So I managed to go buy my groceries right after the test, instead of going back to sleep. And managed to do it without any trouble. But that was only because I was almost paranoid then, watching every single move I made. I did make one little mistake though - I forgot to buy beancurd.
I'm having another mini-steamboat tonight lol. Very simple broth using a chicken stock and salt. And I'm using fish, pork, some mushrooms and bok choys again. Less than what was used in the last meal. But no beancurds! :(
I think I may have found out why my chocolate isn't as smooth and creamy as the commercial bitter chocolate. I need to add cocoa butter or plain butter in addition to the condensed milk and sugar. Yesterday I tried adding nothing but sugar to pure unsweetened chocolate. It didn't mix, forming a pool of brown with a sandy texture. Then I experimented with adding water. Suddenly, my pool of brown became a chunk of brown. Not shit, because shit isn't black unless you're bleeding in your colon.
So chocolate coagulates when in contact with water. They say you learn from every mistake. This was a good lesson. Good thing I didn't use too much, only 2 oz.
So now after this meal, I'm going to add butter, sugar and condensed milk to another 2 oz of chocolate and see what happens. Slightly heated, of course.
Did 2 tests with 1 oz of choc each.
First test was done using chocolate, about 3 tbs of condensed milk, 1 tbs sugar and one of those tiny packets of butter that they provide in inflight meals. Result was not much different from my previous attempts. The milk and chocolate do not mix. Good for dipping bread in but not what I want.
In my second attempt, I learnt something new again. I used 1 oz choc, 1 tbs sugar, 1 packet butter and 1 tsp milk. It became a thick mixture. The milk and chocolate mixed! From one of my previous tries, adding water to a mixture of choc and sugar gave me a very thick paste, making the water seem like a thickening agent.
So I added 1 tsp of water. But it didn't make it thicker, only thinner which was the logical effect. But hey, the milk dissolved into the mixture, so it was a success. To continue, I added more milk slowly, adding 1 tsp at a time and stirring till it's homogeneous before adding another tsp.
But all it did was give me a paste that is quite similar to choc frosting they use on cakes. Adding more milk and sugar only gave me a sweeter and thinner paste. Heating does nothing and I couldn't heat it for long because my electric heater has only 1 setting and prolonged cooking may cause it to burn. So I stopped after a while.
Conclusion is that adding butter will make it creamier in texture but it will not make it taste smoother. I wonder if I need to use full cream condensed milk instead of low fat. Anyhow, I now have half a bowl of chocolate frosting that I cannot finish. Probably will eat it for breakfast with some bread. Muahahahahahaha!
I also have this suspicion that my chocolate tastes different from commercial chocolate because of the inherent taste of the Hershey's Baking Bar I'm using. Maybe they have different types of cocoa and these companies use different types.
Too lazy to google. Maybe next time.
This piece of news is pretty interesting. Apparently some chef served frozen shit to a bad customer and it caused quite a sensation because it happened in a big hotel. LOL! Epic prank!
Alright, according to the Wiki article on types of chocolate, the diff between pure chocolate and dark chocolate is the addition of fats and sugar. So if I'm making dark chocolate, all I need is sugar and butter. I can skip the milk now.
Which is strange, because the sugar didn't seem to dissolve before I added milk in my second attempt just now.
And this chocolate I'm using now is also known as chocolate liquor. Also very strange because it's called liquor despite it not containing any alcohol. English...
I can't figure this out!! Many recipes I see online tells people to add sugar to the chocolate to make dark chocolate. But the sugar doesn't dissolve into the chocolate until I added milk in the second attempt! What am I doing wrong now?
And why does it always have this burnt taste? Is the vanilla extract used to cover up this?
Friday 31 October 2008
Rant 211 / Holy Cow! Goosebumps On Me?!?!?
Fuck! I just saw one of the creepiest picture ever. It gave me goosebumps even though I knew it was a fake. Fuck! Even remembering it gives me goosebumps.
Description: A woman's breast photoshopped with lotus seeds on the nipple.
It's fucking disgusting! No slimy stuff or maggots or whatever. Just a clean breast and clean lotus seeds. Yet the combo is serious pwnage.
And here I thought I've been somewhat desensitized already.
Click here to go to the page. It shows the pic and explains the photo. Don't worry, it's in the middle of the page, so it won't stun you the moment you click on it. You can easily scroll down slowly or skip the pic and go to the bottom for the explanation of why it's a fake. Don't worry, it won't blind you.
Just one warning: what is seen, cannot be unseen.
Somehow I'm beginning to think some of the things I type don't make sense.
I hate doing anything serious without enough sleep. I don't mind reading, mugging, gaming or blogging without sufficient rest, but anything else, even going for breakfast, I dread. The fact is I make all sorts of mistakes, ranging from many small judgmental errors to huge blunders.
I especially hate those small errors because I never notice them till it's too late, often making me feel clumsy or stupid. Small things like how far to move my elbow to avoid the corner, how far to stretch my hand to take something or even how to complete my "to do" list. It's scary, because sometimes I can buy something and forget to pay. Then the cashier would try to get my attention but I don't notice because I was lifting the stuff up, until he/she start shouting. Oh man, the embarassment. At least I didn't drop the stuff by accident at that one time it happened. It was very possible.
Never happens when I'm not tired.
But sometimes it's necessary to go about without even 5 hours of sleep. Like today, because of a test.
Damn.
What mistake will I make today? I think I'll avoid doing anything but getting something to eat, go for the test and go back to my room to sleep. I can shop for groceries in the late afternoon or evening. Or even tomorrow morning. I really fear doing most things without enough sleep.
I'm the only guy I know who has this problem. Most people I know in uni never seem to have any problem with the lack of sleep, except the uncontrollable urge to whine about it. Wonder why I have such a weird problem.
Description: A woman's breast photoshopped with lotus seeds on the nipple.
It's fucking disgusting! No slimy stuff or maggots or whatever. Just a clean breast and clean lotus seeds. Yet the combo is serious pwnage.
And here I thought I've been somewhat desensitized already.
Click here to go to the page. It shows the pic and explains the photo. Don't worry, it's in the middle of the page, so it won't stun you the moment you click on it. You can easily scroll down slowly or skip the pic and go to the bottom for the explanation of why it's a fake. Don't worry, it won't blind you.
Just one warning: what is seen, cannot be unseen.
Somehow I'm beginning to think some of the things I type don't make sense.
I hate doing anything serious without enough sleep. I don't mind reading, mugging, gaming or blogging without sufficient rest, but anything else, even going for breakfast, I dread. The fact is I make all sorts of mistakes, ranging from many small judgmental errors to huge blunders.
I especially hate those small errors because I never notice them till it's too late, often making me feel clumsy or stupid. Small things like how far to move my elbow to avoid the corner, how far to stretch my hand to take something or even how to complete my "to do" list. It's scary, because sometimes I can buy something and forget to pay. Then the cashier would try to get my attention but I don't notice because I was lifting the stuff up, until he/she start shouting. Oh man, the embarassment. At least I didn't drop the stuff by accident at that one time it happened. It was very possible.
Never happens when I'm not tired.
But sometimes it's necessary to go about without even 5 hours of sleep. Like today, because of a test.
Damn.
What mistake will I make today? I think I'll avoid doing anything but getting something to eat, go for the test and go back to my room to sleep. I can shop for groceries in the late afternoon or evening. Or even tomorrow morning. I really fear doing most things without enough sleep.
I'm the only guy I know who has this problem. Most people I know in uni never seem to have any problem with the lack of sleep, except the uncontrollable urge to whine about it. Wonder why I have such a weird problem.
Thursday 30 October 2008
Rant 210 / Money Defies Gravity. It Is The Only Thing In The World That Rolls Uphill.
Schadenfreude, that's the word I was trying to remember in the last post. Schadenfreude, a word borrowed from the German language. Pronounced as "shah-d-uh-n-fr-oy-d-uh", it means to delight in other people's suffering. The chinese idiom "幸灾乐祸" is an apt translation of this word.
It's not exactly sadism, because sadism is a more extreme version of this. Probably more physical too.
Well, I'm not sure about the differences - I'm no sociologist.
But these people are all too common on the Net. Does say something about our true selves. Another reason why we wear masks. Still feel disgust at this deceit that has become an integral part of our civilization? Don't. We need it. It'll be an omniarchy if we act as who we really are. People who don't believe this should dig a little deeper into their souls and take a look the oppressed side of themselves.
People all have 2 sides, like coins. Some have more, but for simplicity's sake, I'm not going into that.
In the civilized world, we let our nicer selves reign most of the time and the darker side kept hidden and caged. Law and order keeps this true. Those who are unable to do this eventually become criminals.
But in the virtual world where law and order are but a figment of your imagination, the dark side can run free. And you find everything that humans aren't supposed to do, right here on the Web. More well-known evils are pedophilia, zoophilia and coprophilia. Lesser known ones include things like vorarephilia.
Pedophilia I can somewhat understand, with little girls in many countries dressing up in revealing clothes. I mean, c'mon, 12 year olds wearing tube tops, miniskirts and stockings can probably stir some desire in those old men who haven't had sex in a year or something.
There are 2 ways ladies can look good. Nice outfit or skimpy clothes. For little girls, there is a difference between dressing up as "that cute princess" and "that little whore-to-be". One takes a little more thought and effort, the other just requires less cloth. And sadly, many girls and even women are taking the easier way out.
Zoophilia, I can't understand. Animals, wtf? And horses?? Why not gorillas? At least they look more human than horses!
Coprophilia. Now that's the one fetish I cannot stand at all. For those who have never seen this video called 2girls1cup, thank whatever deity you worship that you haven't. Personally, I haven't either, but that was because I always google things before I click on suspicious links. I managed to read its description before deciding not to click on the link. How the fuck can people get aroused by fecal matter???? Personally, even a silent fart is a total turn-off. But this isn't the sickest fetish.
I find vorarephilia the sickest of all. I cannot and will not try to understand how ANYONE can get a hard on from the sight of people getting eaten.
There was, once upon a time, a kid who was curious about the wonders that the Internet offered. He clicked on many links everyday for hours on end. Viruses were not an uncommon resident in his computer, but curiosity pushed him on. One day, he encountered a webpage listing many words he did not understand. One was "vore". It sounded interesting, so he clicked on it.
He saw this video, the 3D sort made of low quality computer-generated graphics, of a woman in the sea being eaten by a shark. It was, in fact, very mild. Not much blood, unlike Doom. But he knew what it was trying to show, and he exited the website and never returned.
And years later, he read about this fetish. He felt disgusted, but glad that all he saw was a shitty video lasting several seconds. He thought he had finally seen it all, witnessed the lowest that the Net can shove into his mind.
Then came goatse. And lemonparty. And 4chan /b/.
For the more curious readers, goatse is unfortunately no longer existing as a shock site. Neither do I have the picture in my comp. I will not taint my hard drives with such filthy things.
However, lemonparty is still up. If you've never been exposed to disgusting photos before, visit this site. It will rock your world. For the more desensitized, this is peanuts. I recommend searching for the abovementioned video, 2girls1cup, and watch it. Preferably with a full stomach. Call me a sissy, but I don't see the necessity to prove my masculinity in such a pointless way.
4chan /b/ is disgusting in a very different way. Not shocking, just disgusting.
If a person can be free of desire, he would not exist. If he can want nothing, there is no reason for him to live. And living, by itself, is troublesome. Bills, interpersonal interactions, food, all these takes up some time and effort. But if there is no reason for a person to solve these problems, then he might as well die. Death is lighter than a feather after all.
It is extremely hard to be such a hardcore nihilist. In fact, I'd say its against human nature to want nothing. Buddha can say all he wants, but if people of this world are convinced that everything that is material is pointless, then there would be much fewer people alive today.
Some things are just against our instincts. To not want to live comfortably is one. Of course, such a person can also be described as a masochist, but they aren't exactly a common sort of people. But to succeed, that is slightly different.
To be rich, this goal is merely an extension of wanting to live comfortably, because it is derived from the assumption that being rich will make you live comfortably. I'm not saying it is not logical, but if you throw in health problems, I'd say that not many people are destined to live comfortably with huge amounts of cash in their bank accounts.
There is information that everyone has access to. Life expectancy in the developed countries and the developing. How many percent of the world's population controlling half the world's wealth. Then there is the sort of data no one looks at because no one announces them.
Like the number of people who die from stress-related diseases, like heart diseases, strokes and such, who would have retired with an obscene amount of cash in his wallet and would probably have moved to Liechenstein by 50. But I think we all have a good idea. It's just that we don't want to think about it.
No one wants to think about what sort of consequences they will get on the road to great wealth. There will always be people who want to try their luck at it, but it is sad that there are those who step on this road ignorant of the inherent dangers.
Maybe that's why a triple bypass costs S$10k, just the surgery alone. There are various other fees that will be thrown in, but that 10k will form the bulk of the total costs. Then what about quadruple bypass?
Or we can go back and look at it from another perspective.
Do you think you won't get it if you don't try to work very hard to be rich?
Zing!
No guarantees, but medically speaking, if you live life at your own pace, you may be able to avoid something known as chronic stress.
Chronic stress can drive you insane, kill you, or make you broke enough to wish it killed you instead.
Of course, you can avoid that even if you can't handle all that stress. Take drugs. We all know that drug abusers aren't always the dirt-poor, burglar/robber type. Drug abusers can afford to wear suits too. It's just that only the poor ones get caught more often. For them, drugs are a problem. But that's because they can't afford it.
For those who can, drugs aren't a problem. A simple illustration of this is the TV character House. He is an addict, but he doesn't get caught. Watching House can give viewers a glimpse of how addicts don't always appear like the stereotypical junkie.
Or we can go to Holland, land of the free. They say if you like weed, go study in the University of Amsterdam. No junkies, no. But there, we can learn something different.
Sometimes we wonder how stupid people can get, and how they get so stupid. And to that, I sometimes ask myself, "Are they really stupid? Or do they see things in a different way than I do?"
I cannot tell, sometimes. There are times when we can definitely tell that it's just stupidity. Like the following.
Maybe the Australian Army is really fantastic at camouflaging its tanks. But this?
I'd say it's not stupidity in the second. Misinformation, difference in judgement. Maybe she doesn't know that smoking harms the baby. And this is what sets people apart in any conflict. Most people aren't stupid, yet many make seemingly stupid decisions. But it is hard to understand and convince people they are wrong. The thing is, people find it hard to let go of their beliefs.
Relatively few people have to go through the experience of having their foundation of assumptions and beliefs smashed. Yet only such people are usually the ones who can accept that what they have always believed in are wrong. Because to begin to believe may have been the work of logic, but to continue to believe in it without thinking about it anymore is the work of faith.
Faith is hard to smash, simply because it is resistant to logic. But without faith, we cannot live in our present world. Most of us have never seen how a fridge really works. We may have studied the mechanics, but not actually see the machine working. Yet we trust that the fridge keeps our stuff cold because of Thermodynamics. But for all that we have seen with our own eyes, we might as well believe the fridge works because Allah wills it.
And that is faith. We believe science is doing it. And we have almost come to the point that we can actually say that Science is a religion, based on what we see. We see cars running all the time, but have you ever seen an engine working? The little explosions that drives the cars? And nuclear power? You stick in the uranium, use the starter and POOF! Heat!
In the end, what do we see? This is just like, for example, Christianity except it works. Reminds me of the Space Marines in Warhammer 40k, people who believe in a Machine Spirit. Over here in the real world, we aren't very different either.
Considering buying Mass Effect. Costs almost 50SGD, but it may be worth it if there are more downloadable content coming. Too bad they don't sell it on STEAM, damn EA!
Actually 50 is still much lower than the 45USD they're selling it at in the US.
Plus Mass Effect is the only single-player game out there I can describe as a great game. I rate a game mostly on how much I want to complete it on the first run and how long it takes for me to want to play it again. This is the only game that takes me less than half a year to want to replay it. If there is a sequel, I'm seriously considering paying money for it.
It's not exactly sadism, because sadism is a more extreme version of this. Probably more physical too.
Well, I'm not sure about the differences - I'm no sociologist.
But these people are all too common on the Net. Does say something about our true selves. Another reason why we wear masks. Still feel disgust at this deceit that has become an integral part of our civilization? Don't. We need it. It'll be an omniarchy if we act as who we really are. People who don't believe this should dig a little deeper into their souls and take a look the oppressed side of themselves.
People all have 2 sides, like coins. Some have more, but for simplicity's sake, I'm not going into that.
In the civilized world, we let our nicer selves reign most of the time and the darker side kept hidden and caged. Law and order keeps this true. Those who are unable to do this eventually become criminals.
But in the virtual world where law and order are but a figment of your imagination, the dark side can run free. And you find everything that humans aren't supposed to do, right here on the Web. More well-known evils are pedophilia, zoophilia and coprophilia. Lesser known ones include things like vorarephilia.
Pedophilia I can somewhat understand, with little girls in many countries dressing up in revealing clothes. I mean, c'mon, 12 year olds wearing tube tops, miniskirts and stockings can probably stir some desire in those old men who haven't had sex in a year or something.
There are 2 ways ladies can look good. Nice outfit or skimpy clothes. For little girls, there is a difference between dressing up as "that cute princess" and "that little whore-to-be". One takes a little more thought and effort, the other just requires less cloth. And sadly, many girls and even women are taking the easier way out.
Zoophilia, I can't understand. Animals, wtf? And horses?? Why not gorillas? At least they look more human than horses!
Coprophilia. Now that's the one fetish I cannot stand at all. For those who have never seen this video called 2girls1cup, thank whatever deity you worship that you haven't. Personally, I haven't either, but that was because I always google things before I click on suspicious links. I managed to read its description before deciding not to click on the link. How the fuck can people get aroused by fecal matter???? Personally, even a silent fart is a total turn-off. But this isn't the sickest fetish.
I find vorarephilia the sickest of all. I cannot and will not try to understand how ANYONE can get a hard on from the sight of people getting eaten.
There was, once upon a time, a kid who was curious about the wonders that the Internet offered. He clicked on many links everyday for hours on end. Viruses were not an uncommon resident in his computer, but curiosity pushed him on. One day, he encountered a webpage listing many words he did not understand. One was "vore". It sounded interesting, so he clicked on it.
He saw this video, the 3D sort made of low quality computer-generated graphics, of a woman in the sea being eaten by a shark. It was, in fact, very mild. Not much blood, unlike Doom. But he knew what it was trying to show, and he exited the website and never returned.
And years later, he read about this fetish. He felt disgusted, but glad that all he saw was a shitty video lasting several seconds. He thought he had finally seen it all, witnessed the lowest that the Net can shove into his mind.
Then came goatse. And lemonparty. And 4chan /b/.
For the more curious readers, goatse is unfortunately no longer existing as a shock site. Neither do I have the picture in my comp. I will not taint my hard drives with such filthy things.
However, lemonparty is still up. If you've never been exposed to disgusting photos before, visit this site. It will rock your world. For the more desensitized, this is peanuts. I recommend searching for the abovementioned video, 2girls1cup, and watch it. Preferably with a full stomach. Call me a sissy, but I don't see the necessity to prove my masculinity in such a pointless way.
4chan /b/ is disgusting in a very different way. Not shocking, just disgusting.
If a person can be free of desire, he would not exist. If he can want nothing, there is no reason for him to live. And living, by itself, is troublesome. Bills, interpersonal interactions, food, all these takes up some time and effort. But if there is no reason for a person to solve these problems, then he might as well die. Death is lighter than a feather after all.
It is extremely hard to be such a hardcore nihilist. In fact, I'd say its against human nature to want nothing. Buddha can say all he wants, but if people of this world are convinced that everything that is material is pointless, then there would be much fewer people alive today.
Some things are just against our instincts. To not want to live comfortably is one. Of course, such a person can also be described as a masochist, but they aren't exactly a common sort of people. But to succeed, that is slightly different.
To be rich, this goal is merely an extension of wanting to live comfortably, because it is derived from the assumption that being rich will make you live comfortably. I'm not saying it is not logical, but if you throw in health problems, I'd say that not many people are destined to live comfortably with huge amounts of cash in their bank accounts.
There is information that everyone has access to. Life expectancy in the developed countries and the developing. How many percent of the world's population controlling half the world's wealth. Then there is the sort of data no one looks at because no one announces them.
Like the number of people who die from stress-related diseases, like heart diseases, strokes and such, who would have retired with an obscene amount of cash in his wallet and would probably have moved to Liechenstein by 50. But I think we all have a good idea. It's just that we don't want to think about it.
No one wants to think about what sort of consequences they will get on the road to great wealth. There will always be people who want to try their luck at it, but it is sad that there are those who step on this road ignorant of the inherent dangers.
Maybe that's why a triple bypass costs S$10k, just the surgery alone. There are various other fees that will be thrown in, but that 10k will form the bulk of the total costs. Then what about quadruple bypass?
Or we can go back and look at it from another perspective.
Do you think you won't get it if you don't try to work very hard to be rich?
Zing!
No guarantees, but medically speaking, if you live life at your own pace, you may be able to avoid something known as chronic stress.
Chronic stress can drive you insane, kill you, or make you broke enough to wish it killed you instead.
Of course, you can avoid that even if you can't handle all that stress. Take drugs. We all know that drug abusers aren't always the dirt-poor, burglar/robber type. Drug abusers can afford to wear suits too. It's just that only the poor ones get caught more often. For them, drugs are a problem. But that's because they can't afford it.
For those who can, drugs aren't a problem. A simple illustration of this is the TV character House. He is an addict, but he doesn't get caught. Watching House can give viewers a glimpse of how addicts don't always appear like the stereotypical junkie.
Or we can go to Holland, land of the free. They say if you like weed, go study in the University of Amsterdam. No junkies, no. But there, we can learn something different.
Sometimes we wonder how stupid people can get, and how they get so stupid. And to that, I sometimes ask myself, "Are they really stupid? Or do they see things in a different way than I do?"
I cannot tell, sometimes. There are times when we can definitely tell that it's just stupidity. Like the following.
Maybe the Australian Army is really fantastic at camouflaging its tanks. But this?
I'd say it's not stupidity in the second. Misinformation, difference in judgement. Maybe she doesn't know that smoking harms the baby. And this is what sets people apart in any conflict. Most people aren't stupid, yet many make seemingly stupid decisions. But it is hard to understand and convince people they are wrong. The thing is, people find it hard to let go of their beliefs.
Relatively few people have to go through the experience of having their foundation of assumptions and beliefs smashed. Yet only such people are usually the ones who can accept that what they have always believed in are wrong. Because to begin to believe may have been the work of logic, but to continue to believe in it without thinking about it anymore is the work of faith.
Faith is hard to smash, simply because it is resistant to logic. But without faith, we cannot live in our present world. Most of us have never seen how a fridge really works. We may have studied the mechanics, but not actually see the machine working. Yet we trust that the fridge keeps our stuff cold because of Thermodynamics. But for all that we have seen with our own eyes, we might as well believe the fridge works because Allah wills it.
And that is faith. We believe science is doing it. And we have almost come to the point that we can actually say that Science is a religion, based on what we see. We see cars running all the time, but have you ever seen an engine working? The little explosions that drives the cars? And nuclear power? You stick in the uranium, use the starter and POOF! Heat!
In the end, what do we see? This is just like, for example, Christianity except it works. Reminds me of the Space Marines in Warhammer 40k, people who believe in a Machine Spirit. Over here in the real world, we aren't very different either.
Considering buying Mass Effect. Costs almost 50SGD, but it may be worth it if there are more downloadable content coming. Too bad they don't sell it on STEAM, damn EA!
Actually 50 is still much lower than the 45USD they're selling it at in the US.
Plus Mass Effect is the only single-player game out there I can describe as a great game. I rate a game mostly on how much I want to complete it on the first run and how long it takes for me to want to play it again. This is the only game that takes me less than half a year to want to replay it. If there is a sequel, I'm seriously considering paying money for it.
Wednesday 29 October 2008
Rant 209 / What Truly Matters Is What Others Think Of You Because Your Impression Of Yourself Only Lasts As Long As You Live
Fresh bread is always delicious. Those that reached the shop today and landed in your bag before night arrives. Fresh bread needs no help to make itself taste delicious. To eat good bread with even butter is to waste food. Blasphemy, even.
Bread....
Being spoilt by living in a high-rise apartment all my life, I never knew how much difference in the amount of dust 20 storeys can make. I guess we learn new things everyday.
History often has a way of changing itself. A thousand years is all it takes to change an action from being seen as evil to a great deed that saved lives. For example, Wu Zetian was the only true Empress in the history of China. She was seen as a villain for most of the centuries after her death. In fact, this view began to change only after the 1950s, about 1200 years after her death!
Amazing, how people change as time passes. The same goes for how the memories of the same people change. Perhaps 2000 years in the future, Einstein won't be one of the greatest humans who ever lived, but may be known as the man who started the fall of civilization for coming up with E=mc^2. Who knows?
Deeds may be solid, but how it is interpreted is often like air, changing at anytime. The same deed can be done by 50 different people for 100 different reasons. I can do what I want, but often, how it is seen by other people is hard to control.
Can be done, but hard.
Truth is perception, after all. And perception is never solid, because it takes absolute faith to make it unchangeable. And this is how religion is so powerful. Used properly, people will do anything for a goal that has little to do with them.
It is scary how much power the major religions actually wield. Leaders of major religions can start wars just by saying the right words. It is within their powers, but such power, today, cannot be used except in the most dire situations.
It used to be different, back in the days of the Crusades. Reading the stories of that period gives me a sense of disgust at the concepts of absolute faith and unquestioning loyalty. What people can do for their religion back then is simply amazing .
Nowadays, people have learnt. Like the French, who are no longer as religious as they were 500 years back. Religion bit them really hard in the past. The quote," Kill them all, God will sort them out" is derived from their history. Guess what the story was. I think I mentioned this somewhere in one of my 200 past rants. Oh well...
I, in a way, respect trolls. They are the true applied psychology experts. They are the ones who put their expertise in use. Every single negative reaction they receive is a symbol of their success. I've never been a troll before, but I've seen good trolls so successful it took 1 simple post to spark hundreds of comments. All flaming the troll. That, in my eyes, is pro.
You see, trolls can see where your weakness is. They know where the right buttons are and how to push them. In fact, if you trash your computer after reading their words, it's a great achievement that they will never know of. Even I get pissed off sometimes at the comments that just scream "IGNORANCE" and "STUPIDITY".
Those are the common ones.
The more subtle ones involve using several identities.
Trolls are a breed of people who are probably very unhappy in their real lives. Such people, if in games, are known as griefers. Generally, they just like to upset others for fun. Makes me remember that incident where a bunch of players ruined an ingame funeral in WoW which was meant for a player who died in real life. It was meant to be a sad moment, but those griefers arrived and killed every single person who attended in the game.
Reading that incident numbed me to the cruelty that the Internet has to offer. As I have already said in the past, the Internet is a shit hole. There are many good websites, like those that asks people to donate clicks because sponsors will donate money according to the number of clicks they receive. And then there are the true abyss of the virtual world, where social rejects and sociopaths coagulate to form the cancer of humanity.
I specifically linked the latter to 4chan's /b/ because it is the one part of the internet I really see as the deepest shit hole ever created by mankind. The rest of 4chan isn't so bad, like /wg/ where some of the best wallpapers can be found with their watermarks removed.
Then again, 4chan in general isn't even a healthy place for normal people in the first place. The following picture illustrates my point but is not safe for work. Kids, don't forget to cover your eyes!
Oh yea, never forget this next picture. I admit, I did chuckle. But still, it is one of the most "wrong" pictures I have ever laid my eyes on.
.jpg)
For the ignorant, google "terri schiavo".
Okay, let's end this with another set of wallpapers.
Bread....
Being spoilt by living in a high-rise apartment all my life, I never knew how much difference in the amount of dust 20 storeys can make. I guess we learn new things everyday.
History often has a way of changing itself. A thousand years is all it takes to change an action from being seen as evil to a great deed that saved lives. For example, Wu Zetian was the only true Empress in the history of China. She was seen as a villain for most of the centuries after her death. In fact, this view began to change only after the 1950s, about 1200 years after her death!
Amazing, how people change as time passes. The same goes for how the memories of the same people change. Perhaps 2000 years in the future, Einstein won't be one of the greatest humans who ever lived, but may be known as the man who started the fall of civilization for coming up with E=mc^2. Who knows?
Deeds may be solid, but how it is interpreted is often like air, changing at anytime. The same deed can be done by 50 different people for 100 different reasons. I can do what I want, but often, how it is seen by other people is hard to control.
Can be done, but hard.
Truth is perception, after all. And perception is never solid, because it takes absolute faith to make it unchangeable. And this is how religion is so powerful. Used properly, people will do anything for a goal that has little to do with them.
It is scary how much power the major religions actually wield. Leaders of major religions can start wars just by saying the right words. It is within their powers, but such power, today, cannot be used except in the most dire situations.
It used to be different, back in the days of the Crusades. Reading the stories of that period gives me a sense of disgust at the concepts of absolute faith and unquestioning loyalty. What people can do for their religion back then is simply amazing .
Nowadays, people have learnt. Like the French, who are no longer as religious as they were 500 years back. Religion bit them really hard in the past. The quote," Kill them all, God will sort them out" is derived from their history. Guess what the story was. I think I mentioned this somewhere in one of my 200 past rants. Oh well...
I, in a way, respect trolls. They are the true applied psychology experts. They are the ones who put their expertise in use. Every single negative reaction they receive is a symbol of their success. I've never been a troll before, but I've seen good trolls so successful it took 1 simple post to spark hundreds of comments. All flaming the troll. That, in my eyes, is pro.
You see, trolls can see where your weakness is. They know where the right buttons are and how to push them. In fact, if you trash your computer after reading their words, it's a great achievement that they will never know of. Even I get pissed off sometimes at the comments that just scream "IGNORANCE" and "STUPIDITY".
Those are the common ones.
The more subtle ones involve using several identities.
Trolls are a breed of people who are probably very unhappy in their real lives. Such people, if in games, are known as griefers. Generally, they just like to upset others for fun. Makes me remember that incident where a bunch of players ruined an ingame funeral in WoW which was meant for a player who died in real life. It was meant to be a sad moment, but those griefers arrived and killed every single person who attended in the game.
Reading that incident numbed me to the cruelty that the Internet has to offer. As I have already said in the past, the Internet is a shit hole. There are many good websites, like those that asks people to donate clicks because sponsors will donate money according to the number of clicks they receive. And then there are the true abyss of the virtual world, where social rejects and sociopaths coagulate to form the cancer of humanity.
I specifically linked the latter to 4chan's /b/ because it is the one part of the internet I really see as the deepest shit hole ever created by mankind. The rest of 4chan isn't so bad, like /wg/ where some of the best wallpapers can be found with their watermarks removed.
Then again, 4chan in general isn't even a healthy place for normal people in the first place. The following picture illustrates my point but is not safe for work. Kids, don't forget to cover your eyes!
Oh yea, never forget this next picture. I admit, I did chuckle. But still, it is one of the most "wrong" pictures I have ever laid my eyes on.
.jpg)
For the ignorant, google "terri schiavo".
Okay, let's end this with another set of wallpapers.
Tuesday 28 October 2008
Rant 208 / Aye?
So I was reading this article on how to make the perfect caramel after I got curious to why I don't taste much caramel in my previous attempt.
Do my taste buds suck? Or was my caramel inadequate because I couldn't heat the bowl enough?
It turns out that I didn't cook it long enough.
According to the article, what I was making was called dry caramel, in which only sugar is used and cooked till brown. Wet caramel was what was shown in the video, thick saturated sugar solution cooked at medium heat till it browns.
Fortunately, this article contains instructions on how to make a good dry caramel and one of the lines says that I need to cook it till just after it smokes. Which means, for my ceramic bowl (fantastic insulator), means just when it smokes, because the bowl will continue to heat the caramel long after I remove it from heat.
Seems quite dangerous, because it will be quite hot. I think I will wear my glasses when making it. First time wearing glasses in hall when resting lol.
Sounds exciting too. The colour's supposed to be reddish-brown, so the aroma must be 1000000X better.
Will try at night, when it is cooler. Doing it in the day will make my room freaking hot.
But then again, what can I do with the caramel? I don't see any use for it, other than creme caramel, which calls for eggs that I don't have. No fridge, no eggs.
Hmm...
I'll still do it, just for fun.
Taken from http://allencountydemocrats.typepad.com/allen_county_democratic_p/2008/10/sadreally-really-sad.html
When you mix religion, politics and ignorance in a pot, you get this. No photoshop here.
Religion: Church and anti-Islam sentiments.
Politics: Rumours of Obama being a Muslim. ( Just bcos he has brown skin???)
Ignorance: Someone actually believing in the above bullshit.
Result: The sign as shown.
Do my taste buds suck? Or was my caramel inadequate because I couldn't heat the bowl enough?
It turns out that I didn't cook it long enough.
According to the article, what I was making was called dry caramel, in which only sugar is used and cooked till brown. Wet caramel was what was shown in the video, thick saturated sugar solution cooked at medium heat till it browns.
Fortunately, this article contains instructions on how to make a good dry caramel and one of the lines says that I need to cook it till just after it smokes. Which means, for my ceramic bowl (fantastic insulator), means just when it smokes, because the bowl will continue to heat the caramel long after I remove it from heat.
Seems quite dangerous, because it will be quite hot. I think I will wear my glasses when making it. First time wearing glasses in hall when resting lol.
Sounds exciting too. The colour's supposed to be reddish-brown, so the aroma must be 1000000X better.
Will try at night, when it is cooler. Doing it in the day will make my room freaking hot.
But then again, what can I do with the caramel? I don't see any use for it, other than creme caramel, which calls for eggs that I don't have. No fridge, no eggs.
Hmm...
I'll still do it, just for fun.
Taken from http://allencountydemocrats.typepad.com/allen_county_democratic_p/2008/10/sadreally-really-sad.htmlWhen you mix religion, politics and ignorance in a pot, you get this. No photoshop here.
Religion: Church and anti-Islam sentiments.
Politics: Rumours of Obama being a Muslim. ( Just bcos he has brown skin???)
Ignorance: Someone actually believing in the above bullshit.
Result: The sign as shown.
Monday 27 October 2008
Rant 207 / Looks, Brains, Sanity. When Choosing A Mate, Pick Two.
Yesterday when I was packing my cans into the food drawer, I noticed I bought the wrong flavour of tuna. It's partly their FairPrice's fault for having the same blue colour for all their tuna cans. Partly my fault but I'm not going into that. Now instead of Soy Bean Oil, I bought Chilli and Tomato. They better not be freakin spicy, or I will have no choice but to find a way to make them less spicy, like mixing with something else.
Strangely, some of the chocolate did dissolve in the half-eaten mixture of caramel milk and chocolate. Still, there is a thin layer of chocolate on top. My best guess is that the caramel has saturated the solution, leaving little room for the chocolate. That is why it is still dissolving, but extremely slowly. It's a guess.
It's a great way to eat my bread with though, caramel chocolate milk tastes pretty good.
Finally beginning to watch the Starcraft tournaments again, after seeing so few names I recognize from the previous season. I watched only the last few rounds of that, so naturally I only know a few names, though all of them are pretty well-known in the SC scene. WHY DID BOXER LOSE?!? IS HE SO ARROGANT THAT HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT WINNING ANYMORE?? Damn sad, he could have made the whole tournament so much more interesting with his crazy tactics.
Now waiting for the Stork vs Orion matches to load. Stork is the only guy I recognize by face. No idea why.
After I mangled the spoon/fork that came with the cooker when I was scraping the sugar off the edge of the caramel, I found a few bits of plastic in the caramel. Right away I googled "swallowing pastic" and PHEW! Swallowing plastic is totally harmless, unless it's big enough to get lodged in your digestive system. But still, swallowing anything that isn't food is never pleasant, so I waited for the caramel milk to cool and picked out all the plastic with another fork.
So stork owned Orion in 2 matches out of 3. He won the first, lost the second and won again in the third round. He could have done more in the second round, but I don't know why he didn't. I was just like the commentators, surprised when he typed "gg" in the game after losing his defenses. Maybe he didn't care to "barely win the game" or something. Maybe he wanted to win totally and completely. I don't know.
But in the other 2 games, his superior micro skills were obvious. How can 20 zerglings and 5 drones lose to 10 probes, 2-3 zealots and a dragoon?? With stork, you can. He used his units to attack, everything trying to shield the dragoon and probes trying to help the zealots through attacking and blocking the way of the zergling and pulling back just when the zerglings attack the individual unit. Don't forget, Protoss shields regen at a rather decent rate. 10 probes were barely enough for them to take turns attacking, taking 1-2 hits now and again.
But holding that assault was freakin fantastic. It was a group of about 20 zerglings and 5 drones at first, then groups of 6 zerglings arriving every 30s to reinforce the attack. That stork even defended successfully was a major victory. It meant that he was impervious to the largest sort of rush a Zerg player can pull off in that short a time. Zergling rushes require no Vespene Gas, so much resources can be used to get more drones to mine Crystals.
In the end, he won. Orion probably gave up the minute he saw Orion killing all his zerglings and his reinforcements having little effect on the enemy base. In fact, he didn't mine Gas until much later. He still stuck to zerglings even after the assault. Probably knew he had lost already.
This website has an interesting questionnaire that puts you in the several categories of personalities. I remember the name Myers-Briggs from my Fundamentals of Management module so I took it. It says I'm INTP (Architect), but its details aren't very accurate.
This picture. The girl may not be attractive, but the sausages are an entirely different story. Hungry now...
Strangely, some of the chocolate did dissolve in the half-eaten mixture of caramel milk and chocolate. Still, there is a thin layer of chocolate on top. My best guess is that the caramel has saturated the solution, leaving little room for the chocolate. That is why it is still dissolving, but extremely slowly. It's a guess.
It's a great way to eat my bread with though, caramel chocolate milk tastes pretty good.
Finally beginning to watch the Starcraft tournaments again, after seeing so few names I recognize from the previous season. I watched only the last few rounds of that, so naturally I only know a few names, though all of them are pretty well-known in the SC scene. WHY DID BOXER LOSE?!? IS HE SO ARROGANT THAT HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT WINNING ANYMORE?? Damn sad, he could have made the whole tournament so much more interesting with his crazy tactics.
Now waiting for the Stork vs Orion matches to load. Stork is the only guy I recognize by face. No idea why.
After I mangled the spoon/fork that came with the cooker when I was scraping the sugar off the edge of the caramel, I found a few bits of plastic in the caramel. Right away I googled "swallowing pastic" and PHEW! Swallowing plastic is totally harmless, unless it's big enough to get lodged in your digestive system. But still, swallowing anything that isn't food is never pleasant, so I waited for the caramel milk to cool and picked out all the plastic with another fork.
So stork owned Orion in 2 matches out of 3. He won the first, lost the second and won again in the third round. He could have done more in the second round, but I don't know why he didn't. I was just like the commentators, surprised when he typed "gg" in the game after losing his defenses. Maybe he didn't care to "barely win the game" or something. Maybe he wanted to win totally and completely. I don't know.
But in the other 2 games, his superior micro skills were obvious. How can 20 zerglings and 5 drones lose to 10 probes, 2-3 zealots and a dragoon?? With stork, you can. He used his units to attack, everything trying to shield the dragoon and probes trying to help the zealots through attacking and blocking the way of the zergling and pulling back just when the zerglings attack the individual unit. Don't forget, Protoss shields regen at a rather decent rate. 10 probes were barely enough for them to take turns attacking, taking 1-2 hits now and again.
But holding that assault was freakin fantastic. It was a group of about 20 zerglings and 5 drones at first, then groups of 6 zerglings arriving every 30s to reinforce the attack. That stork even defended successfully was a major victory. It meant that he was impervious to the largest sort of rush a Zerg player can pull off in that short a time. Zergling rushes require no Vespene Gas, so much resources can be used to get more drones to mine Crystals.
In the end, he won. Orion probably gave up the minute he saw Orion killing all his zerglings and his reinforcements having little effect on the enemy base. In fact, he didn't mine Gas until much later. He still stuck to zerglings even after the assault. Probably knew he had lost already.
This website has an interesting questionnaire that puts you in the several categories of personalities. I remember the name Myers-Briggs from my Fundamentals of Management module so I took it. It says I'm INTP (Architect), but its details aren't very accurate.
This picture. The girl may not be attractive, but the sausages are an entirely different story. Hungry now...Sunday 26 October 2008
Rant 206 / How To Mix?
3pm
Again, bought grapes, apples and bananas. No marshmallows, too much sugar. I'm going to have too much sugar today already even without it. Caramel, caramel, caramel!!
All hail the mobile modem!! After weeks of observing the Bittorrent program, I've concluded that the school servers do not block downloads. Direct downloads work perfectly, but not torrent downloads. The problem with Bittorrents in school is that they cannot update their trackers. I believe the school servers only block trackers. How they do it, I cannot tell. All I know is that they do not block everything, only 95% of the stuff I download.
So today, I tried using my Starhub mobile modem. Speed sucks to the core, but voila! Trackers updated! Seeds and Peers FOUND! From now on, I'm going to stick it in once in a while to update trackers, which tells my Bittorrent the IPs of the seeds (uploaders) and peers (fellow downloaders) and pull it out.
Somehow, sticking in the modem slows down my speeds drastically such that I can't even maintain a stable connnection with IRC servers. So I'm just going to use it to update my trackers.
3.45pm
Making the caramel now. All the stirring is tiring. Can't wait for the result. 20 mins and it's turned slightly yellow. Good! Room's getting warm though.
4.40pm
Now I see why I have to keep stirring. Not because it may get burnt unevenly, but because after enough water has evaporated, it can just suddenly solidify into a giant chunk of crumbly sugar in 15mins. Added water again and stopped playing Mass Effect now. Simple but not easy. Luckily for me I can sit next to the stove.
12.55am
Ate a freaking heavy meal of steamboat meal using soup made of a can of chicken broth and soy sauce ( no salt). All those "baby bok choy" better give me enough dietary fiber. Also used fish, pork, chicken, oyster mushrooms and needle mushrooms. Think this meal cost me about 20 dollars. LOL!
Steamboat meal while watching the Bleach movie and 6 episodes (2 of which were 1-hour-specials) of Naruto was fantastic.
Next came the continuation of my caramel making session. I halted it at 5pm because all it gave me was a chunk of sugar no matter how I stirred. I gave up then, and continued again after the meal, this time without water. And it worked, albeit slowly. But eventually it gave me CARAMEL. But strangely, it didn't splutter when I pour in the water later. Maybe it wasn't hot enough. But then again, it softened the plastic fork I used to stir. I had to go to the hall kitchen and use a public metal fork to stir after pulling out a twisted fork out of the caramel.
After the water came a third of a can of condensed milk. The caramel totally hardened when the milk cooled it down. Had to wait another 15mins before it started softening again. After an hour, it finally began to boil. Good thing I had 5 episodes of Bleach to watch. When it boiled, I stirred it till it was almost all mixed.
Finally, the chocolate was dropped into the bowl. It melted very quickly, but DID NOT DISSOLVE. Instead, it became really tiny bits of chocolate semi-solids less than 1/2 mm long and 1/10 mm thin. All estimates. And all these formed a later of bitter chocolate on top, like oil on water. I had no idea why, but decided not to chop up my fruits to dip. Instead, I tore some bread, dipped it in the bowl of caramel milk cum chocolate and tried it.
It was very good. Not what I expected, but it was good nonetheless. I wonder what I did wrong. Probably began with the caramel. It was probably supposed to still contain some water before caramelizing. I'm guessing that because it didn't splutter when it should.
Caramel milk chocolate FUCK YEAH!!!
Here are the photos I took out of boredom in between all that futile stirring. (Next time I'll use the pot.. if this bowl isn't too hard to clean. Will find out later)
The beginning: Just hot thick syrup, oversaturated because some sugar didn't dissolve.
Slightly yellow now. BUT IT NEVER BROWNED!! GRRRRR!!!
After a break, I returned to the task using no water. And see? CARAMEL!!
Almost pure caramel. Too bad you can't smell the delicious aroma of fresh pure caramel.
Caramel, now with milk and choclate. Note it's not homogeneous because the chocolate is not part of the solution - IT IS PART OF THE PROBLEM! Why doesn't it dissolve or mix? How to mix it? Now it's just caramel milk with chocolate topping. Delicious but not what I was trying to make.
Again, bought grapes, apples and bananas. No marshmallows, too much sugar. I'm going to have too much sugar today already even without it. Caramel, caramel, caramel!!
All hail the mobile modem!! After weeks of observing the Bittorrent program, I've concluded that the school servers do not block downloads. Direct downloads work perfectly, but not torrent downloads. The problem with Bittorrents in school is that they cannot update their trackers. I believe the school servers only block trackers. How they do it, I cannot tell. All I know is that they do not block everything, only 95% of the stuff I download.
So today, I tried using my Starhub mobile modem. Speed sucks to the core, but voila! Trackers updated! Seeds and Peers FOUND! From now on, I'm going to stick it in once in a while to update trackers, which tells my Bittorrent the IPs of the seeds (uploaders) and peers (fellow downloaders) and pull it out.
Somehow, sticking in the modem slows down my speeds drastically such that I can't even maintain a stable connnection with IRC servers. So I'm just going to use it to update my trackers.
3.45pm
Making the caramel now. All the stirring is tiring. Can't wait for the result. 20 mins and it's turned slightly yellow. Good! Room's getting warm though.
4.40pm
Now I see why I have to keep stirring. Not because it may get burnt unevenly, but because after enough water has evaporated, it can just suddenly solidify into a giant chunk of crumbly sugar in 15mins. Added water again and stopped playing Mass Effect now. Simple but not easy. Luckily for me I can sit next to the stove.
12.55am
Ate a freaking heavy meal of steamboat meal using soup made of a can of chicken broth and soy sauce ( no salt). All those "baby bok choy" better give me enough dietary fiber. Also used fish, pork, chicken, oyster mushrooms and needle mushrooms. Think this meal cost me about 20 dollars. LOL!
Steamboat meal while watching the Bleach movie and 6 episodes (2 of which were 1-hour-specials) of Naruto was fantastic.
Next came the continuation of my caramel making session. I halted it at 5pm because all it gave me was a chunk of sugar no matter how I stirred. I gave up then, and continued again after the meal, this time without water. And it worked, albeit slowly. But eventually it gave me CARAMEL. But strangely, it didn't splutter when I pour in the water later. Maybe it wasn't hot enough. But then again, it softened the plastic fork I used to stir. I had to go to the hall kitchen and use a public metal fork to stir after pulling out a twisted fork out of the caramel.
After the water came a third of a can of condensed milk. The caramel totally hardened when the milk cooled it down. Had to wait another 15mins before it started softening again. After an hour, it finally began to boil. Good thing I had 5 episodes of Bleach to watch. When it boiled, I stirred it till it was almost all mixed.
Finally, the chocolate was dropped into the bowl. It melted very quickly, but DID NOT DISSOLVE. Instead, it became really tiny bits of chocolate semi-solids less than 1/2 mm long and 1/10 mm thin. All estimates. And all these formed a later of bitter chocolate on top, like oil on water. I had no idea why, but decided not to chop up my fruits to dip. Instead, I tore some bread, dipped it in the bowl of caramel milk cum chocolate and tried it.
It was very good. Not what I expected, but it was good nonetheless. I wonder what I did wrong. Probably began with the caramel. It was probably supposed to still contain some water before caramelizing. I'm guessing that because it didn't splutter when it should.
Caramel milk chocolate FUCK YEAH!!!
Here are the photos I took out of boredom in between all that futile stirring. (Next time I'll use the pot.. if this bowl isn't too hard to clean. Will find out later)
The beginning: Just hot thick syrup, oversaturated because some sugar didn't dissolve.
Slightly yellow now. BUT IT NEVER BROWNED!! GRRRRR!!!
After a break, I returned to the task using no water. And see? CARAMEL!!
Almost pure caramel. Too bad you can't smell the delicious aroma of fresh pure caramel.
Caramel, now with milk and choclate. Note it's not homogeneous because the chocolate is not part of the solution - IT IS PART OF THE PROBLEM! Why doesn't it dissolve or mix? How to mix it? Now it's just caramel milk with chocolate topping. Delicious but not what I was trying to make.
Saturday 25 October 2008
Rant 205 / Someday, People Will Be Able To Converse Using Nothing But Internet Memes
The plan: steamboat
The procedure: wake up early tmr, buy food
The venue: in william/my hall
The time: somewhere between after buying and before midnight
The reason: hungry
I realized I wouldn't be visiting NTUC on the way back to hall the moment I lifted my bag. It's bulky and heavy with my laptop and stuff inside. So I'm doing it tomorrow, Sunday. I really need to replenish my food supply anyway, and some fresh food two days a week should be really beneficial to my kidneys and liver.
If I can, I'll do this every week, but the costs of such a meal and my lack of a fridge is the reason why I don't believe I will.
Also making some chocolate fondue tomorrow. This time, I plan to use only 1 ounce of chocolate and some CARAMEL. I will be melting the sugar in the bowl before removing it from heat and dumping the chocolate inside. Non-sweet condensed milk will bought in case it is required. If it turns out I don't need the milk, there are always other uses for it.
But then, I just found this video that teaches the viewer a way to cook caramel cream with just sugar, water and condensed milk.. Maybe I'll skip the chocolate and just make this. Or mix chocolate into it... WOW!!! Making caramel seems like a dangerous process. The water splutters when poured into the freshly melted caramel. I might get burnt. Oh well, the dangers of learning how to make good food are always present.
Was reading about the Inca Empire after playing Colonization. They were able to perform fucking BRAIN SURGERY back then! No, just kidding. They were only able to perform skull surgeries. Even over 500 years ago, they were already capable to drilling holes in the skull to prevent fluid buildup and etc and most importantly, able to do so without killing the guy.
Evidence show that success rates of these surgeries at their peak of their civilization was at about 80-90%. That's like, only 1 in 5 people die at most.
The Incas were also using a knots instead of words to communicate. So while everyone else wrote words, they tied knots. But the how of it has been lost. Damn the Conquistadors!!
And potatoes!! Those people ate potatoes as a staple in their diet. Corn was used for making their alcoholic beverage. It's like no matter what happens, humans eventually will find a way to make alcoholic beverages. It's probably written somewhere in our DNA that we must have alcohol.
Their end, though, was very tragic. So much of their culture has disappeared. It seems like all they have left today are the ruins and their genes. I couldn't imagine a sadder end for a people than this, but after reading this, I can now.
The procedure: wake up early tmr, buy food
The venue: in william/my hall
The time: somewhere between after buying and before midnight
The reason: hungry
I realized I wouldn't be visiting NTUC on the way back to hall the moment I lifted my bag. It's bulky and heavy with my laptop and stuff inside. So I'm doing it tomorrow, Sunday. I really need to replenish my food supply anyway, and some fresh food two days a week should be really beneficial to my kidneys and liver.
If I can, I'll do this every week, but the costs of such a meal and my lack of a fridge is the reason why I don't believe I will.
Also making some chocolate fondue tomorrow. This time, I plan to use only 1 ounce of chocolate and some CARAMEL. I will be melting the sugar in the bowl before removing it from heat and dumping the chocolate inside. Non-sweet condensed milk will bought in case it is required. If it turns out I don't need the milk, there are always other uses for it.
But then, I just found this video that teaches the viewer a way to cook caramel cream with just sugar, water and condensed milk.. Maybe I'll skip the chocolate and just make this. Or mix chocolate into it... WOW!!! Making caramel seems like a dangerous process. The water splutters when poured into the freshly melted caramel. I might get burnt. Oh well, the dangers of learning how to make good food are always present.
Was reading about the Inca Empire after playing Colonization. They were able to perform fucking BRAIN SURGERY back then! No, just kidding. They were only able to perform skull surgeries. Even over 500 years ago, they were already capable to drilling holes in the skull to prevent fluid buildup and etc and most importantly, able to do so without killing the guy.
Evidence show that success rates of these surgeries at their peak of their civilization was at about 80-90%. That's like, only 1 in 5 people die at most.
The Incas were also using a knots instead of words to communicate. So while everyone else wrote words, they tied knots. But the how of it has been lost. Damn the Conquistadors!!
And potatoes!! Those people ate potatoes as a staple in their diet. Corn was used for making their alcoholic beverage. It's like no matter what happens, humans eventually will find a way to make alcoholic beverages. It's probably written somewhere in our DNA that we must have alcohol.
Their end, though, was very tragic. So much of their culture has disappeared. It seems like all they have left today are the ruins and their genes. I couldn't imagine a sadder end for a people than this, but after reading this, I can now.
Friday 24 October 2008
Rant 204 / Short Post Short Post Short Post Short Post
Oh wow I just noticed how alike this girl I know is similar to Vic. Both are nerdy looking, with rather similar facial features. They're majoring in English Lit, albeit in different universities and different years. And short.
My desire to use my Bittorrent is overcoming my urge to stay in my hall for the weekend. I need to get some new stuff to entertain myself with, like all the animes I'm missing and stuff. But should I? I want to try a personal steamboat meal in my hall, and if I go home with a laptop, I will have a laptop when I return. And my laptop always makes me want to go back to my hall to put it down. Then I won't go to NTUC to buy food.
Or maybe I will. I need to get some pens and my sponge from home anyway. Probably stay for a night on Fri and leave on Sat and force myself to carry my groceries together with my laptop.
Wallpaper time.
My desire to use my Bittorrent is overcoming my urge to stay in my hall for the weekend. I need to get some new stuff to entertain myself with, like all the animes I'm missing and stuff. But should I? I want to try a personal steamboat meal in my hall, and if I go home with a laptop, I will have a laptop when I return. And my laptop always makes me want to go back to my hall to put it down. Then I won't go to NTUC to buy food.
Or maybe I will. I need to get some pens and my sponge from home anyway. Probably stay for a night on Fri and leave on Sat and force myself to carry my groceries together with my laptop.
Wallpaper time.
Wednesday 22 October 2008
Rant 203 / If I Believe In Myself, Does It Make Me A Religion?
When I read the news on how SG Trade Minister said that MAS did not need to act fast because our banks were in "strong positions". I don't know about the economists, but to us laymen, the fall of AIG kinda screwed with our confidence in everything. I mean, that was the largest insurer in the world, and it got fucked. So what strong position? One of the strongest companies in the economic superpower of today's world falling means no one is safe. At least to us non-economists.
The AMK MP was right. MAS could have done better if it acted a little quicker.
Thinking about something I mentioned in the last rant and linking it with something from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, I realized that all non-believers of either Islam or Christianity (or any other similar religions) really burn in Hell for eternity, it must be extremely unfair for all American Natives who lived before the arrival of Europeans. They never knew anything about these religions! Yet with a simple rule like this, millions were condemned if there is even the tiniest sliver of truth in it, for no reason other than ignorance!
After reading about these people, I also find that they have one of the most tragic history in the world. Europeans did not wipe them out directly. Instead, it was the diseases they brought, like smallpox, that killed millions of them, weakening their infrastructure and eventually bringing them to the point that they could be easily toppled and destroyed by a few thousand Europeans.
And even before that, it is known that the Americas were never a fertile land. It was only with the advent of European colonization that the land was dramatically changed. I can't say if it was improved, but I can easily and correctly say much of what used to be, no longer is.
For example, the Indians ate mainly corn then. Corn was the easiest to cultivate in the poor soil. They also didn't have cows, chickens, pigs and etc. They did have buffaloes, but still, it must have been a horribly boring diet. Even their spiced cocoa drinks sound disgusting, and it was only available to the nobles!
Compare this with the ancient Egyptians, who lived in a very fertile area of the ancient world. Archaeological evidences show that the slaves who built the pyramids were paid in bread, onions and beer. B-E-E-R! They got fucking paid in beer! Apparently, onions were enough to supplement most of your nutritions. And personally, I find onions that are slightly cooked quite delicious. What kind of slaves were those?!? I guess how badly people are treated depends on the overall situation of the society.
But anyway, Europeans also brought their own bees, rats, diseases transmitted by rats and many other flora and fauna, which eventually took over much of the lands and replaced the local animals and plants, especially the plants, in many regions.
But not the jungles. Jungle soil is always some of the worst in the world. In every jungle, the soil is usually constantly being drained of nutrients and supplied with dead stuff to the limits. There is almost no surplus of anything stored in it. This is because everything in jungles are adapted to everything else, the soil included. By extracting as fast as dead stuff is converted to nutrients, the efficiency is maximised. There is no room for error after so many milleniums of doing the same thing. Therefore, it is very expensive to convert jungles into arable land after deforestation. Can be done, but not easy.
NTU Inspyre's Halloween chapter meeting was a refreshing experience for me. I've never been to any sort of Halloween party or anything similar, and going to a Halloween-themed meeting was something totally new. I didn't wear a costume there though. And it was interesting because I only know a few members there. Actually attending one of their meetings gave me an opportunity to both see what it's like over there and know other members.
The most important thing I noticed is that they aren't as formal as my club. In fact, if NTU TMC fears a General Evaluator (who evaluates the meeting as a whole), then Inspyre's greatest nightmare must be a GE. They don't seem to follow many protocols, like greeting the club president first before district officers. For example, though their Area Governor and club prez were present, they were often greeted together with everyone else in "ladies and gentlemen".
It was much more fun there than in our own meetings though. Maybe it was because everyone was more relaxed with this Halloween theme, but who knows? I need to attend another meeting to find out.
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/10/23/11601_local-news.html
Holy fuck! This is a picture of spider eating a bird. Holy fuck! It can weave a web strong enough to catch a freakin BIRD! Apparently, this species of spiders can grow as large as a human hand. I believe they were referring to its body size excluding the length of its limbs.
Australia is scary.
The AMK MP was right. MAS could have done better if it acted a little quicker.
Thinking about something I mentioned in the last rant and linking it with something from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, I realized that all non-believers of either Islam or Christianity (or any other similar religions) really burn in Hell for eternity, it must be extremely unfair for all American Natives who lived before the arrival of Europeans. They never knew anything about these religions! Yet with a simple rule like this, millions were condemned if there is even the tiniest sliver of truth in it, for no reason other than ignorance!
After reading about these people, I also find that they have one of the most tragic history in the world. Europeans did not wipe them out directly. Instead, it was the diseases they brought, like smallpox, that killed millions of them, weakening their infrastructure and eventually bringing them to the point that they could be easily toppled and destroyed by a few thousand Europeans.
And even before that, it is known that the Americas were never a fertile land. It was only with the advent of European colonization that the land was dramatically changed. I can't say if it was improved, but I can easily and correctly say much of what used to be, no longer is.
For example, the Indians ate mainly corn then. Corn was the easiest to cultivate in the poor soil. They also didn't have cows, chickens, pigs and etc. They did have buffaloes, but still, it must have been a horribly boring diet. Even their spiced cocoa drinks sound disgusting, and it was only available to the nobles!
Compare this with the ancient Egyptians, who lived in a very fertile area of the ancient world. Archaeological evidences show that the slaves who built the pyramids were paid in bread, onions and beer. B-E-E-R! They got fucking paid in beer! Apparently, onions were enough to supplement most of your nutritions. And personally, I find onions that are slightly cooked quite delicious. What kind of slaves were those?!? I guess how badly people are treated depends on the overall situation of the society.
But anyway, Europeans also brought their own bees, rats, diseases transmitted by rats and many other flora and fauna, which eventually took over much of the lands and replaced the local animals and plants, especially the plants, in many regions.
But not the jungles. Jungle soil is always some of the worst in the world. In every jungle, the soil is usually constantly being drained of nutrients and supplied with dead stuff to the limits. There is almost no surplus of anything stored in it. This is because everything in jungles are adapted to everything else, the soil included. By extracting as fast as dead stuff is converted to nutrients, the efficiency is maximised. There is no room for error after so many milleniums of doing the same thing. Therefore, it is very expensive to convert jungles into arable land after deforestation. Can be done, but not easy.
NTU Inspyre's Halloween chapter meeting was a refreshing experience for me. I've never been to any sort of Halloween party or anything similar, and going to a Halloween-themed meeting was something totally new. I didn't wear a costume there though. And it was interesting because I only know a few members there. Actually attending one of their meetings gave me an opportunity to both see what it's like over there and know other members.
The most important thing I noticed is that they aren't as formal as my club. In fact, if NTU TMC fears a General Evaluator (who evaluates the meeting as a whole), then Inspyre's greatest nightmare must be a GE. They don't seem to follow many protocols, like greeting the club president first before district officers. For example, though their Area Governor and club prez were present, they were often greeted together with everyone else in "ladies and gentlemen".
It was much more fun there than in our own meetings though. Maybe it was because everyone was more relaxed with this Halloween theme, but who knows? I need to attend another meeting to find out.
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/10/23/11601_local-news.html
Holy fuck! This is a picture of spider eating a bird. Holy fuck! It can weave a web strong enough to catch a freakin BIRD! Apparently, this species of spiders can grow as large as a human hand. I believe they were referring to its body size excluding the length of its limbs.
Australia is scary.
Monday 20 October 2008
Rant 202 / Occam's Razor Is A Very Practical Tool In Life
CV4: Colonization is so frustrating. It's like you can never avoid war with the Indians no matter what you do. Okay, maybe I haven't tried using the French, whose bonus is that they have better relations with the natives. But other than that, their other bonuses are quite useless to me.
Now I'm not going to expand so much, unlike what I usually do in CV4. In that game, I expand as quickly as I can as long as there is empty land. Now, since they inevitably declare war in about 100 turns, I cannot expand so much lest I don't have the guns to protect every single settlement.
The AI isn't stupid. It doesn't attack if it can't win. They always wait till they have more guns that you before declaring war, even if their attitude towards you is Annoyed, which is the worst possible in peacetime.
Worse is that it tends to concentrate most of its units on one settlement at a time. This is horrible if I have too many settlements, ie I have few men in each colony, ie overstretch my manpower.
Usually, I have enough for 2 Soldiers in each colony, but this isn't enough. Even with a Fort (provides 150% Defense bonus), 2 Soldiers can only hold out for so long. Several times, they overwhelmed me with sheer numbers, eg 10+ Indian Braves, some mounted and some with Guns and some both. Every single settlement is important to me because I always plan the role of each settlement, like the "main port" for my ships, or the "cigar factory" where all tobacco is transported to to become cigars for me to sell, or the "main farm" where food is in abundance and provides me with either a lot of food or a steady supply of new Colonists that pop out whenever the number of Food in the warehouse hits 200.
So I reload each time a settlement is razed. Okay, I cheat, but I don't care. I'm still learning the little tricks of the game and there aren't many forums out there for this game. I still find the map of the New World too small though, even at Huge.
Haven't played DotA for over a week. Kinda like a cold turkey, except I still play other games. Like Empires (HL2 mod).
Empires is a fun mod when there are many players. One server I frequent, Napalm, can have up to 46 players. That means a max of 23 on each side.
Empires, in short, is like playing C&C, except you're the Rifleman running around. In terms of RTS, it is a very simple game. As the Commander, who plays the game as an RTS, you build Refineries on Resource Nodes on the maps to gain Resources (ie money). With the money, you can build Barracks, which are our spawn points, Vehicle Factories, where we can buy tanks to pwn others with, Radar, which handles the researches and other interesting stuff.
If you're not the Commander ( 1 per team only), then you're able to choose 1 of the 4 classes to spawn as: Scout (sniper), Rifleman (heavy damage guy), Grenadier (mine specialist cum anti-tank guy) and Engineer (builder). All 4 are fun, only the Scout is useless most of the time because it takes 2 shots to kill unless you get a headshot.
I love being a Grenadier because I can lay mines, which doesn't need a good ping to kill others (I generally have about 350ms on that server) plus my anti-tank bazooka has homing missiles.
But if the situation arises where Grenadiers are useless, I'd be a Rifleman. As a Rifleman, there are 3 guns to choose from. 2 types of semi-auto machines guns for ramboing and a Heavy MG for camping purposes. This Heavy MG requires the player to be in prone position before firing in order to have decent accuracy. If not, it's almost uncontrollable when it fires. To offset its lack of accuracy, it has a magazine of 200 rounds. It's like a shower. Lead shower.
However, if I find that my team sucks and everyone keeps dying, I go Engineer who can learn the Revive skill. With this, I can run to any corpse of my teammates before they respawn and get them back up. Respawning at spawn points usually means taking some time to run back to the frontline. I help them save time.
I usually don't go for Scouts because if you can't kill with one shot, why bother? Scouts have become partly invisible though, depending on how many walls they're touching. Even without touching any walls, they are merely a vague patch. With about 2-3 walls, they become almost invisible. If they're in some shadowy corner, you can't tell unless you're shooting at him and blood sprays out. Or if he just shot you. Shooting causes the Scout to become visible again for a second or so.
Basically, the game is a hybrid of First-Person Shooter and Real-Time Strategy, inspired by my old favourite Half Life mod, Natural Selection. It's like playing C&C with intelligent units who usually follows orders, but sometimes follows their own ideas. Not listening to orders isn't always bad. Sometimes you get a smart guy who can ninja into their base and do something crazy, like build a Barracks behind their frontline or sneak an APC (fast tank cum mobile spawn point) into enemy base.
Ninjas are fantastic because they're so fun to cooperate with or watch. Sometimes, halfway through the game, you can suddenly hear the automatic message, "You have been defeated," and you see your Commander Vehicle destroyed by enemy ninjas and you go," WTF?!?"
You see, Engineers can build their own walls anywhere. If an APC manages to sneak to the enemy Commander Vehicle, and the enemy Commander is too busy watching the frontline and not paying attention to his own surroundings, an Engineer can spawn there and build walls around the Vehicle and raise them high enough to trap it within 4 walls.
Then, anyone can do anything to it. Of course, the Commander himself can jump out and try to defend himself, but that's usually quite risky since his death will cause a major lack of attention at the frontline till he respawns.
And even if he respawns, there is no guarantee that he can jump over the walls or even evade the attacks of the Engineers and anyone who has spawned from that APC.
And destroying the CV is the main objective of the game.
Usually, such sneak attacks don't work, since some morons always spawns in the main base which is damn far from the frontline. But it is these morons who can hear the APC or anything that shouldn't be happening there. And BAM! Half the team will commit suicide and respawn in the main base, effectively abandoning the frontline.
Which doesn't really hurt since a successful APC sneak attack means its own team will want to spawn in it too. Probably the whole team, since killing that CV = win. All or nothing.
Once, I even saw an APC sneak to our own CV while our team had pulled off what was described above. Then it was a race to kill each other's CV. We didn't win though, since they had more pros in their team. Managed to kill enough of us to buy enough time to destroy ours.
One game or two is usually enough for me. Each normally lasts an hour or so. Unlike NS, which takes about 15 mins per game.
NS, so different from the old versions, in which a stalemate can lasts hours. Now, 4-hour matches are an impossibility. Back then, I could leave halfway through for dinner and come back for the same round an hour later. Now, 45-min games are considered long games.
Somehow I feel like I rarely behave in a matured way.
Something funny happened today. My Tech Comm group was rehearsing our presentation and this girl was presenting her part on how the solar cell works. In a solar cell, there is a silicon wafer and she has to describe how the postive and negative side interact to form electric currents.
So she has to touch on the concepts of free electrons and holes. And at one point, she asked the audience," So you must be wondering what a hole is."
Honestly, I was thinking," Not really..."
I know, it's somewhat perverted of me, but still, LOL! I was trying so hard not to laugh I had to use my hand to cover my smile.
What a topic for a girl to explain!
So some guy I met actually does believe that Noah's Ark did exist! Wow! I was amazed when he tried to explain that it existed because they couldn't have known the exact dimensions of the Ark back then if they hadn't built it, which were written in the Bible. They didn't have the engineering skills to build a ship that big 500 years ago.
My thoughts were," Aren't you already killing your own stand? They didn't have the technology for building wooden ships that big. Where the numbers came from? They pulled them out of their asses!"
C'mon, a wooden ship as big as was described(137m long 23m wide and 14m high) cannot support its own weight! No wood is that strong! Noah would have needed steel supports for his Ark! (A ship this long needs metals to hold it together horizontally, at least, or it can just bend and break apart in the sea)
Plus what the ship looked like was changed several times over the past milleniums, from a nice ship with 3 stories to a large rectangular box with a sloping roof. Real life examples of wooden ships with similar dimensions have been built by the Chinese, like the Treasure Ships in the Ming Dynasty, but these were fit for rivers only. The waves in the open seas would have smashed them to bits.
Then food. They could catch so many fish? What about the carnivores like tigers and the herbivores? Tigers don't eat fish. Neither do the giraffes. What about the pandas? They eat nothing but bamboo shoots...
And the aftermath. Bringing all the species to all the places around the world would mean that Noah circumvented the globe. Why didn't the American Natives believe in God?
And genes! The disgusting amount of incest after the Flood would have caused fantastic genetic dilution and lots of retards among all species! So.. wtf?
Let us not forget the fishes! All the saltwater and freshwater would have mixed together! For 53 weeks! So it means the fishes adapted, which would have taken at least weeks, which implies the water arrived slowly to allow adaption.
So if the water didn't rise quickly, men would have time to build boats or ships, especially those living on mountains.
And now to the logic part. Millions of people died. Instead of rehab, God believes in the death penalty. "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't apply to him, even if he's your role model. (And why "He"? Why not create a special term just for God? It's so sexist saying God is a male! Christian feminists are such oxymorons!)
Just count how many people God has killed and compare with the number of people Satan has killed. If murder can be justified, then this won't make sense. But if murder is always evil, as people who are against the death penalty or abortions say, then God is millions of times more evil than Satan.
And back to my old argument, if God is omniscient, how could he have created humans that became evil? He'd have known! So he must have been evil to create lives just to kill them all in one fell swoop!
To argue all the above as good Christians, one can only use "Because God willed it."
And that is based on the reason "God exists."
Which is the basis of all Christian logic, which cannot be proven nor disproven.
Which, in the end, doesn't make sense if you actually believe in everything derived from it.
Anything that cannot be proven true, isn't true. Everything derived from a theory that isn't true, cannot be true. Until the foundation is visible, the whole structure is merely standing on thin air. Occam's Razor is very useful sometimes. The simplest explanation is usually the truth.
"I don't love you because you're beautiful. You're beautiful because I love you."
Does this sound romantic? Is it actually romantic? I mean, it contains all the right words, but arranged this way, it sounds like you saying she's not actually beautiful except in your eyes. Not really what one would want to say to a girl. Comments are always welcomed.
Now I'm not going to expand so much, unlike what I usually do in CV4. In that game, I expand as quickly as I can as long as there is empty land. Now, since they inevitably declare war in about 100 turns, I cannot expand so much lest I don't have the guns to protect every single settlement.
The AI isn't stupid. It doesn't attack if it can't win. They always wait till they have more guns that you before declaring war, even if their attitude towards you is Annoyed, which is the worst possible in peacetime.
Worse is that it tends to concentrate most of its units on one settlement at a time. This is horrible if I have too many settlements, ie I have few men in each colony, ie overstretch my manpower.
Usually, I have enough for 2 Soldiers in each colony, but this isn't enough. Even with a Fort (provides 150% Defense bonus), 2 Soldiers can only hold out for so long. Several times, they overwhelmed me with sheer numbers, eg 10+ Indian Braves, some mounted and some with Guns and some both. Every single settlement is important to me because I always plan the role of each settlement, like the "main port" for my ships, or the "cigar factory" where all tobacco is transported to to become cigars for me to sell, or the "main farm" where food is in abundance and provides me with either a lot of food or a steady supply of new Colonists that pop out whenever the number of Food in the warehouse hits 200.
So I reload each time a settlement is razed. Okay, I cheat, but I don't care. I'm still learning the little tricks of the game and there aren't many forums out there for this game. I still find the map of the New World too small though, even at Huge.
Haven't played DotA for over a week. Kinda like a cold turkey, except I still play other games. Like Empires (HL2 mod).
Empires is a fun mod when there are many players. One server I frequent, Napalm, can have up to 46 players. That means a max of 23 on each side.
Empires, in short, is like playing C&C, except you're the Rifleman running around. In terms of RTS, it is a very simple game. As the Commander, who plays the game as an RTS, you build Refineries on Resource Nodes on the maps to gain Resources (ie money). With the money, you can build Barracks, which are our spawn points, Vehicle Factories, where we can buy tanks to pwn others with, Radar, which handles the researches and other interesting stuff.
If you're not the Commander ( 1 per team only), then you're able to choose 1 of the 4 classes to spawn as: Scout (sniper), Rifleman (heavy damage guy), Grenadier (mine specialist cum anti-tank guy) and Engineer (builder). All 4 are fun, only the Scout is useless most of the time because it takes 2 shots to kill unless you get a headshot.
I love being a Grenadier because I can lay mines, which doesn't need a good ping to kill others (I generally have about 350ms on that server) plus my anti-tank bazooka has homing missiles.
But if the situation arises where Grenadiers are useless, I'd be a Rifleman. As a Rifleman, there are 3 guns to choose from. 2 types of semi-auto machines guns for ramboing and a Heavy MG for camping purposes. This Heavy MG requires the player to be in prone position before firing in order to have decent accuracy. If not, it's almost uncontrollable when it fires. To offset its lack of accuracy, it has a magazine of 200 rounds. It's like a shower. Lead shower.
However, if I find that my team sucks and everyone keeps dying, I go Engineer who can learn the Revive skill. With this, I can run to any corpse of my teammates before they respawn and get them back up. Respawning at spawn points usually means taking some time to run back to the frontline. I help them save time.
I usually don't go for Scouts because if you can't kill with one shot, why bother? Scouts have become partly invisible though, depending on how many walls they're touching. Even without touching any walls, they are merely a vague patch. With about 2-3 walls, they become almost invisible. If they're in some shadowy corner, you can't tell unless you're shooting at him and blood sprays out. Or if he just shot you. Shooting causes the Scout to become visible again for a second or so.
Basically, the game is a hybrid of First-Person Shooter and Real-Time Strategy, inspired by my old favourite Half Life mod, Natural Selection. It's like playing C&C with intelligent units who usually follows orders, but sometimes follows their own ideas. Not listening to orders isn't always bad. Sometimes you get a smart guy who can ninja into their base and do something crazy, like build a Barracks behind their frontline or sneak an APC (fast tank cum mobile spawn point) into enemy base.
Ninjas are fantastic because they're so fun to cooperate with or watch. Sometimes, halfway through the game, you can suddenly hear the automatic message, "You have been defeated," and you see your Commander Vehicle destroyed by enemy ninjas and you go," WTF?!?"
You see, Engineers can build their own walls anywhere. If an APC manages to sneak to the enemy Commander Vehicle, and the enemy Commander is too busy watching the frontline and not paying attention to his own surroundings, an Engineer can spawn there and build walls around the Vehicle and raise them high enough to trap it within 4 walls.
Then, anyone can do anything to it. Of course, the Commander himself can jump out and try to defend himself, but that's usually quite risky since his death will cause a major lack of attention at the frontline till he respawns.
And even if he respawns, there is no guarantee that he can jump over the walls or even evade the attacks of the Engineers and anyone who has spawned from that APC.
And destroying the CV is the main objective of the game.
Usually, such sneak attacks don't work, since some morons always spawns in the main base which is damn far from the frontline. But it is these morons who can hear the APC or anything that shouldn't be happening there. And BAM! Half the team will commit suicide and respawn in the main base, effectively abandoning the frontline.
Which doesn't really hurt since a successful APC sneak attack means its own team will want to spawn in it too. Probably the whole team, since killing that CV = win. All or nothing.
Once, I even saw an APC sneak to our own CV while our team had pulled off what was described above. Then it was a race to kill each other's CV. We didn't win though, since they had more pros in their team. Managed to kill enough of us to buy enough time to destroy ours.
One game or two is usually enough for me. Each normally lasts an hour or so. Unlike NS, which takes about 15 mins per game.
NS, so different from the old versions, in which a stalemate can lasts hours. Now, 4-hour matches are an impossibility. Back then, I could leave halfway through for dinner and come back for the same round an hour later. Now, 45-min games are considered long games.
Somehow I feel like I rarely behave in a matured way.
Something funny happened today. My Tech Comm group was rehearsing our presentation and this girl was presenting her part on how the solar cell works. In a solar cell, there is a silicon wafer and she has to describe how the postive and negative side interact to form electric currents.
So she has to touch on the concepts of free electrons and holes. And at one point, she asked the audience," So you must be wondering what a hole is."
Honestly, I was thinking," Not really..."
I know, it's somewhat perverted of me, but still, LOL! I was trying so hard not to laugh I had to use my hand to cover my smile.
What a topic for a girl to explain!
So some guy I met actually does believe that Noah's Ark did exist! Wow! I was amazed when he tried to explain that it existed because they couldn't have known the exact dimensions of the Ark back then if they hadn't built it, which were written in the Bible. They didn't have the engineering skills to build a ship that big 500 years ago.
My thoughts were," Aren't you already killing your own stand? They didn't have the technology for building wooden ships that big. Where the numbers came from? They pulled them out of their asses!"
C'mon, a wooden ship as big as was described(137m long 23m wide and 14m high) cannot support its own weight! No wood is that strong! Noah would have needed steel supports for his Ark! (A ship this long needs metals to hold it together horizontally, at least, or it can just bend and break apart in the sea)
Plus what the ship looked like was changed several times over the past milleniums, from a nice ship with 3 stories to a large rectangular box with a sloping roof. Real life examples of wooden ships with similar dimensions have been built by the Chinese, like the Treasure Ships in the Ming Dynasty, but these were fit for rivers only. The waves in the open seas would have smashed them to bits.
Then food. They could catch so many fish? What about the carnivores like tigers and the herbivores? Tigers don't eat fish. Neither do the giraffes. What about the pandas? They eat nothing but bamboo shoots...
And the aftermath. Bringing all the species to all the places around the world would mean that Noah circumvented the globe. Why didn't the American Natives believe in God?
And genes! The disgusting amount of incest after the Flood would have caused fantastic genetic dilution and lots of retards among all species! So.. wtf?
Let us not forget the fishes! All the saltwater and freshwater would have mixed together! For 53 weeks! So it means the fishes adapted, which would have taken at least weeks, which implies the water arrived slowly to allow adaption.
So if the water didn't rise quickly, men would have time to build boats or ships, especially those living on mountains.
And now to the logic part. Millions of people died. Instead of rehab, God believes in the death penalty. "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't apply to him, even if he's your role model. (And why "He"? Why not create a special term just for God? It's so sexist saying God is a male! Christian feminists are such oxymorons!)
Just count how many people God has killed and compare with the number of people Satan has killed. If murder can be justified, then this won't make sense. But if murder is always evil, as people who are against the death penalty or abortions say, then God is millions of times more evil than Satan.
And back to my old argument, if God is omniscient, how could he have created humans that became evil? He'd have known! So he must have been evil to create lives just to kill them all in one fell swoop!
To argue all the above as good Christians, one can only use "Because God willed it."
And that is based on the reason "God exists."
Which is the basis of all Christian logic, which cannot be proven nor disproven.
Which, in the end, doesn't make sense if you actually believe in everything derived from it.
Anything that cannot be proven true, isn't true. Everything derived from a theory that isn't true, cannot be true. Until the foundation is visible, the whole structure is merely standing on thin air. Occam's Razor is very useful sometimes. The simplest explanation is usually the truth.
"I don't love you because you're beautiful. You're beautiful because I love you."
Does this sound romantic? Is it actually romantic? I mean, it contains all the right words, but arranged this way, it sounds like you saying she's not actually beautiful except in your eyes. Not really what one would want to say to a girl. Comments are always welcomed.
Friday 17 October 2008
Rant 201 / Life Is Like A Game Of Chess. Every Move Counts, Except The One In Which You Sacrificed Your Queen For A Pawn, Because That Was Too 1337.
This blog has always been about negative things. It is time I make it a little more positive.
I like grapes.
Okay Positivity Session over. Back to the normal me.
I have a theory on why the download rates of my torrents in NTU are so inconsistent. On weekdays, nothing can be downloaded, probably because the network in the campus is being heavily used.
But on weekends, some torrents can be downloaded at very decent rates while others can't even find the tracker. Why?
One of my theory is that these people I can connect to are in the campus too, that I'm downloading from the intranet.
Another is that while something is blocking my torrent connections, it is not perfect and some of my connections actually succeed. I don't know; I'm no network expert.
Coming Friday: mini steamboat. Just to try.
I must be the most shyest person I know. Fuck, even some of the most retarded-looking guys I know from before are attached. No, not you. Anyone who even knows I have a blog isn't one of them. Sorry, but I'm just an asshole sometimes.
A friend who's married told me that if a girl you like gets a steady boyfriend, it's always your fault. If you hadn't told her, how could you expect her to know?
Another benefit of telling her is the phenomenon called Reciprocal Love. Reciprocal love happens when you love someone because that person loves you. But, it is basically conditional love. It is unlike unconditional love because that sort makes you do anything for that person. Conditional love doesn't. Plus it is often temporary.
Many reasons, how many lies?
Watched 8 episodes of the first season of Prison Break. Pretty good show. Now I see why so many people talked about it.
Now I see I'm not the only person who thinks WoW tournaments is not something for watching. It freakin sucks for their audiences because they're so repetitive. It's fun to play though, because you'd concentrate so much you don't notice the time and thus, unaware that you've been doing the same actions, pressing the same 5 buttons for the past 15mins.
Made choc fondue again jus now at 4am. Added milk before throwing the choc on top to see how much I added. The ratio of sweetened condensed milk to choc was like 5-1 and it turned out similar to my last attempt when HX visited my room. So... I added more, till the ratio was like 7-1 and it didn't matter.
Now I see how much sugar they dump into those choc bars to make them so sweet. It's probably similar to my adding the sweet milk till it's 25-1.
More wallpaper dumping again.
I like grapes.
Okay Positivity Session over. Back to the normal me.
I have a theory on why the download rates of my torrents in NTU are so inconsistent. On weekdays, nothing can be downloaded, probably because the network in the campus is being heavily used.
But on weekends, some torrents can be downloaded at very decent rates while others can't even find the tracker. Why?
One of my theory is that these people I can connect to are in the campus too, that I'm downloading from the intranet.
Another is that while something is blocking my torrent connections, it is not perfect and some of my connections actually succeed. I don't know; I'm no network expert.
Coming Friday: mini steamboat. Just to try.
I must be the most shyest person I know. Fuck, even some of the most retarded-looking guys I know from before are attached. No, not you. Anyone who even knows I have a blog isn't one of them. Sorry, but I'm just an asshole sometimes.
A friend who's married told me that if a girl you like gets a steady boyfriend, it's always your fault. If you hadn't told her, how could you expect her to know?
Another benefit of telling her is the phenomenon called Reciprocal Love. Reciprocal love happens when you love someone because that person loves you. But, it is basically conditional love. It is unlike unconditional love because that sort makes you do anything for that person. Conditional love doesn't. Plus it is often temporary.
Many reasons, how many lies?
Watched 8 episodes of the first season of Prison Break. Pretty good show. Now I see why so many people talked about it.
Now I see I'm not the only person who thinks WoW tournaments is not something for watching. It freakin sucks for their audiences because they're so repetitive. It's fun to play though, because you'd concentrate so much you don't notice the time and thus, unaware that you've been doing the same actions, pressing the same 5 buttons for the past 15mins.
Made choc fondue again jus now at 4am. Added milk before throwing the choc on top to see how much I added. The ratio of sweetened condensed milk to choc was like 5-1 and it turned out similar to my last attempt when HX visited my room. So... I added more, till the ratio was like 7-1 and it didn't matter.
Now I see how much sugar they dump into those choc bars to make them so sweet. It's probably similar to my adding the sweet milk till it's 25-1.
More wallpaper dumping again.
Wednesday 15 October 2008
Rant 200 / Fighting For Peace Is Like Fucking For Virginity
Watched the games between PoOh vs Flash in the Averatec-Intel Classic. If you haven't seen a true trashing before, here is your chance to catch a glimpse of what is one of the best definition of the word "outclass" in the form of videos.
Flash is currently the best Starcraft player in Korea, if not the world. Statistically, of course. Even the best in the world can't beat everyone all the time - he lost in the last season of this tournament to Jaedong. Damn, haven't seen Jaedong in action for a while. Been wondering about his form since the last interview of Boxer, in which he mentioned Jaedong as the player he thought was the best player at the moment. Not Flash lol.
Worse is that the Flash's twin bro joined Jaedong's clan after he lost to him last season. Interesting gossip from one the commentators.
Alright, back to the game.
Flash trashed PoOh. It was, from the very beginning, a match between David and Goliath. But this time, Goliath won. It wasn't just the strategies that Flash used, but the very basic micro skills that PoOh couldn't not match against.
In one battle in which about about 10 marines, 3-4 firebats and 3-4 medics were on their way from Flash's base to attack PoOh's Zerg base, PoOh had about 20 zerglings total from their north, east and south-west rushing into them.
Flash sent marines out into some 3 lines around his medics and firebats as meat shields while the zerglings were unable to kill anything but the firebats, because running in takes time and they were being shot at constantly by the marines. If they don't kill the marines, the marines can keep shooting at them for a second or two while they run and don't do any damage to any terran units. Most likely, they will die before reach the firebats.
Or another time when he harassed PoOh with a few marines and SCV in an early game rush, he did it even though they both knew each other knew. PoOh prepared about 8 drones to defend against the 2 SCVs and 3 marines. The Terrans came, they shot at the drones that surrounded them for a few moments, but due to Flash's superior micro ability, about 5 drones died while Flash lost nothing. NOTHING, not even ONE of the SCVs which were there as the meatshields.
The internet meme, FAIL, has exploded from 4chan to all over the american media during the start of the economic crisis. A journalist actually wrote an article explaining the FAIL meme here. LOL!
Just found out the term for the fetish for breasts: mazophilia. This is a very common fetish in the US because fake breasts are the norm in their porn. It's like if you don't have fake breasts you won't get anywhere in their porn industry, unless you're stunningly gorgeous.
Also common in Japan. Clearly illustrated in their animes, where every single female has large breasts, unless she is supposed to be underaged.
Everytime I eat instant noodles, it's a reminder to myself why I have fewer than 5 packets of instant noodles in my drawers in the first place while keeping about 10 packets of instant beehoon at the same time. It's as if every time I forget why instant noodles suck, I open a packet, cook and eat it and "Eureka! So that's why I hated instant noodles!"
But I still keep a few because sometimes, I can eat it without cooking as a quick meal/snack.
I feel guilty for not putting in any effort into my Tech Comm project. Now that I'm doing my Powerpoint slides to present the parts assigned to me, I realize that my group members not only suck in Engrish, but also suck in understanding what they're supposed to discuss.
At the moment, I need to present the Implementation (done by me) using solar panels on cars and the Efficiency of the same topic (done by some guy). Implementation was a simple affair of pasting a photo of a car with a solar panel as a roof and describing what was done to it.
Efficiency, though, was awful. My understanding of what's supposed to be described under Efficiency of solar power in cars is to talk about how well they convert sunlight to energy and how the weight of the car with the addition of the battery will limit the distance it can travel.
Instead, only the former was discussed, plus the efficiency of petrol and diesel. How much energy a hundred litres of petrol and diesel can give us. WTF was that for?? There is no link between the efficiency of oil and solar panels other than the fact that they are both "efficiencies"! How to discuss and compare? Shouldn't we discuss in terms of weight and distance and cost? Cost-efficiency not energy-efficiency!!!!!
In short:
efficiency of solar panel = how much electricity produced per unit amount of sunlight received
efficiency of petrol = how much energy produced per unit amount of petrol burnt
How to compare???
But it's also partly my fault for not seeing it until after I have submitted the hardcopy. I was too lazy to understand their parts, trusting them to do things properly. In fact, all I did was check the grammar. My bad. But I'm not the group leader. Alright, bad excuse. These days, being in the position of group leader doesn't mean shit.
I'm sorry but still, fuck y'all for sucking as much as I do whenever I don't give a damn.
Now that I'm presenting this part, I'm going to skip the part where my group leader explains how many megajoules of energy we can get for each hundred litres of petrol burnt. And the formula for calculating the efficiency of a solar cell. Heck, I want to skip the energy-efficiency altogether.
I want to talk about the cost-efficiency of putting solar panels on cars and comparing it with using petrol, but I can't because I have to follow what is in the report!
But of course, we can't always have what we want. Therefore, :(
The more I re-read the report, the more retarded it sounds. First of all,we have been comparing the cost of installing solar panels on all cars in Sg with the cost of all the oil cars consume in Sg in a day. A DAY.
Second is the fact that the cost of installing solar panels isn't backed by any text. He just pulled the number out of his ass! WTF! Nooooooo! What have I done??? I'm prepared to get a B- for this module now.
My group members don't even know that Watt is the unit for power and energy consumption is NOT CALCULATED IN FUCKING WATTS!!! ARGH! I'M SO PISSED I WANT TO CRY!! Don't they ever look at their utility meters outside their homes?
IT'S FUCKING WATT-HOURS!!! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU CALCULATE ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF ALL CARS PER DAY IN MOTHERFUCKING WATTS?!?!??! FOR FUCK SAKE, YOU ARE FUTURE ENGINEERS! ENGINEERS! AND YOU DON'T KNOW WATT-HOUR!! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
What have I done? By slacking too much and not paying attention to the work of my fellow retards, my report has become as retarded as it can ever be. Damn.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
On the other hand, though I'm having a busy day today (it's 2.45am on Fri now), I'm planning to test some chocolate fondue in hall tonight. This will depend on whether I have an hour to spare to go to JP's NTUC to buy some fruits and possibly a ceramic mug/bowl. This time, I will make sure I don't burn it. I overcooked the chocolate a little the last time, and though the taste was covered by the bananas' sweetness, the chocolate was not delicious when eaten by itself.
But it depends on whether I'm going to have the time.
Now I finally recognize what the game my dear neighbour is playing. Diablo 2!! I kept trying to match the shouts to DotA heroes, but couldn't until today when I heard a high-pitch noise that was the sound of him picking up a gem!
And here I dump more wallpapers.
I'm beginning to forget what I have uploaded, so if any of these are repeats, I'm very sorry that you actually mind.
Looking through my wallpaper folder, I realize that I have only 1 that's even remotely close to M18. And I saved it because it is so irresistably hot, it almost burns the eyes. Not uploaded here.
Flash is currently the best Starcraft player in Korea, if not the world. Statistically, of course. Even the best in the world can't beat everyone all the time - he lost in the last season of this tournament to Jaedong. Damn, haven't seen Jaedong in action for a while. Been wondering about his form since the last interview of Boxer, in which he mentioned Jaedong as the player he thought was the best player at the moment. Not Flash lol.
Worse is that the Flash's twin bro joined Jaedong's clan after he lost to him last season. Interesting gossip from one the commentators.
Alright, back to the game.
Flash trashed PoOh. It was, from the very beginning, a match between David and Goliath. But this time, Goliath won. It wasn't just the strategies that Flash used, but the very basic micro skills that PoOh couldn't not match against.
In one battle in which about about 10 marines, 3-4 firebats and 3-4 medics were on their way from Flash's base to attack PoOh's Zerg base, PoOh had about 20 zerglings total from their north, east and south-west rushing into them.
Flash sent marines out into some 3 lines around his medics and firebats as meat shields while the zerglings were unable to kill anything but the firebats, because running in takes time and they were being shot at constantly by the marines. If they don't kill the marines, the marines can keep shooting at them for a second or two while they run and don't do any damage to any terran units. Most likely, they will die before reach the firebats.
Or another time when he harassed PoOh with a few marines and SCV in an early game rush, he did it even though they both knew each other knew. PoOh prepared about 8 drones to defend against the 2 SCVs and 3 marines. The Terrans came, they shot at the drones that surrounded them for a few moments, but due to Flash's superior micro ability, about 5 drones died while Flash lost nothing. NOTHING, not even ONE of the SCVs which were there as the meatshields.
The internet meme, FAIL, has exploded from 4chan to all over the american media during the start of the economic crisis. A journalist actually wrote an article explaining the FAIL meme here. LOL!
Just found out the term for the fetish for breasts: mazophilia. This is a very common fetish in the US because fake breasts are the norm in their porn. It's like if you don't have fake breasts you won't get anywhere in their porn industry, unless you're stunningly gorgeous.
Also common in Japan. Clearly illustrated in their animes, where every single female has large breasts, unless she is supposed to be underaged.
Everytime I eat instant noodles, it's a reminder to myself why I have fewer than 5 packets of instant noodles in my drawers in the first place while keeping about 10 packets of instant beehoon at the same time. It's as if every time I forget why instant noodles suck, I open a packet, cook and eat it and "Eureka! So that's why I hated instant noodles!"
But I still keep a few because sometimes, I can eat it without cooking as a quick meal/snack.
I feel guilty for not putting in any effort into my Tech Comm project. Now that I'm doing my Powerpoint slides to present the parts assigned to me, I realize that my group members not only suck in Engrish, but also suck in understanding what they're supposed to discuss.
At the moment, I need to present the Implementation (done by me) using solar panels on cars and the Efficiency of the same topic (done by some guy). Implementation was a simple affair of pasting a photo of a car with a solar panel as a roof and describing what was done to it.
Efficiency, though, was awful. My understanding of what's supposed to be described under Efficiency of solar power in cars is to talk about how well they convert sunlight to energy and how the weight of the car with the addition of the battery will limit the distance it can travel.
Instead, only the former was discussed, plus the efficiency of petrol and diesel. How much energy a hundred litres of petrol and diesel can give us. WTF was that for?? There is no link between the efficiency of oil and solar panels other than the fact that they are both "efficiencies"! How to discuss and compare? Shouldn't we discuss in terms of weight and distance and cost? Cost-efficiency not energy-efficiency!!!!!
In short:
efficiency of solar panel = how much electricity produced per unit amount of sunlight received
efficiency of petrol = how much energy produced per unit amount of petrol burnt
How to compare???
But it's also partly my fault for not seeing it until after I have submitted the hardcopy. I was too lazy to understand their parts, trusting them to do things properly. In fact, all I did was check the grammar. My bad. But I'm not the group leader. Alright, bad excuse. These days, being in the position of group leader doesn't mean shit.
I'm sorry but still, fuck y'all for sucking as much as I do whenever I don't give a damn.
Now that I'm presenting this part, I'm going to skip the part where my group leader explains how many megajoules of energy we can get for each hundred litres of petrol burnt. And the formula for calculating the efficiency of a solar cell. Heck, I want to skip the energy-efficiency altogether.
I want to talk about the cost-efficiency of putting solar panels on cars and comparing it with using petrol, but I can't because I have to follow what is in the report!
But of course, we can't always have what we want. Therefore, :(
The more I re-read the report, the more retarded it sounds. First of all,we have been comparing the cost of installing solar panels on all cars in Sg with the cost of all the oil cars consume in Sg in a day. A DAY.
Second is the fact that the cost of installing solar panels isn't backed by any text. He just pulled the number out of his ass! WTF! Nooooooo! What have I done??? I'm prepared to get a B- for this module now.
My group members don't even know that Watt is the unit for power and energy consumption is NOT CALCULATED IN FUCKING WATTS!!! ARGH! I'M SO PISSED I WANT TO CRY!! Don't they ever look at their utility meters outside their homes?
IT'S FUCKING WATT-HOURS!!! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU CALCULATE ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF ALL CARS PER DAY IN MOTHERFUCKING WATTS?!?!??! FOR FUCK SAKE, YOU ARE FUTURE ENGINEERS! ENGINEERS! AND YOU DON'T KNOW WATT-HOUR!! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
What have I done? By slacking too much and not paying attention to the work of my fellow retards, my report has become as retarded as it can ever be. Damn.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
On the other hand, though I'm having a busy day today (it's 2.45am on Fri now), I'm planning to test some chocolate fondue in hall tonight. This will depend on whether I have an hour to spare to go to JP's NTUC to buy some fruits and possibly a ceramic mug/bowl. This time, I will make sure I don't burn it. I overcooked the chocolate a little the last time, and though the taste was covered by the bananas' sweetness, the chocolate was not delicious when eaten by itself.
But it depends on whether I'm going to have the time.
Now I finally recognize what the game my dear neighbour is playing. Diablo 2!! I kept trying to match the shouts to DotA heroes, but couldn't until today when I heard a high-pitch noise that was the sound of him picking up a gem!
And here I dump more wallpapers.
I'm beginning to forget what I have uploaded, so if any of these are repeats, I'm very sorry that you actually mind.
Looking through my wallpaper folder, I realize that I have only 1 that's even remotely close to M18. And I saved it because it is so irresistably hot, it almost burns the eyes. Not uploaded here.
Tuesday 14 October 2008
Rant 199 / Rant Number One Hundred And Ninety Nine
Watching the games of Lomo vs Calm in the Round of 64, I realized that it'd be interesting to bet on the players because the ranks of the players don't seem to matter. Very often I see younger players defeating high ranking seniors who've won at least up to the quarterfinals or one tournament or another. Take Lomo vs Calm for example. Lomo is a veteran of hundreds of official matches, winning more often than losing. Calm, on the other hand, is a relative newbie with only about a hundred matches in his records. Yet Lomo won the matches with a 2:1 score.
Maybe being in the prime age does matter and your micro abilities slide downward quite rapidly once you're past 20. I don't know, but it sure seems like it in the games I've seen. Like Boxer, who's supposed to be so freaking godlike in SC, losing in the Round of 64. C'mon, I expected him to at least reach the quarterfinals. It's like Brazil losing in the prelims of the World Cup tournament.
Since the results are so unpredictable, betting on the scores will be akin to playing Russian Roulette. Maybe they actually do that in South Korea. Who knows?
Some people obviously have been watching too much zombie flicks. Kinda like me at one point last year. I saw this discussion on what to do to prepare for a zombie invasion in real life once. They were talking about where to go to, what to take before they run to the safest shelter and what weapons they're going to use.
To be honest, I once did think about such things after watching all the "Dead" movies by Romero. In Singapore, it'd be quite hard to find somewhere to stay for a long time. High buildings are the best, but food will run out eventually. Food and water are the main problems. Plus firearms are extremely hard to find on this island and trying to hit a zombie head with a crowbar is inadvisable at best.
What to do? Swim to an offshore island? Theoretically, if zombies are possible, then they can probably walk underwater too. So, what then? The only way is to form a rudimentary community on a large piece of arable land with enough firearms to build and protect a society from scratch.
It will be the Stone Age all over again eventually, with zombies replacing the wild animals and technology being lost rapidly. A small community cannot support high-level occupations like scientific researchers. Heck, even libraries will be burnt sooner or later for fuel. Paper may be the most durable form of media apart from stone carvings, but it is also a wonderfully flammable material.
In the end, zombies may destroy all humans, but if people do survive, civilization will have to start again from an almost blank slate and will definitely be quite different from what we have now, with the zombies as a constant threat.
But then again, zombies cannot exist. First of all is their metabolism. Zombie can survive on nothing. So that's one reason. Second reason is that human bodies cannot survive with a dead brain. Nothing in the human body works without the living brain.
Oh wow, I just discussed what to do if zombies can exist in reality. Oh wow. A new low for me...
It is unfortunate how I felt so sleepy at 12am but could not make myself go to bed because the day felt incomplete. So I watched the SC games mentioned above and the fatigue went away at about 1am. Now it's 5am and I'm unable to sleep despite the fact that I need to wake up at 11.30am later.
Maybe being in the prime age does matter and your micro abilities slide downward quite rapidly once you're past 20. I don't know, but it sure seems like it in the games I've seen. Like Boxer, who's supposed to be so freaking godlike in SC, losing in the Round of 64. C'mon, I expected him to at least reach the quarterfinals. It's like Brazil losing in the prelims of the World Cup tournament.
Since the results are so unpredictable, betting on the scores will be akin to playing Russian Roulette. Maybe they actually do that in South Korea. Who knows?
Some people obviously have been watching too much zombie flicks. Kinda like me at one point last year. I saw this discussion on what to do to prepare for a zombie invasion in real life once. They were talking about where to go to, what to take before they run to the safest shelter and what weapons they're going to use.
To be honest, I once did think about such things after watching all the "Dead" movies by Romero. In Singapore, it'd be quite hard to find somewhere to stay for a long time. High buildings are the best, but food will run out eventually. Food and water are the main problems. Plus firearms are extremely hard to find on this island and trying to hit a zombie head with a crowbar is inadvisable at best.
What to do? Swim to an offshore island? Theoretically, if zombies are possible, then they can probably walk underwater too. So, what then? The only way is to form a rudimentary community on a large piece of arable land with enough firearms to build and protect a society from scratch.
It will be the Stone Age all over again eventually, with zombies replacing the wild animals and technology being lost rapidly. A small community cannot support high-level occupations like scientific researchers. Heck, even libraries will be burnt sooner or later for fuel. Paper may be the most durable form of media apart from stone carvings, but it is also a wonderfully flammable material.
In the end, zombies may destroy all humans, but if people do survive, civilization will have to start again from an almost blank slate and will definitely be quite different from what we have now, with the zombies as a constant threat.
But then again, zombies cannot exist. First of all is their metabolism. Zombie can survive on nothing. So that's one reason. Second reason is that human bodies cannot survive with a dead brain. Nothing in the human body works without the living brain.
Oh wow, I just discussed what to do if zombies can exist in reality. Oh wow. A new low for me...
It is unfortunate how I felt so sleepy at 12am but could not make myself go to bed because the day felt incomplete. So I watched the SC games mentioned above and the fatigue went away at about 1am. Now it's 5am and I'm unable to sleep despite the fact that I need to wake up at 11.30am later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)