sen died of cancer and soon became forgotten. Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek came along and fought each other. To this day, their followers are still fighting.


Disclaimer: There may be some mistakes above since I'm no history student. Do your own research if you're picky :P

Rant 45 / I Can't Believe It's Not Soylent Green!

Many ugly things have pretty names to enhance its attractiveness. Rocky mountain oysters, spam are just a few of such names that exist today. And Soylent Green, of course. What do they sound like to you, if you don't know what they are, exactly?

Rocky mountain oysters... some sort of oyster found in the mountains(omfg)?

Spam is Spam. Everyone knows what Spam is(the pork stuff, not the important emails from your boss).

Soylent Green.. sounds like some sort of biscuit?

Spam is made most parts of the pig, only excluding the ears, scalps, snouts, mucous membranes, sinews, genital systems, udders, intestines and urinary bladder. Which leaves us the "really edible" stuff like the lungs, heart, brains(?) and etc. And ham. Never forget the ham, lest you totally lose the desire for Spam.

Historically, the only part that has never been used in this family of products, is the pigs' penises. Just a little trivia.

Rocky mountain oysters are balls. Bulls' balls. Never a cow's balls cos that'd be a tranny's balls. And that's just so wrong.

Cows. Trannies. Sodomised bulls. And the chain goes on and on.

And Soylent Green! My favourite! It's fictional, but it sure sounds so interesting! It's made of people. The euthanized ones. Though at times I can imagine some would wish otherwise.

Well, there were other Soylents but they were never as popular as the Green version.

But what's wrong with offal? In Singapore alone you can find pigs' offal sold everywhere. It's an important part of the Chinese cuisine. In Hong Kong you can find barbecued cows' offal in the streets too. And they don't taste half bad!

There are worse things than eating these, if you find them distasteful at all in the first place. In the Philippines eggs with half-grown chicks in them are sold in the streets, boiled. Those who like this describe it as a 3-course meal. I can't remember exactly what these 3 courses are exactly except there's the soup and there's the main course. Go figure.

Of course I am interested in what this taste like. It's not like it's still alive. If you find this cruel, just think about what they do in abortions and you'll find this more acceptable. Or fresh seafood, for that matter.

In case you don't know how some types of fresh seafood are cooked, they are thrown into boiling water alive. Not all, just some.

Like certain shellfishes. Imagine the agony it goes through, being in the boiling water and not able to struggle at all.

Insects! That's one distasteful subject if it's seen as food. It's high in protein, no doubt. Thanks but no thanks, but I'll get my proteins from milk.

After all these "gross" stuff, all these boiling/eating things alive discussions, I can tell you for sure that if you think on what you see in those animal documentaries on Discovery or National Geographic Channel, you'd see that many animals in the wild are eaten alive.

Yes, most of them would be dead when they get eaten, but not all hungry animals are patient creatures. Like piranhas. Piranhas are edible, though it must take some guts to do that sort of fishing. You don't truly know what's a "frenzy" till you see them feed.

And after eating piranhas, the natives would save their jaws as cutters which they use for haircuts. Serious. It works.

Or snakes! Yea, snakes eat many things while they're still alive. They paralyze their preys and swallow them whole, which means if the prey doesn't suffocate soon enough, the stomach acids will have to do the rest. Which means a slow and painful death.

But this cruelty doesn't compare to what humans do to their food. How do you think they get sharks' fins? They catch that shark, cut it's fins off and throw it back. Alive. Where it's blood will probably attract other fishes, not excluding fellow sharks. Sharks are known to eat anything, even car tires. Since fishes need their fins to swim properly, it will die.

It will know it's injured and cannot escape other predators. It can struggle but it cannot win. And the other fishes will tear it apart alive, just like the rest of the preys.

Stop eating sharks' fins, if you want to help the world.

Stick with birds' nest, since it only kills humans. The careless ones.

Abalone is a strange food. It is hard to understand why anyone would want to pay hundreds of dollars to eat a big piece of shellfish. The rare ones are expensive only because they are rare, not because they are especially tasty. The reason for anyone to eat these abalones can be anything except for its delicious taste.

Abalones are good if they're boiled in water properly. There's no need to add much, maybe just some oyster sauce. You want to taste the abalone, not the chicken.

In case you don't understand, many restaurants use chicken soup to boil the abalones. But why the heck would you want chicken soup that's been boiled for days to cook the abalone with? And cook for hours? Yea it's definitely the essence of the chicken there, good stuff, but I want to taste the abalone, not the chicken.

It's like eating sushi with a fuckload of wasabi. Or noodles with the whole damned jar of chilli. You are losing the point of eating what you are eating, focusing too much on enhancing its taste to finally appreciate the work of the chef. If I were the chef, I'd feel insulted if you add too much of these "taste-enhancers" into what I cooked. It will mean you find the food unsatisfactory.

I see it as a good idea if you can eat that first bite without adding anything, unless recommended by the chef. This will give you an idea of how good the work is. The salt and pepper are there to improve the taste, and you should not mistake them for the main course.

As always there are people who do that, adding a hell of a lot of stuff to what they eat, mainly because they're there. These people are living in the wrong era. They belong to the post-WWII days when ketchup was a luxury of the rich, and the poor eat bark. Seriously, if you take things only because they're there for the taking, you should go for the recycling industry.

Maybe that's one reason why I really don't like cheaper buffets that are not ala carte. Call me spoilt. Call me sissy. But I don't like to push people, physically or not. I tend to hurt them when I do. It's some sort of a packaged deal. Comes with the "being big".

Reminds me of those times when I have middle-aged people squeeze into queues with me. Like going up buses or trains. I tend to move slowly so that I don't push anyone. I let the ladies go first 'cause they're easier to push down( if need be LOL!). I have a rough idea of what my "slight push" means to other weaker people. Kinda.

A few them have even stared at me and pushed past me to go for the seats! Well, if I have to choose between that and pushing them into the doors/gap, which results in them staring at me (or speak to me), I'll choose letting them push past me. I'm too lazy to rush for seats. I'm sure many of you should have seen people like that. It seems the seats are some sort of holy relic and when they sit down in them they can feel the presence of their gods.

I'm not talking about the really old ones. Those can't push anyway. WEAK!! But they're too old, so they have no choice. And most of the times I give them my seats, purely because I can see I'm the only one crazy enough to do so.

But it's a totally different matter when they demand seats from you while there are empty seats nearby. Once, some old geezer woke me up in the train and pointed at that damned sign. I looked around, stood up, and took the seat in front of me. IN FRONT OF ME!!! WTF MAN! If you're that old, stay home for fuck sakes!

It's precisely for these people that Soylent Green should exist. On one hand, we have old people here who are, sadly, seriously senile and cannot do anything on their own properly. On the other hand, we have starving people in Africa.

Since those old people are this senile, they probably won't know what happens if they die of carbon monoxide poisoning anyway. Or other "more orthodox" forms of euthanasia.

And since the starving people are hungry enough to eat anything, Soylent Green should be fine with them. Let us keep the flour and sugar. They can have the all-rounded food made of the most complex creatures in existence. Yea, see? They'd get the better side of the deal. While we keep only the carbohydrates and sugars, they get all the nutrients they will ever need. I just hope they remove the more disgusting bits first. Like the tumours.

And if they throw in all the bodies of people who have no kins and friends, the U.S should have an unlimited supply of Soylent Green right from the streets. And Iraq too, with that war killing the hundreds of thousands of people. Many of those probably died with their kins and friends anyway, so few living people will recognize them, let alone care about them.

This may seem heartless, but if you can only see for yourself what's happening out there, you will understand that this is not cruel at all.

Sunday 1 April 2007

Rant 044 / There's No "I' In "Teamwork", But There Sure Is "Laughter" In "Slaughter"!

A short introduction to Zombies

Zombies are a misunderstood people, and are shunned by the general public due to their unfriendly nature. They are really not harmful, and their life stories are generally very touching.
Zombies are largely emos, to such a degree that they are also anti-social. They are often abused by their parents during childhood, and bullied by the not-so-emo kids in school. Eventually, they grow up to distrust humanity as a whole and end up working as cashiers, security guards and bloggers.

Where to find them

With such distrust that zombies have for society, they can frequently be heard whining and complaining about everything in life. In their point of view, life is always unfair, and never in their favour. These whines and complaints can be heard or seen in online games, pubs, TV shows, and blogs, and can touch on everything from Chuck Norris to their ingrown toenails.

Another common sign of zombies is the way they do not care about everything. Or so they claim. "Everything" in this case consists of primarily of their outer appearance and the attempts of other people trying to initiate conversations with them. Shabby clothings in public, and ignoring greetings online are sure signs of zombies.

Other ways to identify a zombie include denials that they whine, and egocentric arguments, and blogs that criticize blogs that discuss people who blog about bloggers.

History of Zombies

Zombies were first discovered in Africa circa 400 BC, where they fed mainly on the spaghetti shoots that grow in the endless savanna of Eastern Africa. These zombies were slow, and unresponsive to foreigners, making them the perfect food for the cannibal tribes that migrated near their native lands.

By the 15th century, zombies were introduced to Europe when slavers found their taste preferable to the scurvy-infected slaves they were eating. They realized that zombies were easy to rear, and cost little to feed, as they were willing to feed on the dying slaves themselves, forming a small ecological food chain on the slaver ships.

Zombies were popular in 16th century Scotland as the main ingredient in Haggis. Wild zombies were caught by hunters by leaving sheeps in cages that snap shut once a zombie enters the cage to satisfy their sexual cravings. But by the 18th century, the Scots find sheep innards more savoury than zombie flesh, and zombies were replaced by sheep guts in haggis soon after.

In early 19th century, with the introduction of animal rights in Europe, Asia and the Americas due to radical animal activists, zombies became a source of food no longer. People were willing to take them in as pets, and became "part of the family" as in the cases of dogs and cats. But unlike other house pets, these zombies eventually evolved to understand and use rudimentary speech, and soon became "part of the society".

Modern zombies are still capable of several words and phrases at most, mainly lines like "FUCK!", "What the FUCK!" and "Why the FUCK!", if they speak at all.