Mental fatigue. You know what, I've almost forgotten what it feels like until this semester. This means I haven't been doing anything productive last semester. Though this shows that stupidity is not the root of my academic problems, this is just as bad since it proves that laziness is.
How does one cure oneself of chronic laziness?
People don't just wake up one day and find themselves amazingly diligent and motivated. That would be fantastic but I know it's just one of my laziness-induced dreams.
Laziness is probably the only problem in existence whose victims wouldn't bother to get rid of even if they're aware that their lives are being screwed up by it.
Everything must end. Afterlife is antithetical to nature because permanence is wrong. All I do is sit here and talk.
I believe I have finally narrowed the problem of my PC down to one possibility - my network card.
I tried to update the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller thrice, all resulting in crashes when it began to "search for updates online".
It started when I tried to upload a screenshot of a gold seller's spam (as in selling gold for real money, which is illegal) to an email I'm sending to the game company. I tried it twice and it crashed both times while uploading.
This made me remember that there is a driver I never did update even though it was shown as an optional update in the Windows Update alerts. So I tried it and the second paragraph was the result.
While typing this, another idea popped up in my head. Since it shouldn't be my network adapter, it's probably for a hardwire connection, so I'm going to disable it and see if it helps.
...
...
Just returned from my sixth crash of the day. Something is terribly wrong here and I don't know if it's my network card.
It's strange because this isn't the first time I'm uploading a screenshot for such an email.
So after some googling (in vain), I tried to upload it again. It went perfectly! What on earth is happening?
I still don't get why people take down notes during lectures even when the lecturer is merely rephrasing what is already printed in the notes. Today I observed a few people in front of me writing stuff frantically during the Fluids Mechanics lecture though the lecturer was just reading the notes aloud most of the time.
What the heck were they taking notes for???
He wasn't even explaining anything (unless you call reading out Greek symbols properly an "explanation")! Everything that came out of his mouth was clearly printed in the notes in front of them!
If the lecturer wasn't saying anything new (or anything a dead vegetable with Down's Syndrome couldn't deduce at a glance), why would there be a need to write anything more?
Are the printed words too neat for their tastes? Maybe they have some sort of OCD that makes them mess up everything that seems neat and tidy?
I just don't understand this obsession with writing notes whenever a sound exits the lecturers' mouths. If a lecturer accidentally burps, do you think they would scribble "burp" on their notes? Would they wonder if they would be tested on that in the exam?
Sunday 30 August 2009
Wednesday 26 August 2009
Rant 409 / Coffee Is Best Consumed Hot
The latest patch of Runes of Magic opened one of the new zones, the Weeping Coast, and raised the level cap to 52. Due to many of the quest rewards in the 50-55 lvl zone being items that give X-level stat boosts, the game economy has been thrown into chaos.
X-level (X being 10 in roman numerals) stat boosts, being the highest level stats in the game, used to be very rare in the past, selling for millions and can only be crafted with the highest-level crafting skills or looted from the toughest endgame instances. I used to make a few hundred thousand gold a day just selling the materials I gather ( I have the highest level gathering skills), but now the prices have dropped by 30-50%.
Now it's not as profitable and I have to find other ways to make money. Perhaps I should farm the new highest level materials, though I suspect few players have raised their crafting skills high enough to use them.
Futurama. Just watched the last 3 movies, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game and Into the Wild Green Yonder. The Beast with a Billion Backs was obviously a parady of the Christian God and was not as good as Bender's Big Score, the first movie. The 3rd, Bender's Game, was a parady of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons, not Dinner and Dance) and LOTR.
The surprising thing about the 3rd movie was that there wasn't any exceptionally outstanding person in the cast. In the first two movies there were Al Gore and Stephen Hawking voiceacting as themselves, as they have done many times in past episodes. Of course, anyone could take the role of Stephen Hawking as long as they have a voice synthesizer but having him in the cast shows the sort of person he is despite being the most intelligent living scientist in the world.
Anyway the third movie was better than the second, though it has nothing to do with their themes.
The last movie was Into the Wild Green Yonder and it was just as good as Bender's Big Score, if not better. This movie also featured no one famous except maybe Snoop Dogg, a famous American rapper. For this movie, at least all the previous 3 movies must be watched to understand certain parts of it. Watching the series would help too.
This movie was made when the crew thought it would be the end of the series, hence making quite a few references to this during the course of the cartoon. This is why at the end, they paid extra charges to the studio to create a scene that encompasses all the minor characters that appeared in the entire series, sans the children due to the script (someone said there was no children).
So I've just learnt from other RoM players that the secret to raising tiers of weapons is... to use any crap junk fusion stones and equipment. The only important thing is the damage and durability of the weapon itself. I just saw a well-known player using a tier 10 axe and that axe was... amazing, mostly due to its mad damage.
The thing about tier 10 is that there are less than 3 items of this tier in all of the US servers. It is incredibly expensive to raise, so it's usually done only to the rarest weapons.
I've calculated the cost of doing this. Each of the cheapest fusion stones cost around 1920 gold, and it takes 3^8 of them to raise the tier from the normal 3 to the magic number 10.
3^8 = 6561
6561 X 1920 = 12,597,120
That is just for the fusion stones. Fusion stones need to be transmuted to mana stone by using any equipment. In this case, it would be easier to obtain all 6561 pieces of equipment by buying blank junk stuff from the NPC vendors since it takes 2 hours of non-stop monster massacre to get about 70 pieces of junk equipment. The cheapest equipment from NPCs go for 4000 gold apiece.
6561 X 4000 = 26,244,000
Total = 26,244,000 + 12,597,120 = 38,841,120
It takes almost 39m gold to get a tier 10 item, an incredibly large sum for any player.
I just gave a friend a voucher code for a 90-day-trial of NOD32 Antivirus. It's probably cheap, but I don't think it's bad. NOD32 is a very good antivirus programme after all. After installing it some years ago, and together with my paranoia regarding downloaded stuff, I've never had a single virus attack on my computers. Compared to Norton which I've used for years in the past, it's indescribably better (X divided by zero is undefined). Plus NOD32 scans files faster than the speed of light.
In return I got a Chupa Chups (3-in-1 omgomgomglololololol!!!!111(sin90)), a tiny Cadbury chocolate bar ("Milk Chocolate with Golden Hokey Pokey Honeycomb Pieces") and a Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramello bar. This looks suspicious similar to a gift bag or a door gift, but hell I gave him a free gift I got from buying my desktop, so it's even.
We had our birthday celebrations together, which explains this gift exchange.
Anyway, I'm not too sure if describing a piece of chocolate as containing honeycomb pieces is exactly a good marketing idea. I mean, don't bees build their hives with beeswax, which is not food?
I'll leave trying it to tomorrow since I just had a rather large portion of ice cream just now, though I'm really curious if I'm going to need to spit out tiny pieces of wax when I eat it.
Just kidding. =P
Also, I don't know what to do with this bar of Caramello because I don't like sweet chocolate. I'm probably going to give it to the next friend whose birthday celebration I'm attending.
No, I'm not kidding now. But please, if you know who I'm talking about, don't tell him. XD
X-level (X being 10 in roman numerals) stat boosts, being the highest level stats in the game, used to be very rare in the past, selling for millions and can only be crafted with the highest-level crafting skills or looted from the toughest endgame instances. I used to make a few hundred thousand gold a day just selling the materials I gather ( I have the highest level gathering skills), but now the prices have dropped by 30-50%.
Now it's not as profitable and I have to find other ways to make money. Perhaps I should farm the new highest level materials, though I suspect few players have raised their crafting skills high enough to use them.
Futurama. Just watched the last 3 movies, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game and Into the Wild Green Yonder. The Beast with a Billion Backs was obviously a parady of the Christian God and was not as good as Bender's Big Score, the first movie. The 3rd, Bender's Game, was a parady of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons, not Dinner and Dance) and LOTR.
The surprising thing about the 3rd movie was that there wasn't any exceptionally outstanding person in the cast. In the first two movies there were Al Gore and Stephen Hawking voiceacting as themselves, as they have done many times in past episodes. Of course, anyone could take the role of Stephen Hawking as long as they have a voice synthesizer but having him in the cast shows the sort of person he is despite being the most intelligent living scientist in the world.
Anyway the third movie was better than the second, though it has nothing to do with their themes.
The last movie was Into the Wild Green Yonder and it was just as good as Bender's Big Score, if not better. This movie also featured no one famous except maybe Snoop Dogg, a famous American rapper. For this movie, at least all the previous 3 movies must be watched to understand certain parts of it. Watching the series would help too.
This movie was made when the crew thought it would be the end of the series, hence making quite a few references to this during the course of the cartoon. This is why at the end, they paid extra charges to the studio to create a scene that encompasses all the minor characters that appeared in the entire series, sans the children due to the script (someone said there was no children).
So I've just learnt from other RoM players that the secret to raising tiers of weapons is... to use any crap junk fusion stones and equipment. The only important thing is the damage and durability of the weapon itself. I just saw a well-known player using a tier 10 axe and that axe was... amazing, mostly due to its mad damage.
The thing about tier 10 is that there are less than 3 items of this tier in all of the US servers. It is incredibly expensive to raise, so it's usually done only to the rarest weapons.
I've calculated the cost of doing this. Each of the cheapest fusion stones cost around 1920 gold, and it takes 3^8 of them to raise the tier from the normal 3 to the magic number 10.
3^8 = 6561
6561 X 1920 = 12,597,120
That is just for the fusion stones. Fusion stones need to be transmuted to mana stone by using any equipment. In this case, it would be easier to obtain all 6561 pieces of equipment by buying blank junk stuff from the NPC vendors since it takes 2 hours of non-stop monster massacre to get about 70 pieces of junk equipment. The cheapest equipment from NPCs go for 4000 gold apiece.
6561 X 4000 = 26,244,000
Total = 26,244,000 + 12,597,120 = 38,841,120
It takes almost 39m gold to get a tier 10 item, an incredibly large sum for any player.
I just gave a friend a voucher code for a 90-day-trial of NOD32 Antivirus. It's probably cheap, but I don't think it's bad. NOD32 is a very good antivirus programme after all. After installing it some years ago, and together with my paranoia regarding downloaded stuff, I've never had a single virus attack on my computers. Compared to Norton which I've used for years in the past, it's indescribably better (X divided by zero is undefined). Plus NOD32 scans files faster than the speed of light.
In return I got a Chupa Chups (3-in-1 omgomgomglololololol!!!!111(sin90)), a tiny Cadbury chocolate bar ("Milk Chocolate with Golden Hokey Pokey Honeycomb Pieces") and a Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramello bar. This looks suspicious similar to a gift bag or a door gift, but hell I gave him a free gift I got from buying my desktop, so it's even.
We had our birthday celebrations together, which explains this gift exchange.
Anyway, I'm not too sure if describing a piece of chocolate as containing honeycomb pieces is exactly a good marketing idea. I mean, don't bees build their hives with beeswax, which is not food?
I'll leave trying it to tomorrow since I just had a rather large portion of ice cream just now, though I'm really curious if I'm going to need to spit out tiny pieces of wax when I eat it.
Just kidding. =P
Also, I don't know what to do with this bar of Caramello because I don't like sweet chocolate. I'm probably going to give it to the next friend whose birthday celebration I'm attending.
No, I'm not kidding now. But please, if you know who I'm talking about, don't tell him. XD
Monday 24 August 2009
Rant 408 / Helium Is Created By Radioactive Decay of Uranium
Woohoo! 5k HP! Finally I'm tough enough to avoid being a 1-hit-wonder* in endgame instances! Now the problem is with finding a party, which is impossible right now without a guild. Guess I'll just have to do other things.
*refers to the number of hits it takes from an average monster in those dungeons to kill me.
Some say inflation will occur in the US, others say it won't. Some say inflation is a good thing, others say otherwise.
In this case, if the USD does inflate soon, all those Americans who are in debt will be screwed because their debts will also inflate!
I don't know, in simulation games, inflation is always good. I mean, imagine one day you're earning and spending SGD, and the next day your wallet is filled with GBP instead. What's bad about that?
The logic about inflation being bad is something like this (my understanding of it anyway): other countries will avoid your exports when your currency inflates, resulting in a decrease in demands for your goods.
English Breakfast Tea is the best of the five teas in that box of Twinnings tea. There were Assam, Earl Grey, Lady Grey and Ceylon but English Breakfast Tea was perfect IMO. It was mild and doesn't taste acidic at all. I'd say that Assam came a close second but in the morning, I prefer milder flavours.
Oh well, that's all of the teas. The box is now empty. Now I'm back to Lipton's Yellow Label again. Somewhat acidic, but still better than my mum's hardcore stuff.
*refers to the number of hits it takes from an average monster in those dungeons to kill me.
Some say inflation will occur in the US, others say it won't. Some say inflation is a good thing, others say otherwise.
In this case, if the USD does inflate soon, all those Americans who are in debt will be screwed because their debts will also inflate!
I don't know, in simulation games, inflation is always good. I mean, imagine one day you're earning and spending SGD, and the next day your wallet is filled with GBP instead. What's bad about that?
The logic about inflation being bad is something like this (my understanding of it anyway): other countries will avoid your exports when your currency inflates, resulting in a decrease in demands for your goods.
English Breakfast Tea is the best of the five teas in that box of Twinnings tea. There were Assam, Earl Grey, Lady Grey and Ceylon but English Breakfast Tea was perfect IMO. It was mild and doesn't taste acidic at all. I'd say that Assam came a close second but in the morning, I prefer milder flavours.
Oh well, that's all of the teas. The box is now empty. Now I'm back to Lipton's Yellow Label again. Somewhat acidic, but still better than my mum's hardcore stuff.
Sunday 23 August 2009
Rant 407 / Pure Pwnage - It Will Pwn You In The Face
I pity Switzerland. Now that their vaunted reputation for absolute bank secrecy is completely destroyed, all they have to sell their financial services is stability. Gone are the days when you can rest assured no one knows about the money you have in a trustworthy Swiss bank. Nope, now Swiss banks are just like any other banks.
This really demonstrates the power of the States even in a economic recession. This time it's not just a little website hell-bent on spreading piracy. No, they've bent to their will the entire financial sector of Switzerland.
Low-profile versions of Swiss banks will prosper since all those clients who needed the privacy would have no reason to stash their fortunes in Switzerland. Singapore banks are going to get more rich clients now.
It's going to be a real TV show in Canada, which means someone is going to rip the series for the rest of us non-Canadians. Beginning in 2010, "the only show on TV that doesn't lick my balls" indeed.
Homework. I've always preferred to do my homework at night, but I have to wake up early in the day for class. Sleeping less is not an option because of my fragile body clock. I'm currently keeping my sleeping time before 12am and I'd like to keep it that way. If I sleep late too often (I don't know, maybe 2 nights in a row?), I'll probably fall into my previous routine of sleeping later and later till I start to feel drowsy only at 7am, just like so many times in the last few years.
Sleeping too little would render attending the morning lectures pointless. Hence, I'm trying to sleep at 10am these days.
My preferred work time, therefore, cannot be. If I do my homework at night, it'd be more efficient but would also screw my life. So now I'm resorting to doing my work in the day during the rather large gaps between classes in the afternoons. Seriously, I have at least 2 hours of rest time every afternoon, which I'm using to both complete tutorials, browse the RoM forums and sleep.
Yes, sleep, especially on those days with 5-hour breaks. Usually I'd find a PC in the library and camp there for the entire break, unless my stomach growls too loudly, which forces me to take my lunch. So far I've manage to push this off till around 4.30pm by getting a bottle of soft drink to sip on before entering the library.
Maybe I should bring some biscuits or something.
And I still have much difficulty making myself complete my tutorials during the weekend. This problem is a tough one; I cannot come up with any solution. This, in fact, may be unsolvable which leaves me no choice but to finish everything in school.
My mum seems to be very excited about my bro's new relationship. For the most part she seems quite happy and curious about what they're doing. After all, she really doesn't hear about this sort of thing other than from one of her employee who has a daughter several years older than me.
What she tells me about her is that her boyfriend basically lives on her parents' income. He lives at her place, both of them don't work (he's studying in an unknown university and she's unemployed after graduating from an unknown polytechnic) and her parents pay for his studies.
And everyone is pretty sure they don't just talk when they're alone in their rooms, especially when they've been living together in that room for years. In short, they're married in all but name.
Thus my mum expects this to happen to my bro, except for the "them paying for his studies" part. She even asked me if she should move her bed to another room in case his girlfriend moves over instead.
I really didn't (and still don't) have a good reply to that.
You'd have to know my bro to understand - he's too shy for that. In fact the relationship was started by the girl, not him. Even now she's the boss, not him. Maybe he'd change someday, but right now I don't think he has the guts to make his sexual relationship (if at all) official.
One thing that does bug my mum and I is that rate at which he is spending money. As I have discussed in the past, we do not have a fixed allowance. We just take our money from a top secret safe that my mum uses to store our projected budget for the near future. Apparently he has burnt around S$200 in less than two weeks and it isn't even Qing Ming yet!
Twice she had to remind him that we aren't rich, but love drives people crazy. The serotonin level in the brain changes and causes OCD-like symptoms in people who are in love. I guess my bro just can't stop spending money now.
Hopefully he'll wake up soon before he bankrupts my mum, but studies have shown that such effects usually last from 18 months to 3 years. I think I should keep my wallet in a safe place now. =(
Just kidding. This will end the day I find that safe empty, since I only open it when my wallet is empty. When both are empty, I get pissed. When I get pissed things happen, some of them good.
This really demonstrates the power of the States even in a economic recession. This time it's not just a little website hell-bent on spreading piracy. No, they've bent to their will the entire financial sector of Switzerland.
Low-profile versions of Swiss banks will prosper since all those clients who needed the privacy would have no reason to stash their fortunes in Switzerland. Singapore banks are going to get more rich clients now.
It's going to be a real TV show in Canada, which means someone is going to rip the series for the rest of us non-Canadians. Beginning in 2010, "the only show on TV that doesn't lick my balls" indeed.
Homework. I've always preferred to do my homework at night, but I have to wake up early in the day for class. Sleeping less is not an option because of my fragile body clock. I'm currently keeping my sleeping time before 12am and I'd like to keep it that way. If I sleep late too often (I don't know, maybe 2 nights in a row?), I'll probably fall into my previous routine of sleeping later and later till I start to feel drowsy only at 7am, just like so many times in the last few years.
Sleeping too little would render attending the morning lectures pointless. Hence, I'm trying to sleep at 10am these days.
My preferred work time, therefore, cannot be. If I do my homework at night, it'd be more efficient but would also screw my life. So now I'm resorting to doing my work in the day during the rather large gaps between classes in the afternoons. Seriously, I have at least 2 hours of rest time every afternoon, which I'm using to both complete tutorials, browse the RoM forums and sleep.
Yes, sleep, especially on those days with 5-hour breaks. Usually I'd find a PC in the library and camp there for the entire break, unless my stomach growls too loudly, which forces me to take my lunch. So far I've manage to push this off till around 4.30pm by getting a bottle of soft drink to sip on before entering the library.
Maybe I should bring some biscuits or something.
And I still have much difficulty making myself complete my tutorials during the weekend. This problem is a tough one; I cannot come up with any solution. This, in fact, may be unsolvable which leaves me no choice but to finish everything in school.
My mum seems to be very excited about my bro's new relationship. For the most part she seems quite happy and curious about what they're doing. After all, she really doesn't hear about this sort of thing other than from one of her employee who has a daughter several years older than me.
What she tells me about her is that her boyfriend basically lives on her parents' income. He lives at her place, both of them don't work (he's studying in an unknown university and she's unemployed after graduating from an unknown polytechnic) and her parents pay for his studies.
And everyone is pretty sure they don't just talk when they're alone in their rooms, especially when they've been living together in that room for years. In short, they're married in all but name.
Thus my mum expects this to happen to my bro, except for the "them paying for his studies" part. She even asked me if she should move her bed to another room in case his girlfriend moves over instead.
I really didn't (and still don't) have a good reply to that.
You'd have to know my bro to understand - he's too shy for that. In fact the relationship was started by the girl, not him. Even now she's the boss, not him. Maybe he'd change someday, but right now I don't think he has the guts to make his sexual relationship (if at all) official.
One thing that does bug my mum and I is that rate at which he is spending money. As I have discussed in the past, we do not have a fixed allowance. We just take our money from a top secret safe that my mum uses to store our projected budget for the near future. Apparently he has burnt around S$200 in less than two weeks and it isn't even Qing Ming yet!
Twice she had to remind him that we aren't rich, but love drives people crazy. The serotonin level in the brain changes and causes OCD-like symptoms in people who are in love. I guess my bro just can't stop spending money now.
Hopefully he'll wake up soon before he bankrupts my mum, but studies have shown that such effects usually last from 18 months to 3 years. I think I should keep my wallet in a safe place now. =(
Just kidding. This will end the day I find that safe empty, since I only open it when my wallet is empty. When both are empty, I get pissed. When I get pissed things happen, some of them good.
Thursday 20 August 2009
Rant 406 / Going Up
Putpockets, the opposite of pickpockets, are operating in various parts of London. Instead of stealing money from unwary victims, these ex-pickpockets are secretly putting cash into pockets. Really gives everyone an excellent reason to visit London. It would be like getting a small rebate.
Birthdays gifts.
Birthday gifts are tricky things. They need to be significant enough that you won't be embarassed when you hand them over to the receivers, yet insignificant enough that they wouldn't burn a hole through your pocket.
Furthermore, they need to be meaningful enough that the receivers would remember that you got them something on that occasion, yet meaningless enough that they would just dump them in a corner where they would eventually collect a layer of dust thick enough to cushion the fall of the next gift to be dumped in that direction.
Personally I don't have an income, so anything I buy with "my" money wouldn't be sincere. Never understood the point of other people buying gifts for each other using their parents' money. It wouldn't be from you, but from your parents instead.
I'm not being cheap. Cheap is when you get something "economical" when you're earning a million times the price of the item. I am not earning any money, hence all my money is really my mum's money. It makes sense to say that anything I buy would really be from my mum.
Birthday gifts are a tricky business.
Maybe this would work.
Now I've learnt another form of equipment upgrade. There are about 3 methods of doing so, using Jewels from item shop, using mana stones to add stats and using mana stones to raise tier.
Using Jewels is the easy method because all I need to do is buy them and use them on the piece of equipment I want to upgrade. For example, a "Dagger" can become "Dagger +1". Most people would raise it to +6 at most, probably because it's the maximum.
Mana stones are more complex and took me a while to understand the guide. Mana stones are made from fusion stones and equipments. When I transmute (using my Transmutator) a piece of equipment and a fusion stone, I get a mana stone that has the stat bonuses and tier level of the equipment.
When I transmute 3 mana stones of the same tier, I get a mana stone that is 1 tier higher.
When I transmute 3 mana stone with a piece of equipment, the equipment will get the tier and the stat bonuses on the mana stones.
There are always catches.
First, a piece of equipment can only hold up to 6 stat bonuses.
Second, the equipment or mana stone will always retain the 6 worst stats from the ingredients.
The third problem is the method of obtaining a fusion stone in the first place. There are two:
- buy from a NPC vendor using gold (the cheaper way)
- buy from item shop using diamonds/tokens (the expensive way)
NPC vendors will only offer fusion stones with at one or two confirmed stats (all crap, but at least they are not random) and one or two random stats. This means that if I just buy 3 stones from the NPC and transmute them, I would just get a mana stone with 6 crap stats.
The trick with this is to buy lots of fusion stones and pick those with only 2 of the same stats. It's like buy Magic: The Gathering booster packs and hoping for good cards. I bought around 30-40 stones that cost me around 5.5k gold each and all I've managed to get is 2 sets of 3 fusion stones with the same 2 stats, allowing me to transmute items that only has 2 bad stats and 4 good stats.
This is the best situation I can afford. The most ideal case is when I can find 3 stones with only 1 bad stat and its the same on all 3 so that I can make a fusion stone with only 1 bad stat and 5 empty slots for the good stuff.
On the other hand, I can also buy purified fusion stones from the item shop. For 1100 tokens (I can only earn 100 tokens a day) or around 80 diamonds (20k gold each) I can get one of those. These fusion stones are blank, so if I can get 3 of those I can make empty mana stones that can be filled with 6 good stats, which is the best scenario.
But this is expensive. I can only buy 1 purified fusion stone every 11 days if I play this game diligently, which I can't. Hence I'll just stick with buying lots of inferior fusion stones from the NPC and pick those with 2 of the same stats.
Raising tiers will come later because it's even more expensive. To get a tier 4 mana stone, I need three tier 3 mana stones. To get a tier 5 stone I need three tier 4 stones, ie NINE tier 3 stones.
Then I'd need three tier 4 mana stones just to raise the tier of one piece of equipment, ie NINE tier 3 stones. Nine tier 3 stones with the same 2 bad stats is means I'd have to buy lots of fusion stones. It's basically like trying to find the same rare cards from the booster packs. I had to buy about 30-40 fusion stones just to find 3 with only Stam I and Dex I, the best of the "bad stats". I also found a single fusion stone with just Stam I, but it's kinda useless unless I find more of it.
This means to raise a tier of one of my equipments I would have to buy about a hundred fusion stones that cost 5.5k gold each. That's over 550k gold! It takes me 2 hours to gather enough stuff to sell to make 300k!
I'll try that after I'm done giving myself more stat boosts. So far I've raised my HP to 4.5k and 5k is the magic number that all decently armoured lv50s should have at minimum.
Birthdays gifts.
Birthday gifts are tricky things. They need to be significant enough that you won't be embarassed when you hand them over to the receivers, yet insignificant enough that they wouldn't burn a hole through your pocket.
Furthermore, they need to be meaningful enough that the receivers would remember that you got them something on that occasion, yet meaningless enough that they would just dump them in a corner where they would eventually collect a layer of dust thick enough to cushion the fall of the next gift to be dumped in that direction.
Personally I don't have an income, so anything I buy with "my" money wouldn't be sincere. Never understood the point of other people buying gifts for each other using their parents' money. It wouldn't be from you, but from your parents instead.
I'm not being cheap. Cheap is when you get something "economical" when you're earning a million times the price of the item. I am not earning any money, hence all my money is really my mum's money. It makes sense to say that anything I buy would really be from my mum.
Birthday gifts are a tricky business.
Maybe this would work.
Now I've learnt another form of equipment upgrade. There are about 3 methods of doing so, using Jewels from item shop, using mana stones to add stats and using mana stones to raise tier.
Using Jewels is the easy method because all I need to do is buy them and use them on the piece of equipment I want to upgrade. For example, a "Dagger" can become "Dagger +1". Most people would raise it to +6 at most, probably because it's the maximum.
Mana stones are more complex and took me a while to understand the guide. Mana stones are made from fusion stones and equipments. When I transmute (using my Transmutator) a piece of equipment and a fusion stone, I get a mana stone that has the stat bonuses and tier level of the equipment.
When I transmute 3 mana stones of the same tier, I get a mana stone that is 1 tier higher.
When I transmute 3 mana stone with a piece of equipment, the equipment will get the tier and the stat bonuses on the mana stones.
There are always catches.
First, a piece of equipment can only hold up to 6 stat bonuses.
Second, the equipment or mana stone will always retain the 6 worst stats from the ingredients.
The third problem is the method of obtaining a fusion stone in the first place. There are two:
- buy from a NPC vendor using gold (the cheaper way)
- buy from item shop using diamonds/tokens (the expensive way)
NPC vendors will only offer fusion stones with at one or two confirmed stats (all crap, but at least they are not random) and one or two random stats. This means that if I just buy 3 stones from the NPC and transmute them, I would just get a mana stone with 6 crap stats.
The trick with this is to buy lots of fusion stones and pick those with only 2 of the same stats. It's like buy Magic: The Gathering booster packs and hoping for good cards. I bought around 30-40 stones that cost me around 5.5k gold each and all I've managed to get is 2 sets of 3 fusion stones with the same 2 stats, allowing me to transmute items that only has 2 bad stats and 4 good stats.
This is the best situation I can afford. The most ideal case is when I can find 3 stones with only 1 bad stat and its the same on all 3 so that I can make a fusion stone with only 1 bad stat and 5 empty slots for the good stuff.
On the other hand, I can also buy purified fusion stones from the item shop. For 1100 tokens (I can only earn 100 tokens a day) or around 80 diamonds (20k gold each) I can get one of those. These fusion stones are blank, so if I can get 3 of those I can make empty mana stones that can be filled with 6 good stats, which is the best scenario.
But this is expensive. I can only buy 1 purified fusion stone every 11 days if I play this game diligently, which I can't. Hence I'll just stick with buying lots of inferior fusion stones from the NPC and pick those with 2 of the same stats.
Raising tiers will come later because it's even more expensive. To get a tier 4 mana stone, I need three tier 3 mana stones. To get a tier 5 stone I need three tier 4 stones, ie NINE tier 3 stones.
Then I'd need three tier 4 mana stones just to raise the tier of one piece of equipment, ie NINE tier 3 stones. Nine tier 3 stones with the same 2 bad stats is means I'd have to buy lots of fusion stones. It's basically like trying to find the same rare cards from the booster packs. I had to buy about 30-40 fusion stones just to find 3 with only Stam I and Dex I, the best of the "bad stats". I also found a single fusion stone with just Stam I, but it's kinda useless unless I find more of it.
This means to raise a tier of one of my equipments I would have to buy about a hundred fusion stones that cost 5.5k gold each. That's over 550k gold! It takes me 2 hours to gather enough stuff to sell to make 300k!
I'll try that after I'm done giving myself more stat boosts. So far I've raised my HP to 4.5k and 5k is the magic number that all decently armoured lv50s should have at minimum.
Wednesday 19 August 2009
Rant 405 / 小人君子
I dislike the idea of having a law that forces children to take care of their parents. This practically reeks of Confucianism; not that it's bad but it would be ironic that a religion that encourages the use of moral values in place of laws would lead to the creation of a law that is based on the teachings of this same religion.
Let us not forget that in Singapore, the government encourages the people to take care of themselves instead of relying on state-sponsored welfare. With this law it would be no different from them telling the general masses that they must take care of each other themselves and the government would spend their money to force them to do so.
People, something doesn't sound right here. I'd rather they spend the money to encourage doctors to work pro bono more often. You know, like some lame posters and TV ads, or a speech from the PM (c'mon, you know that shit works).
Laws are meant to prevent people from doing wrong; they are NOT meant to force people do good! Morality is a choice, not a bloody obligation!
Quoted from Wikipedia's article on Confucianism:
"There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son. (Analects XII, 11, trans. Legge)"
Which means when the son is prince, the minister is both the father and son, there is no government!
Nah I'm just kidding. This doesn't even have anything to do with the topic anyway.
In a society which teaches the young to be merciless when it comes to money and that money is everything, why should we be burdened with the troubles of the preceding generations? Why should the young be blamed for the lack of funds in their parents' bank accounts? If anything, we should make Soylent Green to lower current food prices!
I know that last paragraph was quite insane.
Okay seriously, what we need is a reduction of healthcare costs. Obama's on the right track, but where are we? He's being paid a fraction of what an average local minister makes but, damn, his ideas are better than many things I've seen so far in local news. And you wonder why everyone wants to move to the US?
Their mantra has always been "You want more? You pay more!" Now, shall we say the same back to them?
Disclaimer: Senor Hybrido is a figment of someone's imagination. His views are purely imaginary and do not reflect those of this blog, which is inanimate anyway.
Let us not forget that in Singapore, the government encourages the people to take care of themselves instead of relying on state-sponsored welfare. With this law it would be no different from them telling the general masses that they must take care of each other themselves and the government would spend their money to force them to do so.
People, something doesn't sound right here. I'd rather they spend the money to encourage doctors to work pro bono more often. You know, like some lame posters and TV ads, or a speech from the PM (c'mon, you know that shit works).
Laws are meant to prevent people from doing wrong; they are NOT meant to force people do good! Morality is a choice, not a bloody obligation!
Quoted from Wikipedia's article on Confucianism:
"There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son. (Analects XII, 11, trans. Legge)"
Which means when the son is prince, the minister is both the father and son, there is no government!
Nah I'm just kidding. This doesn't even have anything to do with the topic anyway.
In a society which teaches the young to be merciless when it comes to money and that money is everything, why should we be burdened with the troubles of the preceding generations? Why should the young be blamed for the lack of funds in their parents' bank accounts? If anything, we should make Soylent Green to lower current food prices!
I know that last paragraph was quite insane.
Okay seriously, what we need is a reduction of healthcare costs. Obama's on the right track, but where are we? He's being paid a fraction of what an average local minister makes but, damn, his ideas are better than many things I've seen so far in local news. And you wonder why everyone wants to move to the US?
Their mantra has always been "You want more? You pay more!" Now, shall we say the same back to them?
Disclaimer: Senor Hybrido is a figment of someone's imagination. His views are purely imaginary and do not reflect those of this blog, which is inanimate anyway.
Sunday 16 August 2009
Rant 404 / What If Pinnochio Said," My Nose Will Now Grow"?
Rule 1 - Never leave your tutorials incomplete on Saturday because it is unlikely you would finish it on Sunday.
Rule 2 - Once there's a first time, the second time gets easier. Applies to all forms of temptation.
Unfortunately I can't post the animated version. This is for those who couldn't visualise it in the other way. With the animated GIF (and even this still image) you can now visualise her turning in both directions at will.
I don't know if it's just my ignorance at management, but it sure doesn't sound right that the American corporations are using their bailout money (given by their government to save them from bankruptcy) to raise the salaries of their employees. Maybe there is something I don't see, but from where I'm standing this act makes no sense at all.
They should be cutting their pay instead of increasing it!
Though I don't quite agree with the argument that they should stop rewarding employees for taking big risks, I still believe that taking risk isn't everything in making money. Sure, one can only profit where there are risks involved, but one should understand the risk and not attempt to gamble with anything one cannot afford to lose.
Furthermore, I have to agree that the financial sector really doesn't deserve the money it is earning. Yes, it works by putting our money where it is the most profitable, but we all know what happened in the recent mortgage crisis in the States, don't we?
They need to find another way to reward employees. It is obvious they need to rethink their strategy of giving big fat bonuses to the lucky guys who took big risks and won. Paying these people more doesn't mean they're going to get luckier the next time they gamble with the shareholders' money.
As suggested in this commentary, the Tobin tax does seem like a good idea.
The gist of this tax is to charge a tiny percentage of all currency trades. It benefits the world by reducing the impact of economic troubles in one country on the others. On the other hand, it's a form of tax and all taxes discourage trade. The Tobin tax would reduce the volume of and discourage currency trades.
From what I gather, this is mainly a debate between stability and profitability.
According to my timetable, my entire Wednesdays and Fridays are going to be spent in a single venue. The best would be Fridays, when I have 4 consecutive hours of classes in a single lecture hall, together with 2 hours of non-stop lecture earlier in the morning.
I don't know if I can handle the 3 hours of tutorials within that 4 hours, but I don't have a choice in the present situation. At least I don't have to move around in between.
Rule 2 - Once there's a first time, the second time gets easier. Applies to all forms of temptation.
Unfortunately I can't post the animated version. This is for those who couldn't visualise it in the other way. With the animated GIF (and even this still image) you can now visualise her turning in both directions at will.I don't know if it's just my ignorance at management, but it sure doesn't sound right that the American corporations are using their bailout money (given by their government to save them from bankruptcy) to raise the salaries of their employees. Maybe there is something I don't see, but from where I'm standing this act makes no sense at all.
They should be cutting their pay instead of increasing it!
Though I don't quite agree with the argument that they should stop rewarding employees for taking big risks, I still believe that taking risk isn't everything in making money. Sure, one can only profit where there are risks involved, but one should understand the risk and not attempt to gamble with anything one cannot afford to lose.
Furthermore, I have to agree that the financial sector really doesn't deserve the money it is earning. Yes, it works by putting our money where it is the most profitable, but we all know what happened in the recent mortgage crisis in the States, don't we?
They need to find another way to reward employees. It is obvious they need to rethink their strategy of giving big fat bonuses to the lucky guys who took big risks and won. Paying these people more doesn't mean they're going to get luckier the next time they gamble with the shareholders' money.
As suggested in this commentary, the Tobin tax does seem like a good idea.
The gist of this tax is to charge a tiny percentage of all currency trades. It benefits the world by reducing the impact of economic troubles in one country on the others. On the other hand, it's a form of tax and all taxes discourage trade. The Tobin tax would reduce the volume of and discourage currency trades.
From what I gather, this is mainly a debate between stability and profitability.
According to my timetable, my entire Wednesdays and Fridays are going to be spent in a single venue. The best would be Fridays, when I have 4 consecutive hours of classes in a single lecture hall, together with 2 hours of non-stop lecture earlier in the morning.
I don't know if I can handle the 3 hours of tutorials within that 4 hours, but I don't have a choice in the present situation. At least I don't have to move around in between.
Friday 14 August 2009
Rant 403 / The Breath Of Life; The Fart Of Death
I have computer problems. Unable to solve them but they're not serious enough to warrant a visit to Sim Lim. Both utorrent and Folding@Home is making my computer crash. It happens randomly when it does, everything just pauses. Cursor would remain operable for a couple of seconds more before freezing.
Nothing works but hitting the reset button.
No idea why since I have more than enough memory and processing power to open 100 of these applications. I've even increased my paged pool size.
To counter these problems, I've completely stopped using Folding@Home and tweaked the settings of utorrent. Folding@Home is causing more irritation than the satisfaction I get from doing a little good, so it's got to go. The number of connections utorrent can make now has been drastically reduced from over eight hundred to just above a hundred. According to the developers this should help with the crashes.
So far, it's been working. Crashes have been reduced but still happening. =(
The US is secretly testing methods to circumvent web filters abroad. While it certainly qualifies as an attempt to spread freedom of speech, this is a double-edged sword that can hurt their own side in the "War on Terror". I don't know if it's really such a great idea.
As I type this, someone dropped that metal rod that they use to hang their laundry. Made some pretty loud clangs but fortunately, no glass broke as far as I could tell. Well a hollow metal rod dropping about 23 stories should probably break some windows, so I wouldn't be surprised if it hit a window or even a head or two on its way to the ground floor.
Oh, and here's a loud voice too. It was probably a domestic helper who dropped it then. Or maybe someone else's laundry-hanging rod got pulled down too. LOL!
So my bro's got his first gf. Pretty serious about it, so much so that he spends around 15 hours outside, even on weekends. Without his laptop. I just hope nothing bad happens, though chances of that is slim. I mean, real life drama's interesting, but only if I'm not involved. And few people ever strike the lottery on their first try.
They don't sing like this anymore these days. Quantity wins over quality, I guess.
Now I understand why Teresa Teng was such a big deal.
All who love are blind. Scientifically proven.
Nothing works but hitting the reset button.
No idea why since I have more than enough memory and processing power to open 100 of these applications. I've even increased my paged pool size.
To counter these problems, I've completely stopped using Folding@Home and tweaked the settings of utorrent. Folding@Home is causing more irritation than the satisfaction I get from doing a little good, so it's got to go. The number of connections utorrent can make now has been drastically reduced from over eight hundred to just above a hundred. According to the developers this should help with the crashes.
So far, it's been working. Crashes have been reduced but still happening. =(
The US is secretly testing methods to circumvent web filters abroad. While it certainly qualifies as an attempt to spread freedom of speech, this is a double-edged sword that can hurt their own side in the "War on Terror". I don't know if it's really such a great idea.
As I type this, someone dropped that metal rod that they use to hang their laundry. Made some pretty loud clangs but fortunately, no glass broke as far as I could tell. Well a hollow metal rod dropping about 23 stories should probably break some windows, so I wouldn't be surprised if it hit a window or even a head or two on its way to the ground floor.
Oh, and here's a loud voice too. It was probably a domestic helper who dropped it then. Or maybe someone else's laundry-hanging rod got pulled down too. LOL!
So my bro's got his first gf. Pretty serious about it, so much so that he spends around 15 hours outside, even on weekends. Without his laptop. I just hope nothing bad happens, though chances of that is slim. I mean, real life drama's interesting, but only if I'm not involved. And few people ever strike the lottery on their first try.
They don't sing like this anymore these days. Quantity wins over quality, I guess.
Now I understand why Teresa Teng was such a big deal.
All who love are blind. Scientifically proven.
Tuesday 11 August 2009
Rant 402 / Excessive Gas - The Best Part Of Waking Up
The Australian government has gone insane! They're trying to follow the example of China by setting up a clone of the Great Firewall of China. Though not as strict as the original, it is going to block very popular websites such as Steam. Steam - the most popular online game store on the Internet! It doesn't even dabble in piracy. Reason? They offer games that go beyond their MA15+ category.
They're going to ban websites that contain porn too.
And the best part of this whole issue is that adult videos and sex shops are legal in Australia.
What the heck is going on? They don't give a flying fuck about their language but when it comes to the internet they suddenly transform into prudes.
Electric cars, the focus of the new age car industry and the climate-change-fearing masses. Cars that are driven by batteries, not fossil fuel, are supposed to be smoother since there isn't any continuous chain of explosions that vibrates conventional vehicles.
Both the US and the UK and other countries in the EU are planning incentives to attract potential buyers. But with each change comes other consequences. Here, one major consequence is the emergence of the electric-car-charging industry.
Today it isn't feasible to dabble in it, but with Obama working towards the goal of having a million electric cars being used in the States by 2015, car-charging may become a lucrative business.
In Singapore, if they would do the same to persuade potential car buyers to pick electric cars, car-charging stations would definitely be necessary, just because most people live in apartments. Only people who have parking space in their homes can plug in without such help.
I finally switched on my handphone after so long. Apparently I have 3 voicemails, but according to my experience, they probably contain nothing but sounds of breathing and clicking. Also finally checked my NTU email which seems to have been forcibly cleared by the technical staff due to my not checking the email for the entire 3-month holiday.
This week RoM (US version) is having a really cool sale. I couldn't resist buying one of the upgrade bundles with my diamonds, but now my Rogue has 3.5k HP. Whenever a fellow lv50 parties with me, they usually comment on my low 2.8k HP. One of them even commented that my gear is alright but needs upgrades.
So now I have 22 diamonds left after spending 199 on the bundle. Not only has my HP gone up, but so has my Dex and critical hit rating. I consider this a promotion from a shitty lv50 to a semi-decent lv50.
After some quick calculations, I realized just how fantastic those bundles are. Two bundles have great value:
-Bundle 4 contains 6 Purified Fusion Stones, 30 Transmutor charges and 5 Golden Repair Hammers.
-Bundle 3 contains 30 Moon Jewels - Wishes, 30 Sun Jewels - Wishes, 20 Star Jewels - Wishes and 5 Golden Repair Hammers.
Uses of items :
Purified Fusion Stones are used to transfer stats from one piece of equipment to another by Transmutation. Think of it as a non-reusable container for stat boosts.
Transmutor charges are used each time I Transmute anything.
Golden Repair Hammers not only repair stuff but bring it to 200% durability. All equipment with more than 100 points (not %) durability gets 20% bonus to its stat boosts and most equipment have around 80 points of durability.
Jewels are used to increase the level of equipment. The Jewels mentioned are the highest level Jewels, meaning they can be used on the highest level items. Raising the level of items increases their effectiveness and brings out the hidden stat boosts.
Purified Fusion Stones cost 55 diamonds apiece. Transmutor charges go for 29 diamonds for 10. Golden Repair Hammers can be bought for 29 diamonds each.
What Bundle 4 contains costs 562 diamonds normally, but is being priced at 219 diamonds now. This is a 61% discount, 11% more than their usual generosity! However, Purified Stones and the charges can be bought with Phirius Tokens (but with huge amounts of them) which players can earn through certain repeatable quests. This means that given enough time, I can get these 2 items just by doing those quests.
Let's go to Bundle 3.
Star Jewel - Wishes are priced at 79 diamonds for 10. Both Moon and Sun Jewels - Wishes cost 39 diamonds for 10. Hence Bundle 3's items normally cost players 537 diamonds, but the package costs 199 diamonds - that's a whopping 63% discount! In addition, none of these items can be bought without diamonds. Therefore if I were to buy them normally, I'd have to farm for huge amounts of gold, use them to buy diamonds at obscene prices and then use the diamonds to buy these items.
Seriously, I'm tempted to spend some cash just for this occasion. They're even giving bonus diamonds for players who buy diamonds right now.
But I won't. This is a free game. I intend to keep it free, at least for myself. Already, I have a pretty good character without spending a single cent. Gives me a sense of pride. Kind of.
I'm not getting enough gold to buy enough diamonds for another bundle. 30 diamonds now and definitely not enough time to farm much. Other things take priority since the semester has begun. Gah! Offer officially ends on Friday, which is around Saturday afternoon for my timezone.
In the meantime, I'm considering using my laptop and mobile modem to open a new account and bring an alt to my Rogue. I'll send the lvl 1 alt to a safe spot nearby while I farm. This would give it free exp and raise its level. When it hits lvl 15, I'll open its gift bag (everyone gets it and it gives players a taste of the items that is sold in the diamond shop). Already, I've been raising alts to lvl 10 for the ten free Transmutor charges. I just need to raise them to 15 to get a few free Repair Hammers.
Gotta farm!
NO!
Gotta farm more!
No!
Need more farming!
Nooooo!
Anyway, have a slogan! It's fun!
They're going to ban websites that contain porn too.
And the best part of this whole issue is that adult videos and sex shops are legal in Australia.
What the heck is going on? They don't give a flying fuck about their language but when it comes to the internet they suddenly transform into prudes.
Electric cars, the focus of the new age car industry and the climate-change-fearing masses. Cars that are driven by batteries, not fossil fuel, are supposed to be smoother since there isn't any continuous chain of explosions that vibrates conventional vehicles.
Both the US and the UK and other countries in the EU are planning incentives to attract potential buyers. But with each change comes other consequences. Here, one major consequence is the emergence of the electric-car-charging industry.
Today it isn't feasible to dabble in it, but with Obama working towards the goal of having a million electric cars being used in the States by 2015, car-charging may become a lucrative business.
In Singapore, if they would do the same to persuade potential car buyers to pick electric cars, car-charging stations would definitely be necessary, just because most people live in apartments. Only people who have parking space in their homes can plug in without such help.
I finally switched on my handphone after so long. Apparently I have 3 voicemails, but according to my experience, they probably contain nothing but sounds of breathing and clicking. Also finally checked my NTU email which seems to have been forcibly cleared by the technical staff due to my not checking the email for the entire 3-month holiday.
This week RoM (US version) is having a really cool sale. I couldn't resist buying one of the upgrade bundles with my diamonds, but now my Rogue has 3.5k HP. Whenever a fellow lv50 parties with me, they usually comment on my low 2.8k HP. One of them even commented that my gear is alright but needs upgrades.
So now I have 22 diamonds left after spending 199 on the bundle. Not only has my HP gone up, but so has my Dex and critical hit rating. I consider this a promotion from a shitty lv50 to a semi-decent lv50.
After some quick calculations, I realized just how fantastic those bundles are. Two bundles have great value:
-Bundle 4 contains 6 Purified Fusion Stones, 30 Transmutor charges and 5 Golden Repair Hammers.
-Bundle 3 contains 30 Moon Jewels - Wishes, 30 Sun Jewels - Wishes, 20 Star Jewels - Wishes and 5 Golden Repair Hammers.
Uses of items :
Purified Fusion Stones are used to transfer stats from one piece of equipment to another by Transmutation. Think of it as a non-reusable container for stat boosts.
Transmutor charges are used each time I Transmute anything.
Golden Repair Hammers not only repair stuff but bring it to 200% durability. All equipment with more than 100 points (not %) durability gets 20% bonus to its stat boosts and most equipment have around 80 points of durability.
Jewels are used to increase the level of equipment. The Jewels mentioned are the highest level Jewels, meaning they can be used on the highest level items. Raising the level of items increases their effectiveness and brings out the hidden stat boosts.
Purified Fusion Stones cost 55 diamonds apiece. Transmutor charges go for 29 diamonds for 10. Golden Repair Hammers can be bought for 29 diamonds each.
What Bundle 4 contains costs 562 diamonds normally, but is being priced at 219 diamonds now. This is a 61% discount, 11% more than their usual generosity! However, Purified Stones and the charges can be bought with Phirius Tokens (but with huge amounts of them) which players can earn through certain repeatable quests. This means that given enough time, I can get these 2 items just by doing those quests.
Let's go to Bundle 3.
Star Jewel - Wishes are priced at 79 diamonds for 10. Both Moon and Sun Jewels - Wishes cost 39 diamonds for 10. Hence Bundle 3's items normally cost players 537 diamonds, but the package costs 199 diamonds - that's a whopping 63% discount! In addition, none of these items can be bought without diamonds. Therefore if I were to buy them normally, I'd have to farm for huge amounts of gold, use them to buy diamonds at obscene prices and then use the diamonds to buy these items.
Seriously, I'm tempted to spend some cash just for this occasion. They're even giving bonus diamonds for players who buy diamonds right now.
But I won't. This is a free game. I intend to keep it free, at least for myself. Already, I have a pretty good character without spending a single cent. Gives me a sense of pride. Kind of.
I'm not getting enough gold to buy enough diamonds for another bundle. 30 diamonds now and definitely not enough time to farm much. Other things take priority since the semester has begun. Gah! Offer officially ends on Friday, which is around Saturday afternoon for my timezone.
In the meantime, I'm considering using my laptop and mobile modem to open a new account and bring an alt to my Rogue. I'll send the lvl 1 alt to a safe spot nearby while I farm. This would give it free exp and raise its level. When it hits lvl 15, I'll open its gift bag (everyone gets it and it gives players a taste of the items that is sold in the diamond shop). Already, I've been raising alts to lvl 10 for the ten free Transmutor charges. I just need to raise them to 15 to get a few free Repair Hammers.
Gotta farm!
NO!
Gotta farm more!
No!
Need more farming!
Nooooo!
Anyway, have a slogan! It's fun!
Sunday 9 August 2009
Rant 401 / Getting Into It
12 Rounds wasn't as bad as I expected. When I saw that "WWE Films" label I thought it would be another bad action flick with shitty acting.
I was wrong, at least on the former.
The latter, shitty acting, was spot on. John Cena, the star of the movie, couldn't act to save his life. The plot was pretty decent though, with a twist that made the movie worth watching. This kind of offset John Cena's performance.
Ceylon tea isn't as good as Assam. It's more acidic than Assam, Earl Grey and Lady Grey, though it has a different fragrance.
Been helping the newbies in RoM quite a bit lately, while spending the rest of the time gathering crafting materials for sale. I've managed to raise my 3 gathering skills to lv43, so the stuff I gather sells for 5- to 6-digit figures. So now I'm making roughly 300k gold a day when I farm for those materials and gaining a lvl a day. At this rate I should hit 50 soon (for the gathering skills, not my class level) and start gathering stuff from the highest level areas.
As a lv50 Rogue, I can gather them while invisible, so I can even enter really dangerous areas with lv50 elite monsters (elite means they're about 10-20 lvls stronger than what their levels are). Currently my aim is to farm for materials in the Cyclops Stronghold, which I have already explored while invisble. I don't know if they will sell, but chances are they will.
Anyway lots of low-level players have apparently added me to their friendlist in the game. In this game, adding someone to your friendlist doesn't automatically add yourself into theirs. Thus I've been getting requests for help from people I don't remember meeting and it gets quite annoying sometimes.
I can't stop people from adding me and I've already tried to discourage them politely. Whenever someone asks if they can add me (as if they require permission), I tell them I don't care. Really, I don't care; I don't have even a single name from them in my own friendlist. I'm just helping them because it feels good and there are too many people farming what I want to farm at those hours.
I have also been soloing a lv20+ instance known as the Forsaken Abbey. Getting confident at doing the whole dungeon alone and without using a single healing potion now. I'm now considering offering to help the newbies run the whole instance regardless of their lvls (even if they're below lv20) as long as they need to complete quests in this instance. I don't need them, but I'll let them tag along to get their quests done.
Why is this any different from the usual? Because in normal circumstances they would need to form groups of 5-6 people with everyone above lv20 and have at least a healer and a tank. If I run it for them, anything goes. I don't gain anything from this, other than an opportunity to show off. Well if everyone is happy about it, a little showing off doesn't hurt.
Experience-wise, they don't get much experience during normal dungeon runs except from the quest rewards they get from completing quests. Hence, there is almost no reason why anyone would reject a run if they have quests for this, which all lv20+ has.
I'm doing all these instead of improving my character because it gets boring after an hour of farming stuff to sell. Farming lots of stuff for sale is necessary because I'm severely handicapped in terms of ways to improve my equipment. This is in turn due to my absolute policy of not spending real money on this game.
Hence I have to upgrade my stuff very, very slowly compared to the real hardcore players who spend hundreds of dollars and become so fantastic they have Youtube videos of how they pwn bosses that normally require 36-man raids.
This is one of them. Here, a well-known RoM player named Zarth solos Worr Binpike, one of the huge Binpike brothers at Ystra Highland. Note her 20k HP as a Rogue. I'm a lv50 Rogue just like her, but with no upgraded equipment at all and hence have only 2.8k HP. No typo here.
This is a free2play (f2p/ftp) game, but you have to pay2pwn (p2p/ptp).
However slowly, I will upgrade my stuff. It's getting faster now because the rate increases. As I gain levels in my gathering skills, I can farm higher level materials. Higher level materials always sell for more gold. Gold is used to buy diamonds, the ingame currency players use real money to buy. Hence I'm able to afford more and more diamonds by the week. Diamonds, not gold, is used to buy the really good stuff.
I was wrong, at least on the former.
The latter, shitty acting, was spot on. John Cena, the star of the movie, couldn't act to save his life. The plot was pretty decent though, with a twist that made the movie worth watching. This kind of offset John Cena's performance.
Ceylon tea isn't as good as Assam. It's more acidic than Assam, Earl Grey and Lady Grey, though it has a different fragrance.
Been helping the newbies in RoM quite a bit lately, while spending the rest of the time gathering crafting materials for sale. I've managed to raise my 3 gathering skills to lv43, so the stuff I gather sells for 5- to 6-digit figures. So now I'm making roughly 300k gold a day when I farm for those materials and gaining a lvl a day. At this rate I should hit 50 soon (for the gathering skills, not my class level) and start gathering stuff from the highest level areas.
As a lv50 Rogue, I can gather them while invisible, so I can even enter really dangerous areas with lv50 elite monsters (elite means they're about 10-20 lvls stronger than what their levels are). Currently my aim is to farm for materials in the Cyclops Stronghold, which I have already explored while invisble. I don't know if they will sell, but chances are they will.
Anyway lots of low-level players have apparently added me to their friendlist in the game. In this game, adding someone to your friendlist doesn't automatically add yourself into theirs. Thus I've been getting requests for help from people I don't remember meeting and it gets quite annoying sometimes.
I can't stop people from adding me and I've already tried to discourage them politely. Whenever someone asks if they can add me (as if they require permission), I tell them I don't care. Really, I don't care; I don't have even a single name from them in my own friendlist. I'm just helping them because it feels good and there are too many people farming what I want to farm at those hours.
I have also been soloing a lv20+ instance known as the Forsaken Abbey. Getting confident at doing the whole dungeon alone and without using a single healing potion now. I'm now considering offering to help the newbies run the whole instance regardless of their lvls (even if they're below lv20) as long as they need to complete quests in this instance. I don't need them, but I'll let them tag along to get their quests done.
Why is this any different from the usual? Because in normal circumstances they would need to form groups of 5-6 people with everyone above lv20 and have at least a healer and a tank. If I run it for them, anything goes. I don't gain anything from this, other than an opportunity to show off. Well if everyone is happy about it, a little showing off doesn't hurt.
Experience-wise, they don't get much experience during normal dungeon runs except from the quest rewards they get from completing quests. Hence, there is almost no reason why anyone would reject a run if they have quests for this, which all lv20+ has.
I'm doing all these instead of improving my character because it gets boring after an hour of farming stuff to sell. Farming lots of stuff for sale is necessary because I'm severely handicapped in terms of ways to improve my equipment. This is in turn due to my absolute policy of not spending real money on this game.
Hence I have to upgrade my stuff very, very slowly compared to the real hardcore players who spend hundreds of dollars and become so fantastic they have Youtube videos of how they pwn bosses that normally require 36-man raids.
This is one of them. Here, a well-known RoM player named Zarth solos Worr Binpike, one of the huge Binpike brothers at Ystra Highland. Note her 20k HP as a Rogue. I'm a lv50 Rogue just like her, but with no upgraded equipment at all and hence have only 2.8k HP. No typo here.
This is a free2play (f2p/ftp) game, but you have to pay2pwn (p2p/ptp).
However slowly, I will upgrade my stuff. It's getting faster now because the rate increases. As I gain levels in my gathering skills, I can farm higher level materials. Higher level materials always sell for more gold. Gold is used to buy diamonds, the ingame currency players use real money to buy. Hence I'm able to afford more and more diamonds by the week. Diamonds, not gold, is used to buy the really good stuff.
Friday 7 August 2009
Rant 400 / Nectarines Are Sweet
Laughter is infectious. Even if it's not funny, you'll laugh just because they laughed.
Just a few videos this time.
A rabbi, a nurse, a priest, a chicken, a blonde and a nun walk into a bar and the bartender goes, "What is this?!? Some kind of joke?"
Runes of Magic arrived in Southeast Asia last week. Just checked their forums and found the general sentiment regarding the game to be rather negative, despite a warning about not posting whiny comments.
In the US forums they would usually delete such threads quickly but right there in the first page of the Q&A section of the SEA forum, a thread exists that is entitled," Whos quitting?" Either the mods aren't stringent/alert enough or there is an overwhelming number of such negative threads.
Posts of this nature is normally discouraged because they don't help and would only spread the hate. However, if they were to contain useful suggestions they would not be deleted.
Also, the SEA forums are rather empty. The Discussion and Community section has merely 2 pages. No one really has much to say other than whine about crap. I was considering joining the Open Beta but the state of the forum changed my mind.
Just a few videos this time.
A rabbi, a nurse, a priest, a chicken, a blonde and a nun walk into a bar and the bartender goes, "What is this?!? Some kind of joke?"
Runes of Magic arrived in Southeast Asia last week. Just checked their forums and found the general sentiment regarding the game to be rather negative, despite a warning about not posting whiny comments.
In the US forums they would usually delete such threads quickly but right there in the first page of the Q&A section of the SEA forum, a thread exists that is entitled," Whos quitting?" Either the mods aren't stringent/alert enough or there is an overwhelming number of such negative threads.
Posts of this nature is normally discouraged because they don't help and would only spread the hate. However, if they were to contain useful suggestions they would not be deleted.
Also, the SEA forums are rather empty. The Discussion and Community section has merely 2 pages. No one really has much to say other than whine about crap. I was considering joining the Open Beta but the state of the forum changed my mind.
Tuesday 4 August 2009
Rant 399 / Burping Is Rude
I was lucky. I almost accidentally injured myself by holding a mug of superheated water with my bare hand.
I've been drinking tea every morning for a few weeks now, and I have always used hot water to brew my tea. This morning I woke up late, so the water in the kettle had cooled down (my mum boils water in the kettle every morning for her tea).
The water was only a little warm, so I thought I could microwave it for 2mins. Usually I microwave tap water for 2min 20s, so this didn't seem like too long. But it was.
First clue I had was observed when I slowly brought it out of the oven. A few bubbles emerged, which I thought may (not totally sure) have been due to the water being superheated and got in contact with dry surface above the water level when it was moved.
So I decided to confirm my theory... by pouring the packet of sugar in. I know there was the chance that this mug of water might explode in a burst of steam, but the probability was low. I was certain it didn't have much time to superheat for long. I did it with a little caution though, by holding the packet at the furthest end and poured the sugar in slowly.
The entire surface bubbled a little violently at the first contact. It didn't exactly explode, but it reached high enough to overflow a little, nothing 2 sheets from the toilet roll couldn't handle.
Exciting! But not something I'd like to try again.
What I've learnt is that I'm going to add something to the water before I boil it in the microwave from now on. The container doesn't need to be extremely clean to create superheated water.
Superheated water! I've made some! Woohoo!
Honestly, superheated water is what I've always watched out for when I boil water in the microwave. It's a scary thing especially after watching the huge explosion on TV when some guy demonstrated this with a beaker of water and 8 mins of microwave. Everytime I boil water this way, I poke the mug a bit to see if it bubbles before holding the ear and taking it out slowly. I guess the slow movement really paid off today. I'd be fucking screwed if the water touched me before I let it boil.
Do not try to re-enact this; it would be insane. But if you're mad enough, I did it with a mug of lukewarm water and exactly 2mins of microwave in a 900W oven. Do your own math.
ROFLMAO! A woman in NY City is suing her university because she couldn't find a job after 3 months after graduation. She is suing on the grounds that her alma mater didn't give her sufficient help in her job hunt and is trying to get a full refund of her $70k tuition fees.
Monroe College is a private college for business-related courses.
Good try. That's a very humourous idea.
WHAT? FFXIV WILL NOT HAVE THE LEVELING SYSTEM ANYMORE! IT'S NO LONGER FINAL FANTASY!!!
The Terminators was bad. Not the badass sort of bad, but the opposite of good. The director was atrocious, the script was crap and much of the violence was totally unrelated and pointless.
In some parts, it was even funny. In the scene where they fought at the back of the truck and the girl pulled the TR4 off the vehicle, there was that squishy sound of something being squashed, which shouldn't be because they merely fell off the back of truck! And amazingly they weren't hurt and in the next moment, instead of watching them climb up and recover/die, we are shown the TR4 ripping her entrails out.
Maybe it would have been a good movie 30, 40 years back when special effects mainly consist of hand-drawn stuff, but today I wouldn't even watch it if it were on TV.
It seems this is one of the mockbusters produced by a film studio known to produce crap imitations of blockbuster movies. Their list of films shows how much balls they have. They don't even bother to hide their attempts at copying.
Ever wondered about the economy of Vatican City? What sort of industries do they dabble in?
Or do they just survive on donations?
They don't charge taxes, but they accept donations?
Actually that's not a joke. I was right when I first guessed that, though it was a pretty logical assumption.
I mean, how much would a nation of 900 people need anyway?
One custom, according to Wikipedia, is the Peter's Pence. It used to be different, but today it refers to donations from Roman Catholics that go directly to the Vatican's treasury and is only accepted around the world on the Sunday closest to the 29th of June. In 2007, it was estimated that they received over US$79m in this manner.
In short, the Vatican City survives on donations, museum entrance fees and etc. Hence calculating its GDP would be totally pointless. But here is a measure of their budget - in 2007 their total revenue amounted to US$372m and their expenditure was US$386m.
Best of all, it literally has 0 people in its labour force. Amazing, isn't it? That a nation can survive with nobody working and yet makes money. And you thought life in those oil-producing Arab countries would be great, right?
The truth is none of the lay workers are citizens and all 3000 of them live outside of the Vatican City. In fact, most of the people working for/with the Vatican don't live there and neither do they have Vatican citizenship. Only 558 Vatican citizens exist and many of them work abroad.
The even more interesting thing about this nation is its public transport. It is 1.05km long and 0.85km wide, so... need a cab? Actually it does have a single heliport and railway service. Wait, a TRAIN? So you board the train, and before it can barely hit 5km/h it starts to brake. And you have to alight because the service terminates at the second stop. Then when you turn around you can still see the first stop.
Actually the city is serviced by a single station, which is now used mainly to import goods. The track is only 300m long and half the station is a museum, so you can guess how heavy the traffic is.
Simply put, the feet is the main form of public transport.
I've been drinking tea every morning for a few weeks now, and I have always used hot water to brew my tea. This morning I woke up late, so the water in the kettle had cooled down (my mum boils water in the kettle every morning for her tea).
The water was only a little warm, so I thought I could microwave it for 2mins. Usually I microwave tap water for 2min 20s, so this didn't seem like too long. But it was.
First clue I had was observed when I slowly brought it out of the oven. A few bubbles emerged, which I thought may (not totally sure) have been due to the water being superheated and got in contact with dry surface above the water level when it was moved.
So I decided to confirm my theory... by pouring the packet of sugar in. I know there was the chance that this mug of water might explode in a burst of steam, but the probability was low. I was certain it didn't have much time to superheat for long. I did it with a little caution though, by holding the packet at the furthest end and poured the sugar in slowly.
The entire surface bubbled a little violently at the first contact. It didn't exactly explode, but it reached high enough to overflow a little, nothing 2 sheets from the toilet roll couldn't handle.
Exciting! But not something I'd like to try again.
What I've learnt is that I'm going to add something to the water before I boil it in the microwave from now on. The container doesn't need to be extremely clean to create superheated water.
Superheated water! I've made some! Woohoo!
Honestly, superheated water is what I've always watched out for when I boil water in the microwave. It's a scary thing especially after watching the huge explosion on TV when some guy demonstrated this with a beaker of water and 8 mins of microwave. Everytime I boil water this way, I poke the mug a bit to see if it bubbles before holding the ear and taking it out slowly. I guess the slow movement really paid off today. I'd be fucking screwed if the water touched me before I let it boil.
Do not try to re-enact this; it would be insane. But if you're mad enough, I did it with a mug of lukewarm water and exactly 2mins of microwave in a 900W oven. Do your own math.
ROFLMAO! A woman in NY City is suing her university because she couldn't find a job after 3 months after graduation. She is suing on the grounds that her alma mater didn't give her sufficient help in her job hunt and is trying to get a full refund of her $70k tuition fees.
Monroe College is a private college for business-related courses.
Good try. That's a very humourous idea.
WHAT? FFXIV WILL NOT HAVE THE LEVELING SYSTEM ANYMORE! IT'S NO LONGER FINAL FANTASY!!!
The Terminators was bad. Not the badass sort of bad, but the opposite of good. The director was atrocious, the script was crap and much of the violence was totally unrelated and pointless.
In some parts, it was even funny. In the scene where they fought at the back of the truck and the girl pulled the TR4 off the vehicle, there was that squishy sound of something being squashed, which shouldn't be because they merely fell off the back of truck! And amazingly they weren't hurt and in the next moment, instead of watching them climb up and recover/die, we are shown the TR4 ripping her entrails out.
Maybe it would have been a good movie 30, 40 years back when special effects mainly consist of hand-drawn stuff, but today I wouldn't even watch it if it were on TV.
It seems this is one of the mockbusters produced by a film studio known to produce crap imitations of blockbuster movies. Their list of films shows how much balls they have. They don't even bother to hide their attempts at copying.
Ever wondered about the economy of Vatican City? What sort of industries do they dabble in?
Or do they just survive on donations?
They don't charge taxes, but they accept donations?
Actually that's not a joke. I was right when I first guessed that, though it was a pretty logical assumption.
I mean, how much would a nation of 900 people need anyway?
One custom, according to Wikipedia, is the Peter's Pence. It used to be different, but today it refers to donations from Roman Catholics that go directly to the Vatican's treasury and is only accepted around the world on the Sunday closest to the 29th of June. In 2007, it was estimated that they received over US$79m in this manner.
In short, the Vatican City survives on donations, museum entrance fees and etc. Hence calculating its GDP would be totally pointless. But here is a measure of their budget - in 2007 their total revenue amounted to US$372m and their expenditure was US$386m.
Best of all, it literally has 0 people in its labour force. Amazing, isn't it? That a nation can survive with nobody working and yet makes money. And you thought life in those oil-producing Arab countries would be great, right?
The truth is none of the lay workers are citizens and all 3000 of them live outside of the Vatican City. In fact, most of the people working for/with the Vatican don't live there and neither do they have Vatican citizenship. Only 558 Vatican citizens exist and many of them work abroad.
The even more interesting thing about this nation is its public transport. It is 1.05km long and 0.85km wide, so... need a cab? Actually it does have a single heliport and railway service. Wait, a TRAIN? So you board the train, and before it can barely hit 5km/h it starts to brake. And you have to alight because the service terminates at the second stop. Then when you turn around you can still see the first stop.
Actually the city is serviced by a single station, which is now used mainly to import goods. The track is only 300m long and half the station is a museum, so you can guess how heavy the traffic is.
Simply put, the feet is the main form of public transport.
Sunday 2 August 2009
Rant 398 / A New Ji Gong?
Yo, wassup?
The Escapist is a relatively unknown 2008 film made in the UK. Ever since Hot Fuzz I've had a pretty bad impression of the UK film industry, but this film changed my mind.
Given that I have some difficulty comprehending certain accents from some parts of Britain, I'm still able to understand the story well enough. Basically this is about a jail break attempt that began when the protagonist, who was serving a life sentence, found out that his daughter had become a drug addict and had almost died from an overdose. He made up his mind to see her no matter what and recruited 4 other convicts to help him.
First of all, it's a jail break! What's not to like?
Second, it had a surprising twist that did catch me off-guard. All movies these days have twists, but the twist of this movie was not obvious at all.
I just found out about the existence of a movie entitled "The Terminators". It's supposed to be really bad and yet amazing in that its producers haven't been sued over copyright issues. According to everyone who had the misfortune of watching it, it's a poorly done ripoff of the Terminator movies.
I'm going to watch it just to see how bad it really is, just like the time I watched Manos: The Hands of Fate.
It is a sad day when a Buddhist abbot can be corrupt for so long despite being such a high-profile figure. So Catholics, don't feel too lonely now. Your organized child-molesting priesthood may still beat his level of corruption, but race horses? C'mon, those are the toys of the wealthy elites, not bloody monks! Dude, you really fucked up the image of Buddhist monks now.
Or was he aspiring to be the new Jigong?
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