Rant 469 / Sing, O Muse, Of The Rage Of S_H, Son Of Some Dude

So I was wrong. Sora Aoi is part of the cast of 娘王 Virgin. It seems you really can have everything these days.


















OMG McLobster!


Available in Canada. T.T What am I doing here?













ANNO 1404 is a good game. It actually made me lose track of time for hours. There were only 2 things that gave me a sense of time's passing - the reminder to take a break that plays every 2 hours and the autosave that stops the game for a few second every half an hour. Once I managed to hit 6 hours and the game said that I "really should take a break".

There is something special about relocating resource production sites from the mainland and reworking the goods transport network every once in a while to accommodate the growing population.













My bro bought a new wireless adapter for his own laptop because the one in his laptop doesn't support Wireless-N mode. Setting the router to Wireless-N Only mode wasn't easy. I had expected no trouble at all, but for some strange reason my computer couldn't connect to the network when that mode is on.

B/G is fine, but N is not. The network is visible but it says the router does not respond when I connect. My bro did not have this problem. What the heck?

It took some random experimentation to find out that I had to disable the wireless security before connecting in N mode for the first time. Only after that can I change the security mode back to WPA2. I haven't tried to restart the computer/connection, but I'm not eager to try.

Why? Because Wireless-N mode freakin rocks! Now my connection speed is even faster than before.

This is what I got in my first test after I switch to this mode. I did 3 more tests after this and the download speeds stayed at about 38Mbps. Upload speeds remained at between 4-2Mbps.

My guess is that this is because most of my neighbours are not using Wireless-N, and Wireless-N is inherently faster than B and G.

Seriously, I'm not pushing any limits even if I download stuff at 1Mbps now. This is insane. I'm having much more bandwidth than I need. I'm taking into account my family's usage too. At the time of the tests, my utorrent was running and my bro was playing TF2 with Vent on.

Edit: It's ok to restart. Guess the security just needs to be disabled only for the first connection attempt.










I don't know what exactly it is about this wallpaper that made me use it as my desktop wallpaper right away.















It never occurred to me until recently that you can make garlic toast by rubbing garlic onto a piece of toast. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?!?!? That's such an easy way to do it!













I think it says BK was selling this 7-layered Whopper for 777 Yens. Since a Whopper Double has 2 layers, this should be a Whopper Septuple. IT'S SO BIIIIIIIIIIG!!!













Disclaimer: The following two paragraphs contains incredibly twisted facts and may give you nightmares and/or scar you for life. S_H is not responsible for any negative effects on readers who are unwilling to scroll down without reading it.


I just found a really disturbing fact. Most guys actually did have incestuous sex with their mothers at least once. That is when their mothers give birth to them. Technically, when your penis is in a vagina, it is usually considered as penetrative sex. Hence, you probably had sex with your mother before and for months, you were in pretty deep inside her. Also, you fingered and fisted her.

From now on you will never look at your mum the same way again, if you're male and it was not a C-section. Now you may grab your head and scream in agony, motherfuckers.






















Tired of low interest rates and risky investments? Here's a new one - invest in Somali pirates! For a low initial premium of a rocket-propelled grenade, you can make up to 75000USD in just over a month! Most importantly, there are no Nigerians involved!














Shit I was so close! Instead of fried chicken in a can, there really are canned whole chickens! The gel thing is the jellied chicken broth. But chickens are so common everywhere in places where people can afford this (ie developed countries) that I don't see the point of it.

Notice that the second pic looks as if the can was giving birth to a whole, hairless chicken?












Finally got a new oven. This one is bigger and has a rotisserie. Now I can finally bake cakes and bread or roast meat! CAKES! But first I'll start with bread. Baguette sounds simple enough, just need flour, salt, warm water, yeast and a little oil. But according to many people, it won't come out exactly the same because home ovens cannot go above 250 degrees Celsius. Apparently it's supposed to be baked at extremely high temperatures to vaporize all the water quickly to create all the holes inside.

No idea if I will ever use the rotisserie though. Maybe I'll make char siew someday lol!












Putin is basically the Russian version of Lee Kuan Yew, except with an even harder iron fist. He's most likely never going to leave power, even after retirement age. Unlike presidents and prime ministers in democratic countries, this guy's been at the top for years. He may not have been the one who built his country from scratch, but it did get filthy rich under his reign.

I don't understand why he would even bother to consider becoming the next president again. He obviously doesn't need to. Even after stepping down, the new president basically lives under his shadow. Big news about Russia almost always mention Putin, but not Medvedev. It's like the latter is there just to fill the space.

I think the biggest difference between him and all the other world leaders is how he improves his image as times change. I don't believe I've seen any prime ministers attend hip-hop concerts or pose half-naked for photos.


It just gives a different feel.



Anyway he also described the nouveaux (French masculine term for new, feminine term being novelle) rich as a problem. He doesn't seem to like how they show off their wealth. The thing is, doesn't this happen everywhere? When people get rich suddenly, they are usually unable to change their mindset of spending whatever they have fast enough.

I mean, their way of thinking is exactly how they get rich quickly. To make lots of money, you have to work very hard and/or sell your soul. But how does one motivate oneself to do so? With promises to buy this and that when they have the money. It is the lure of spending money that made them wealthy in the first place, not the security of having money. It takes time for the urge to buy stuff to disappear as the novelty of it wears off. It's like turning from "OMG I like that! I must buy that!" to "Yeah I can afford it but if I buy it, will I just put it somewhere and forget about it?"












RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!! Just made 2 attempts at making bread. First time, too much water (slightly over 2 cups), dough didn't rise. Second try, perfect dough, didn't rise still. FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

4 cups flour, somewhere between 7/4 to 2 cups of warm water, 1 tbsp instant dry yeast, 2 tsp coarse salt. Mixed water with yeast, then added flour and salt. Dough formed at second try, very sticky but undeniably solid. SO WHY DIDN'T IT RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEE????????????????????

I'm blaming the fuckin yeast for this. It's supposed to expire on the last day of next year! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEE!!!!!

I picked Friday night to do it because the housekeeper comes on Saturday. Now it's Saturday and I have a bowl of 3-hour-old dough and a bag of 7-hour-old white goo. I can make some kind of brick from them and kill people with it, but it would be a waste of electricity and no one has pissed me off like these bread-making attempts did.

I'll retry tonight, with a new bottle of yeast.

Also, 4 cups of flour and 2 cups of water DOES NOT FORM DOUGH! IT FORMS GOO INSTEAD!

Rant 468 / CP Wonton Is Delicious.

An entire meal in one pizza! From entrée to dessert, you can find everything right here in this single course!














If there's anything that can render me speechless, it's the following image series.













Left 4 Dead now being sold for $7.49 just for today. Judging from the prices, they were right! L4D was actually the beta for L4D2!! They were probably testing the Director AI with that game and sold it as an actual game when everyone who bought it were really their beta testers and not actual consumers.

Just a suspicion.












I don't get it. Why is there a difference between adding instant coffee into the water before and after microwaving it?

It is undeniable that it does not turn out the same. If the powder is added before microwaving the mug of water, you get a nice layer of foam on top. If not, you don't. Does the heating causes bubbles to form from the coffee? It can't be, because the water receives just as much heat in both cases.

Why the foam?












From what I've read so far, they're planning to make all the items always available at Lockerz when beta is over. Problem is that all the prices will increase a lot (some say quadruple, others quintuple). Then again, earning PTZ will also be easier.

I think I can see how it works, but it will take a lot of cooperation from other companies. Using PTZ for discounts means the website will give them publicity if they sell their goods there. But they will do so only if Lockerz has enough users to make it worthwhile, hence the free stuff they're giving out even before it is officially opened.

There are also other sources of revenue. One is the videos section they are making. Maybe it's going to emulate Youtube or some streaming TV show website, or maybe they will post trailers of new movies and games.

It's very ambitious but with the sort of funding their free gifts imply, it may work.

Anyway they've added more stuff to the list of redeemable stuff. Now they have a large collection of TV series DVDs and movie DVDs. In the other 2 non-electronics section they've added mugs and T-shirts with their own brand and the ability to guarantee that you can get the item you want in the next restock. The last is not as good as it sounds, mainly because it costs about 4.5-6 times as many PTZ as the items themselves. For example, a "guarantee" for any item that costs below 250 PTZ requires 1500 PTZ.

This means they are favouring people with fast fingers and those with lots of friends and/or fake emails accessed via proxies.

Seriously fast fingers are required to get the most popular stuff, like the PSP. Apparently it really does go out of stock within the first minute. How people can fill in all their particulars (address and name and phone number) so quickly is actually not a mystery. Many use the auto-fill function in their browser to do that.

The thing is, it never loads for me!! The connection sucks! By the next restock I really am going to have enough for a PS3 or a 360!! IF I still don't get anything then, I will have enough for a freakin Acer laptop by the following restock, unless they finally end their beta stage before it happens. (The 10.1" Aspire one D250 laptops are going for 1k PTZ.)

Having all these PTZ in my possession without the chance to spend it is really annoying me. I don't want to have this much by the end of beta and find out that 800 PTZ doesn't mean shit anymore.

Rant 467 / Hardcore Gamers

This is not a shocking GIF image.

Self-explanatory

Super Mario

FF VII

Warhammer

Megaman




BSOD

All of the tattoos are probably real, or at least I'm sure those swollen ones are real and taken just after they were done. The last one should have an entirely blue background. Pussy.














Just one word: NO!

This made me want to play Fallout 3 again. Would this run be the third or the fourth time? Can't remember exactly anymore.










Fallout 3 exposed! Only people who've played Oblivion will understand the humour of the final frame.













You can use this to scare children. "See? If you play too much computer games you will end up like this guy!" And your kids will tremble in fear... or mirth, or both.













Watched Food Inc, the documentary film. The chickens made me realise I was out of chicken nuggets in my freezer and I felt like eating some.

The way they raised poultry and cattle reminded me of the concentration camps I saw in the 9th episode of Band of Brothers. It was, in fact, worse than the way the Nazis treated the Jews, but not by much. At least the animals get fed when they're hungry.

Anyway I knew they were raised in very crowded conditions, but that turned out to be the least of their problems. The animals are basically treated as non-lifeforms, like walking pieces of food/products. I described it to my mum and she said it's normal practice to do that. She grew up on a farm in China that raised chickens and pigs, so I trust her on that. Back then her family used cages with a similar feeding system and similar living space. Huh.

Not that this will stop me from eating American meat products. LOL no way am I going to ignore food that is being sold at lower prices. It just allowed me to see that people, generally speaking, would do things against their conscience if it made their lives easier. No matter what we say about loving animals, they're nothing compared to the $5 saved per day.

It makes perfect sense. We have been ignoring our conscience all our lives, so much so that we do it without thinking. Just look at the death penalty. How can it be possible that they're always 100% guilty? Yet they're always killed when sentenced to death, even if the objective truth is that some of them didn't do what they were charged for. We know the system isn't perfect, but we support capital punishment even though it is possible to just give them the life sentence.

The conclusion is that to ignore the conscience is a human characteristic that we have gained through evolution. It is, after all, the "survival of the fittest" and not "survival of the nicest".

But that doesn't mean that everyone would always try to save themselves before others. It is entirely logical to be nice just to make everyone else think they're nice. If the goal is to be loved, it would be possible to devote an entire life to kindness. Such a person would be helping everyone not because he wants to help them, but to gratify himself. Is that really kindness? Why not?

One point I thought one of the first families was mistaken about was how it was impossible to eat healthily and cheaply at the same time (a head of cabbage costs more than a burger). That can be done, but it isn't tasty. For example, products like rice can be bought in large bags and serve as your main source of carbohydrate. Soy beans are cheap too and can make a good source of protein. Basically to eat cheap and healthy is to go vegetarian and buy in bulk whenever you can.

At the end of the film it reminded people to buy from companies that treat the animals and workers with respect. As noble as it sounds, this would really depend on how much extra I'm going to have to spend. If I can save an average of $2 every meal by buying from those "bad" companies, why not? 3 meals a day, 30 days a month, and that makes $180 of savings per month.

And that implies exactly what it implies - my conscience has a price. If you thought the same, then so does yours.












2 months of waiting had made me lost almost all my confidence in Lockerz, but the arrival of the free T-shirt has raised it back a little.

The package came with more than the cheap T-shirt (I bet if I look carefully I'd find the label saying "Made in China"). For just a mere piece of cloth there are 7 sheets of paper, 6 of which appear to be photocopies of the same customs declaration form. The deforestation required to send me this package makes me feel a little guilty, but not enough to stop me from trying to redeem something at the next restock.

Together with the shirt are a big square Lockerz sticker, a big card congratulating me for my Z-Lister status and a packing slip.

This is evidence that shows that Lockerz is likely not a scam. It may also be an incredibly elaborate one, but isn't that a little too paranoid to believe in after getting a free T-shirt? Whether or not it is like the Portal cake, one thing is for sure - this is a freakin good marketing tactic.

Lockerz is still in beta. Wonder what it will be like when it is done, if it is ever going to be done.









Here's a real jaw dropper.


Never seen a receipt like this. It's not just a receipt, not with those numbers on it. This isn't for a meal for 50 people - there are only 6 (see the extreme bottom of receipt)! That makes an average of almost $8000 per person. No idea who they are.

This is not a photoshopped image. It's a piece of evidence used in some court case in which the defendant denied it was his receipt, though no one denied this is an actual receipt.

Oh btw about the "20% GRAT" thing, grat = gratuity = tips. Yes, you're reading the decimal points right. That's a seven-thousand-dollar tip there. People have died for much less!












It is said that many American porn actors choose their jobs because they think they can step into the mainstream entertainment industry that way. I don't know if that actually works, but I do know that it does in Japan, for porn actresses.

Just take this recent Japanese drama series, 嬢王 Virgin, for example. It's a TV series starring some of the best-known names in JAV, like Yuma Asami and Saori Hara. Best of all, it's got Reon Kadena, the hottest gravure idol in Japan. I had half-expected Sora Aoi to be on that list too, but we can't have everything.

This ongoing series is popular enough to be made into torrents for download and have Chinese subtitles for it. Perhaps it's because it contains nude scenes, but such things aren't exactly rare on Japanese TV.

Whatever it is that makes people download it, it's proof that in Japan one can enter the mainstream from porn. Probably because porn isn't too far from the Japanese mainstream.












Just tried Anno 1404, an empire-building game (or officially the genre is called 4x games). It is a medieval-themed game revolving around the europeans and the Arabs. The campaign is actually pretty interesting, mostly because of the sidequests that I've never encountered before.

These can include the standard errand boy stuff like bring this much materials to somewhere or kill some ships. The most unique side quest, IMO, is the one that totally resembles Where's Wally. One of the friendly faction would sometimes ask you to arrest spies in your city and you would have to zoom in and search for people with a thin blue outline.

The final round of the campaign is probably the most fun but also the most challenging. The main quest was to build this special mega-structure that required huge amounts of building materials, which changed according to the stage (there are 3 stages, excluding the first which was already done). The higher the stage, the higher the tier of the necessary goods you have to obtain constantly.

That sounds easy, except there is a time limit. You are racing against the enemy, who won't attack you but will finish each stage within a set period of time or at the same time as you, whichever is shorter. I played at Medium difficulty, so I had an hour per stage.

It was not easy at all because in order to obtain the materials, you need to build a town/city big enough to support the economy that can supply you with them. So while I made sure a steady flow of materials are flowing to the construction site, I had to make sure I'm meeting all the needs of the people, who consume the same stuff that I need. While juggling the two I had to watch the time limit. The good thing about all these is that the round couldn't exceed 3 hours.

Then I tried the Scenario mode, which has a few objectives. In the Guildmaster scenario, I have to possess 500k gold, have alliances with all the AI and complete 5 of the Emperor's quests. The first 2 are easy; the third part requires the Cathedral to be built. To complete the same Cathedral as the final map of the campaign, I need 3500 Nobles in my cities. Let's just say that even 2500 Nobles are hard to support despite having half the map under my control. Apparently they changed some settings in the campaign.

The entire campaign at medium difficulty actually feels easy compared to this.










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Best of all, only if you're using this special sleeping bag can you easily escape nocturnal carnivore attacks! Hearing noises that sound suspiciously similar to a bear's breathing? Just get up and run! No need to slowly unzip and struggle out of the clingy bag!

In the unlikely event that a bear actually pounces on you, the 5cm thick cushions will make sure none of its teeth can touch you! If the fangs turn out to be unnaturally long and do indeed puncture your skin, the same cushions will efficiently absorb your arterial blood, allowing you to die violently but stay freshly clean in your dry and blood-free underwear!

And there's more! Buy now and get one of our Mobile Tents FREE! It's based on the same concept as the Mobile Sleeping Bag - a tent with legs! With this you can stay in the comfort and safety of your tent when you are hiking between campsites.

Call 1800-LOLSCAM and order now!












Klondike ice cream cones suck. The ice cream doesn't taste like ice cream. It's like some kind of gel-thing with the consistency of ice cream but not the flavour. The cone is soft and not brittle. Worst of all, it's not even cheap.












I have absolutely no idea what it's saying, but my ignorance probably makes it funnier. Looks like some sort of commercial. Why aren't those on Singapore TV this creative? =(

Rant 466 / Cheesy Mushroom Omelette

Tried making omelette like Howard did (Youtube video 2 rants ago). Tried twice (2 eggs each) and somehow it didn't work out as well as I thought it should. The egg didn't flow as smoothly down to the empty space when I pulled the cooked part back.

It was only after I was done eating my "swiss cheese" omelette (with button mushrooms, garlic and Kraft cheese) that I remembered I hadn't added water into the egg before cooking. :\

Also, I learnt that I can't wait for the garlic and mushroom to brown before adding the egg. It doesn't taste burnt but the end product doesn't taste much like garlic and mushroom. It's mostly guesswork, can't pour the egg in immediately because the mushrooms must be properly cooked, but the egg must go in before it browns. Did this the first attempt, but didn't fold the omelette properly. Browned it before adding the egg in the second attempt, but folded it nicely. Thought the garlic would taste better if a little brown, but the mushroom's flavour was probably unexpectedly changed.

Also, shouldn't have done this with button mushrooms. Should have sautéed it separately and pour it onto the cooked omelette before folding. Maybe I should add some of those chicken cocktail sausages with cheese in the fridge, sliced and mixed with the mushrooms. Hmm... And remove the garlic. Sounds like an tasty idea.












Atheism is a religion. It is a religion based on the assumption that where one sees nothing, there is nothing. Monotheistic religions, on the other hand, are based on the assumption that there is always something.

All logic is based on a set of assumptions. Alas it isn't intuitive for most people, hence the arguments.












Vitagen tastes like crap compared to Yakult.

Rant 465 / Korea VS Korea

Yes! That's one step closer to what I was talking about. Google Chrome will be more like an Internet-browser than a modified "Windows" and the computers it uses will have to be constantly connected to the web to function. These laptops will contain no hard drives but get their programmes from the net and store them on memory chips. Basically, cloud computing.

This will be almost like the device I mentioned before which is worn on the ear, projects images for the user interface and is voice-activated.

This computer obviously can't be used for gaming (unless you're talking about Solitaire and Minesweeper), but it can be very convenient for work. With this it is no longer the user's duty to backup their hard drives, because there isn't one and most of the data is stored in external servers.

Now the problem is getting a good signal when you need it. Booting in 7 seconds is not exactly a great advantage if it's going to take half an hour to open up a chart.












The Nazis are wrong. The Aryan race is not the master race.







Jaedong's back! YOU CAN'T BEAT HIM! EVEN WHEN HE'S LOSING, HE'S WINNING! NON-VICTORY FOR JAEDONG IS A THEORETICAL IMPOSSIBILITY! IT'S LIKE DIVIDING BY ZERO!

The final scene after the third match ended was the best view of the spectators ( or is it audience?).

Starcraft never died, even though it did in my comp.








The drama continues. Hershey now has an alternate option. Instead of a joint bid with Ferrero, it can choose to be backed by Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase, who will lend it money to make a US$17 billion bid, beating Kraft's "derisory" offer of $16.8billion.

But with Cadbury being more than twice as big as Hershey, who knows whether it would work out well? If it cooperates with Ferrero they would split up the company, something Cadbury wouldn't like.

Rant 464 / Wheel of Time NOT Being Made Into Film Is Most Likely A Good Thing.

Don't eat kebabs in Russia.














Can't believe I didn't know about this trailer until after I got the game.











When I first saw the world "unfriend" (yes it's a real word now) I thought it was related to the word "friend" the way "undead" is related to "dead". Like a friend, who isn't exactly a friend but not an enemy either. Like if you make friends with enemy POWs during a war, those can probably be defined as that. Or if you raise an enemy from the dead with necromantic arts and then bury the hatchet, you'd gain an unfriend.

Anyway "unfriend" is a really verb, an action. It refers to the removal of someone from your friends list in Facebook or similar stuff. Reminds me of how, when I was primary school, friends would threaten to "not friend you anymore" if you do something that they don't like. I guess this means children now can say they're going to unfriend you instead.














Looks good.













Want to live like a hamster? Apparently people are paying money to run in a giant hamster wheel and sleep on hay. Wonder if anyone wants to live like a pig.












I did it. I actually did it. I posted shitty Youtube videos in my blog. I've no idea what possessed me to do that in the last rant, but what's done is done.












There exists a primitive can-opener known as the P38.



All three of the above are called P38's and all are able to open cans. Technically speaking, a can that's blown to smithereens can be considered as opened.

Anyway I'm referring to the first device, the simple thing with the hinged blade. Apparently it's a pocket can opener used in WWII to open combat ration cans. Canned rations, poor things. Their field packs must have weighed a ton.

And thus reading the Wiki article on this can-opener led me to the article on K-rations.

I guess the history of combat rations is a sad one that still hasn't risen from its Dark Ages today. Just read this excerpt:

One of British General Orde Wingate’s units in the Dehra Dun area was visited by quartermaster logistics officers some months after they had last eaten K-rations. At the sight of a box of K-rations carried by the visitors, two of Wingate’s men vomited.^[18]

It was that bad. To have such a strong reaction to the mere sight of it, they must have been crying when they last ate it.

This led me to another article on military rations, the D ration aka US military chocolate.

The word "chocolate" made you assume it was delicious, didn't it? Well it was anything but. I know I know, it's hard to make chocolate taste bad, but they did it. This is exactly what is happening to the combat rations issued in the Singapore military too - they make good food taste horrible. It's probably a secret art, I tell you, something like the way magicians work - they'll show you the results but never tell anyone outside their circle how they did it.

When the D ration was first designed, the officer in charge of the project made 4 requirements, one of which was that it must taste "a little better than a boiled potato". Cheapass. His logic was that if it tasted good the soldiers would eat them when they didn't need to instead of saving them for rainy days.

Unfortunately the chief chemist took his words so seriously his final product became known as "Hitler's Secret Weapon". It was bitter and hard enough that only people with strong teeth could bite into it.

In 1945 this was replaced by the Tropical Bar.

The Tropical Bar (it was always called the D ration throughout the war, despite its new appellation) had more of a resemblance to normal chocolate bars in its shape and flavor than the original D ration, which it gradually replaced by 1945. While their attempt to sweeten its flavor were somewhat successful, nearly all U.S. soldiers found the Tropical Bar tough to chew and unappetizing; reports from countless memoirs and field reports are almost uniformly negative. Instead, the bar was either discarded or traded to unsuspecting Allied troops or civilians for more appetizing foods or goods. Resistance to accepting the ration soon appeared among the latter groups after the first few trades.

This is yet another piece of solid proof that life not only imitates art, it can be even better than most comedies out there.

Hershey must have made a fortune during the war.

It is estimated that between 1940 to 1945, over 3 billion of the D ration and Tropical Bars were produced and distributed to soldiers throughout the world. In 1939, the Hershey plant was capable of producing 100,000 ration bars a day. By the end of World War II, the entire Hershey plant was producing ration bars at a rate of 24 million a week.

Even if the profit per bar was very low, 24 million bars per week is still a huge number.

Anyway I understand that it has to be very hard to design combat rations. The food needs to be easy to eat, nutritious and has a long shelf life (ie years). Among normal food I have never heard of anything tasty that can satisfy all your daily nutrient requirements without being "fresh".

I think the main problem today is with the nutrition. Shelf life can't be hard to extend with modern food technologies. I've heard that pasteurization changes the taste of milk. Maybe they pasteurize combat rations and thus ruins the taste of the food.
























Left 4 Dead 2 was released earlier today and the pirate scene was incredible. Even before today, copies of the game were already out but could not be played. These were the legit Steam rips that required activation keys from Steam. The plan was to allow everyone to download it at a faster rate (Steam is believed to be slower than hundreds of seeders) and the hackers could release just the cracks when they're done.

At the moment, this isn't happening. No one has successfully cracked the game within 24 hours, but failed cracks by amateurs have been found just hours after release. Established groups like Skidrow and Reloaded have yet to produce a scene release, which most leeches rely upon. One group, Pirategay, did manage to crack the game for its single-player mode. Not good enough.

According to some comments that came with the non-working uploads, the original version being uploaded before the release couldn't be cracked because of some technical reasons. Doesn't matter though, since most games take a few days to be cracked. No one is worried, just impatient.

One thing I've noticed from the leeches comments is how a few are seeing these cracked games as a right. I don't know about everyone else, but to me it's always been a privilege that the authorities can remove if they really want to.

How can it be a right if it is technically illegal in most parts of the world?

We're just taking them because the governments allow it. This is especially true in Singapore, where the ISPs are all government-run. Two of the four top shareholders of Starhub are STT Communications (owned by Temasek) and the state-run Mediacorp; Singtel itself is majority owned by Temasek.

Already Starhub has tried to block bittorrent traffic once, which proves they're capable of it but reluctant to for some reason. If the government wills it, they can probably track down all the high-bandwidth users and filter their download traffic. Right now, they still don't care. All the international attention is going to other countries like Sweden and its high-profile torrent site Piratebay.

The thing some people don't get is how ISPs will bow to the will of the governments, if the governments are willing to sacrifice the goodwill of the people to stop piracy. When the problem gets big enough, when the studies dig up enough negative evidence, someday they just might do it.

Seriously, it's not a right. We have a right to information, nothing more. Not yet anyway.

Anyway it Razor 1911 released their cracked L4D2 on 21st of November, Saturday, at about 1am (GMT +8). All is well.












Ferrero and Hershey are considering a bid for Cadbury. A white knight (or in this case, two) would make it interesting. However, they haven't said whether they will be bidding separately or making a joint bid. Meanwhile,

Cadbury Chairman Roger Carr has dismissed Kraft's offer as "derisory."

LOL! That's US$16.8 billion worth of derision.













This video is amazing. It's so offensive I'm amazed it exists and has almost 700k views on Youtube.













Complete equality is incompatible with our world. Nature simply does not allow everyone to be equal. There's this lie that many adults tell kids, that "if you work hard enough you can be anything you want to be". Well, that's exactly what I said it is - a lie.

The fact is that something exists within everyone known as "talent". It's what made Einstein such a superb scientist, Martin Luther King a great speaker and Bill Gates an insanely rich businessman.

Together with a natural phenomena such as "survival of the fittest" and evolution, it is inevitable that inequality arises. The strong have more opportunities to get stronger and the rich, richer. Just look at your bank accounts. If you're wealthy and have lots of money in your account, you get more interest. It's only right; it's only natural. You get paid for being wealthier. The smart get the better places in the research sector, hence the knowledgeable gets to gain more knowledge.

If everyone is equal and there is nothing to differentiate the fit from the unfit, evolution would stagnate. Why? Because there would no longer be a "fittest"! When everyone's the same, the smart would have as much chance of leaving no descendants as the stupid. While others gradually grow smarter by the generation, these people would remain the same. That defies the laws of nature and logic says they will be exterminated some day.












It seems earlier this month a document was leaked regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). According to it, all ISPs are going to be forced to monitor their traffic for copyright-infringing materials. The consequences of not obeying this is that when their users get sued for piracy, the ISPs themselves would get sued too.

Among the countries in the ACTA negotiations is Singapore, so this is of concern to me. At the moment this ACTA is being developed secretly, so whether the above is true isn't confirmed. However, it is definitely not unlikely.

If this treaty goes into effect in the state as the leak describes, I'm pretty sure the pirates in Malaysia will flourish. By the way, Malaysia isn't one of the countries involved in making this treaty. Even if it signs it in the future, I have not a single shred of confidence in their enforcement of the related laws.

With flash drives being so tiny these days, I'd say it's entirely practical to bring them along with a laptop, test and rip the pirated discs, hide the flash drive somewhere and return home. Games may go up to 4GB, but 8GB flash drives are costing mere dollars these days.

In the bigger picture, it means that websites like Youtube, Flickr and even Blogger won't exist in the future. The amount of manpower required to make sure the insane amounts of data being uploaded every second aren't infringing any copyright will obliterate any possibility of profit. Obviously the ISPs are not going to pay for that without a very good reason.















This second video is worth watching till the end just to see what happened to the guy in red.



If you want to learn a new language you should listen to songs in that tongue.















At the rate I'm going, I'm going to have enough for a laptop at Lockerz soon. I've almost 500 PTZ and the Dell Inspiron Mini 10inch laptops cost 750. Anyway they're still preparing for the next restock which will be only for Z-Listers and will be announced on the day itself. So I'm logging in at least once a day from now on.

Getting 8 PTZ a day means about 240 PTZ per month. Not too hard to get enough PTZ for the good stuff (XBOX 360 and PS3 only cost 675 and 625 PTZ respectively). Problem is with redeeming the stuff quick enough.












The first book of the Wheel of Time is going to be made into a film. Universal Pictures bought the rights in a seven-figure deal. After watching half of the first season of the Seeker of Truth though, I am worried.

The Seeker of Truth was a TV adaptation of the Sword of Truth series. But here, "adaptation" means more than just converting words into action - it adapts the books to the viewers' desires.

In the TV series, the protagonist Richard Cypher did things that he wouldn't have done in the book, like saving everyone no matter the consequences. The Richard in the books wouldn't have done that because defeating Darken Rahl and other villains is too important a mission to jeopardise. In the show, we see him sparing the lives of those who would serve the villains - absolute heresy to the principles of the author.

To Goodkind, people who voluntarily chose to serve evil must be made to suffer the consequences of their actions. Richard Cypher was therefore not the white knight who goes around saving damsels in distress, but a man on a mission to save the woman he loved and the innocents along the way.

Same with the Wheel of Time. There are instances where people are sacrificed in order to defeat the Shaitan. Saving the entire world is too important a goal to be jeopardised by sparing those who would betray them when given the opportunity. But on TV and in film, could they depict the heroes the same way and still make them appear as heroes?

Wouldn't they become anti-heroes then?

The news of the film was started last year and it was supposed to be in pre-development. Probably still getting scriptwriters and cast. No major news this year though, so it might just... go away. All that's happening in 2009 is the new replacement author meeting some guys from Universal. Nothing big, nothing solid.

Not exactly disappointed, not after watching the Seeker of Truth. It may even be a blessing. Surely I don't want WoT to be so terribly degenerated as the SoT by the conversion process.












Why you shouldn't molest women in crowded trains.


Forgot about Sexy Losers since I last visited it at least a year ago. Only finished Volume One back then. Anyway some of the humour is pretty sick (eg necrophilia, incest) and most of the comics are adult-oriented. This is one of the milder ones.










Comparisons between male protagonists in the FF series (Cecil from FFIV, Cloud from FFVII, Squall from FFVIII, Tidus from FFX).

No offence but I find this rather accurate. Not about the stupidity but that Tidus did seem much brighter than the rest. This is especially true if you compare him with Cloud, who's freakin emo to begin with. I bet one of his hobbies is wrist-slashing.

Rant 463 / Leather Belt

If you're dirt poor and you know it clap your hands...












My neighbourhood has changed much since I arrived. I remember when I was young, bugs would swarm into our 22nd storey apartment whenever it rains, especially at night. Sometimes I wonder how these tiny bugs have the endurance to fly this far just for a light, but most of the times I would just be too busy throwing rolled-up newspapers at the big ones, which we believe to be ant drones.

Soon after we moved in we gained this habit of shutting all windows tightly whenever it even drizzles. Sure the ventilation would suck, but at the insect invasion would be minimal. We never believed in covering our windows with netting because Singapore is warm enough as it is without making our flat stuffy.

So whenever it rains, we would hear the pitter patter of a combination of raindrops and flying bugs that don't seem to understand that the glass is not a semi-permeable membrane. Well of course they don't; it would be quite scary if they even understand the concept of glass.

Often, some of them would find the tiny gaps built into the metal frames of our sliding window panes which were originally designed for ventilation purposes but now converted to insect doors. These smarter insects would meet our newspapers. Not that they would appreciate the latest victory in the S League, but still I thought it would teach them a lesson for entering my territory.

I was a sissy back then, scared of big flying bugs with abdomens the size of the top section of my thumb, so I threw newspaper rolls at them instead of swatting. My dad would swat, but he wasn't always there. Insecticide spray was out of the question because of the poor ventilation.

At times the bugs wouldn't die, being too tough to be squashed by a mere paper projectile. That gave us something more to do, more target practice. Eventually if it didn't die it would be too weak to struggle. Such specimens are gently scooped up in newspapers to be disposed of in the rubbish chute.

But all these gradually stopped. Fewer bugs entered our homes as my neighbourhood was being developed. More concrete jungle, less natural jungle. Semi-detached houses and carparks, among others, replaced the final bits of natural landscapes here. Where there was all trees, now there is concrete.

Now it is entirely safe to leave the windows open during the rain, as long as the wind isn't blowing into our home. I haven't even seen an ant drone in years.













Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is in development. About time.















Adobe Photoshop is why the Internet is your number one source of misinformation.

I'm very sure the first pic is a shoop. It took me some time and a lot of staring to identify the one thing that linked the two photos. Notice her left eye, the one half-covered by her hair? If not for that I'd not have believed it was the same person. The one in the un-Photoshopped version looked more like a guy with boobs!

















The second song isn't really good. Just like the chorus.



Most of the Retarded Adventure is just random nonsense. Only LEATHER BELT was funny, very funny.

Ranr 462 / The Law Isn't About Justice, But Normality.

Mass Effect will be released on the 26th of January.

















Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

Shit that would be cool! I'd be able to play as a sentry standing in the sun all day guarding the camp.










It is so interesting to fantasize about moon colonization. This must be what people in the 70s had felt when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon. Now that water ice on the moon is confirmed, it just seems so likely to happen, similar to what the moon landing inspired.

Sooner or later they may start sending materials there in unmanned spacecrafts. Certain things that a colony would need that aren't exactly fragile can be sent separately so that the astronauts can just drive around on a rover and pick them up. The moon is so small, and with the lack of air resistance and gravity, it probably would take a day or two to circumnavigate the whole satellite. Dumping stuff there before sending people would make sense. It doesn't even matter where the parcels land, as long as they do.

Another benefit of doing that would be the increased cost-efficiency. Since these materials aren't living humans, they don't need as many safety mechanisms. If they don't shatter upon impact, there really aren't many issues to consider. At most the problem would lie in whether it would rebound at the Moon's escape velocity. Since the numbers in such matters are usually quite large, a rebound at 2.38km/s doesn't feel impossible to me.

You know, they still haven't mentioned if there is enough water to create an artificial habitat (in the forms of water and oxygen and hydrogen). There would be more in the form of hydroxyls in the rocks but it's much harder to extract them than melting the lunar ice.

But if they do so, squeezing water out of a rock will no longer qualify as a metaphor for an impossible task.











Finished Dragon Age: Origins. This game is superb. I don't use this word often to describe anything, but this game deserves no less. The complete absence of major bugs, the exciting battles that keep you on the edge of your seats spamming SPACEBAR SPACEBAR SPACEBAR, the complexity of the various relationships, achievement awards that recognize deeds that are actually hard to accomplish and other features just makes this game amazing.

Of course, having the steamy Witcher-style stuff to replace the sex scenes would have been a better idea. Just because I picked a Dwarf doesn't mean I want to see him in his loincloth. Thank goodness I didn't pick a female dwarf!

The developers also recognized that looting is fun purely for the action itself. Finding good loot is nice but not an important issue. Hence even at the end, past the point where you can find a NPC trader, you can still find chests filled with useless crap. But it's still fun to open boxes just for the sake of finding something.

The only thing I didn't like is the camera angle. Using the mouse wheel a PC player (there are other versions on consoles) can switch between a third-person view (from behind your character) to an isometric view (from above at an angle). The thing is that when you are controlling a single character, the isometric camera is locked. It is unlocked only if the player is controlling the whole squad together. Hence it was rather inconvenient when I was giving battle orders in the isometric view.

Overall this game feels better than Mass Effect. It is completely unthinkable for them not to make a sequel. The next game, though, will not be held in the same time and kingdom. That I am sure, after seeing the ending of this game.

Tried playing again immediately as a Mage, but I think it's going to take some time before I get used to not being able to open locked chests. As the Rogue I had the Lockpick skill raised as much as I could, so I practically wiped clean every room I enter. Now as a Mage that can't be done anymore.

After this game, my expectations for Mass Effect 2 has been raised. Can't help it because DA:O was just that good. At the very least, I don't expect frequent crash or major bugs in ME2.













I never thought one could get famous by sitting around in one's underwear, but apparently you can! This guy just lives on the street, bumming around in his briefs all day and he has a Wikipedia page and even a TV interview.

Rant 461 / Cloning Creates More Moral Issues

A pregnant Egyptian woman living in Germany was murdered last year in a court by the German man she testified against. Her 3-month-old fetus died with her. He was sentenced to life, and he will get out of jail in 15 years if he behaves.

Parole. I've never believed in it. Even if we discount the fact that murderers have proven themselves unable to control their emotions, we still have to take into account how a man who's isolated from the rest of civilization is going to adapt to a world that's over a decade older than he remembers. This difficulty can lead to various problems, as anyone can imagine. For example, alcohol is cheap in Germany.












It is official - the British are the ugliest people in the world. With the exceptions of Keeley Hazell (below) and their queen, who looks really good for her age.













I've always assumed that when they built the Berlin Wall, it was only between the two sides of the city, and that the city was lying on the border between the East and West Germany.

The fact is the Berlin lies entirely in what was East Germany (Soviet territory). The wall encircled the West Berlin like it was fenced off from the rest of the state. Maybe that was really the point. The reason I assumed the first paragraph was because only the part of the wall within the city was ever shown in films and pictures. N0 one ever mentions the rest of it.

Germany was unified again only in 1990 after the fall of the Wall. Their Parliament moved back to Berlin only in 1999. Of course, this is still a light sentence for what they did in WWII, but most of the people who contributed to the war back then are now dead anyway.













Ice on moon finally confirmed. Water ice. I guess that means they are going to try to colonize the Moon someday. Wonder how much that would cost. Just landing (or rather, crashing) the 621kg LCROSS onto the moon costed hundreds of millions of dollars. The constructons of the LCROSS itself required $79million.

To send people there with food and materials for an enclosed shelter, the price tag would be insane. It would be inevitable that they have to send civilians as part of the group, so safety features would have to be excessive. That's more weight and more money.

Reading on the first successful English colony in the New World, one can tell colonization in a new world cannot be easy. The Moon isn't going to have Indians who would trade food with the newcomers and the soil quality is obviously going to be very bad. The first farms on the Moon is probably going to be hydroponics and such high-tech stuff. No organic nonsense because soil is heavy.

The first colony is most likely to be a small room because they will need to import air in some way and air has mass. At that point, canned air won't be funny any longer. I won't be surprised if they're going to bring origami-like furnitures, all of which are lightweight and can be folded into tiny things when not in used.

Room on the moon is like water in the ocean. There is so much of it in all directions but none of them is usable other than for putting stuff in. They can't live outside of the tiny shelter they are going to build, and each time they go out in their spacesuits they get a dose of solar radiation (during the "day"). It is going to be claustrophobic for the colonists. Either that or they increase their chances of getting cancer.

But since they already know what kind of soil they're going to encounter on the Moon, they may be able to bring the necessary chemicals to augment the Lunar sand to create soil suitable for certain crops. Who knows? It is entirely possible that they can grow lichens on the Moon to create oxygen and perhaps even nutrients for other plants, with or without the help of genetic engineering. It would be like a soil processor.

They may even bring drills and files to carve stuff out of the Moon rocks to use, kinda like a futuristic-Stone-Age colony. It would be cheaper that way, to use what is readily available at their destination. And what is readily available on the Moon is sand, rocks and water.

It would make sense if they eventually expand their colony by digging a cave into the side of a crater. That sounds economical and helps to find out if there is any surprise hiding under the Lunar surface. They can probably seal the cave and pump imported air inside. Plus if they dig deep enough, it can shelter them from radiation very well. Far better than building another tent.

Anyway it is obvious the monetary costs of the successful lunar mission is going to be a pittance compared to what a Lunar colony will require. Unless this isn't what they have in mind.

The other possibility is that they're just going to shift the Space Station to the Moon and call it a colony. It won't be about bringing civilization there, but more like a scientific outpost where scientists can do their experiments there. Rather like what they're doing in the Antarctica.












The Americans opened their first marijuana cafe. You know what this reminds me of? The Opium Wars. I know there are those who say that weed isn't addictive but there are some things that, when given, are hard to take back. They may say it's for medical purposes, but are they going to post a policeman at the door to check every customer? Or are they going to raid it occasionally in the future to get the illegal customers out?

Of course they compare it with the Netherlands, but the Dutch has also legalised child euthanasia. Not exactly a role model for everyone.













Dragon Age: Origins is like Baldur's Gate II and Mass Effect combined. In terms of gameplay, it's like BGII. The quests and NPC interaction feels more like something from ME.

Combat-wise, DA:O has accomplished what BGII failed at. BGII had a combat system in which you could control your group in real-time or pause to give orders. This allowed more room for actual tactics. However BGII was made too early, so computers then were unable to handle more than 4-5 enemies at a time. Hence all combat was between the player's 4-man team and 1-4 opponents. 4v4 doesn't really require much tactics - it's just when to hit who with what.

In DA:O players can fight with 10 or more opponents. It's no longer a brawl - it's an actual real-time battle! In some situations it can be just your 4-man team against half about 8 opponents, or you may encounter a battle between about 10-12 enemies fighting 4 elves and help balance the odds for them. Now that requires tactics.

For example, you cannot just protect your own team. A small squad like this can easily get encircled and slaughtered. When AI-controlled allies are available, it is always advisable to heal them even if their survival isn't a condition for victory. It simply doesn't make any tactical sense to be overwhelmingly outnumbered and encircled, especially since flank attacks do extra damage in the game.

Right now I'm using the Rogue-class for the protagonist in the game. With Stealth at max level, the Rogue can enter Stealth mode even in combat - and Rogues always get a critical hit (extra damage) when he stabs an opponent while invisible. Combine it with a stun skill and a armour-penetrating attack, the Rogue can remove 50% of the victim's HP before he recovers. Now throw in a Mage with a mass-Stun spell or a Warrior with Shield Bash (2s stun) and you can easily take out an opponent without him doing any damage. (There's an award for killing 250 enemies without them doing a single point of damage)

In addition, I can use the invisible Rogue to scout ahead, find and disable traps and quickly take out Mages in battles. One way is to get him behind the Mage (or one of them, if there are more), then tell everyone to hold position. Next command the rest of the team to enter the line of sight of the enemies. When the Mage sees the team but before he can cast a spell, the Rogue goes out of hiding and stuns him. The rest of the squad attracts all the attention but runs pass everyone and focus fire on the Mage. The Rogue can take the Mage out by himself but he would be surrounded and gang-raped after that. That wouldn't be tactical but suicidal.

The game is much better than BGII, though it feels smaller. Quests seem to be fewer but random encounters while travelling are more frequent. This isn't bad since I always seem to be short of cash. This cashflow problem is rather refreshing since in most games, you always have way too much money after playing half the game.

The graphics are of the same standards as Mass Effect, which is very good. If not for the way the people's eyes don't look at the right direction at times and their heads tremble when moving in some cut-scenes, I'd say it's the best I've seen in a RPG so far. Right now Mass Effect is still the champ to me.

Another commendable thing about the game is the lack of bugs so soon after release. So far I've only encountered a few bugs that aren't important. In one of them, I picked an option in a conversation that led to the related quest being thrown to the Completed section saying I refused the NPC's request. Later I did what she asked and I could talk to her as if I had the quest. The quest log didn't change but everything else happened as if I had completed the quest as it should be done.

I have only 2 crashes so far and it's already close to the end of the game. That's pretty good for an open-ended RPG.

Speaking of open-ended, this game has so many choices! Even at the beginning there are 3 different race with 3 different backgrounds each to choose from. Each background of each race has a different starting point and a different introduction to the story. For a Dwarven Noble, you start as the second son of the Dwarven King and begin the story with the political intrigues of the Dwarven court as you and your two brothers begin eyeing the throne of your elderly father.

The other backgrounds may be the same though, like the Human and Elven Mages who likely begin their stories at the Mages' Circle.

Also the chosen race causes people to react differently to you, unlike in BGII. For example, NPCs speak differently about their religions to a Dwarven protagonist because in the game's world Dwarves worship ancestors instead of deities.

Finally, sex. When the player gets a high enough Approval rating from a friend, he/she can start kissing. Even higher and they can have sex. It's really... bad... unless you've never seen sex before. Seriously, Dwarven sex is not something you want to see. Not to mention the unnatural motion of the characters due to the developers using the in-game engine to make the scene instead of something else. Plus, they wear their underwear during the act.

Homosexuality is allowed so you can have a romantic relationship with a character of the same gender. It is even possible to visit a brothel, though there isn't a sex scene for that, only moans. When choosing the gender of your partner in the brothel, one of the choices is "Surprise me!" I picked that once and spent the night with a giant warhammer named "The Magic Wand". Not cool at all.

The game, as interesting as it is, isn't relaxing at all. I keep spamming the spacebar to create time for what should be split-second decisions in battles, like choosing who gets the heals and who uses potions instead at the same time. Sometimes in tough battles the spam makes a real difference. There have been occasions when the heal landed just before the boss's swing hit one of my guys who couldn't take one more hit. Once I watched as the 1mm-long HP bar rose to a centimetre then dropped by half again. Of course there have been times when the heals landed just after the guy got hit, but not all the time thanks to the spacebar spam.












Cloning for food! Why not? The Cavendish banana is as good as cloned! Every single one that we've eaten have the same DNA. Planters simply graft them to grow more trees instead of pollinating flowers and growing them from seeds. It is because of their identical genes that makes them all vulnerable to the Panama disease.

So is there anything wrong with cloning the best-yielding cattles to spread their genes more cheaply and at a faster rate? Maybe they will eventually contract a disease that they are vulnerable to, but the overall benefit is cheaper food for the rest of the times.

If a bull cloned from Bull A mates with a cow from Cow B and give rise to a Calf C, then another A clone mates with another B clone to have Calf D, and when C and D eventually mates, wouldn't it be... strange? Holy crap! I don't think there's a word for this!

I mean, it's not incest... or is it? This is confusing!

Shit, I just blew my own mind.

Rant 460 / One-word Titles Are Lame

So a woman survived after falling onto train tracks. I was like," What's the big deal?" Then I thought maybe it was because the woman was lying perpendicular to the tracks but escaped unscathed after the train ran over her. That would definitely hit the front page like... a speeding train. Then I clicked the link and there she was lying in the middle of the tracks, parallel to each rail.

Pffft. What's the big deal?












The US deficit rose to $1.4 trillion last fiscal year which ended on the 30th of September. I'm pretty sure it's because of inflation. The American public debt will rise to $12 trillion this week. Unemployment rate has hit 10.2% and will reach 10.5% by the middle of next year.

Things are looking pretty grim. It may not be our economy, but the Americans' money problems have this uncanny knack of spreading around the world like AIDS in a gay drug addicts' orgy.

Public debt is the amount of money the government owes, eg through bonds and securities (they're the government's way of borrowing money). Since China is in possession of lots of US securities, it means the US owes China a lot of money.

Like I said some rants ago, China can't fuck around with the US economy in spite of this because if the USD collapses, they aren't going to get their money back.

Still, me thinks the inflation rate of the USD is worrying.












Whoa! AIG is 80% owned by US taxpayers after the bailout! It's as good as nationalised.












Starting to watch Damages. After the first three episodes, it looks pretty interesting. IS PATTY THE MASTERMIND OF THE ENTIRE THING JUST TO WIN THE CASE???? Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to spoil it for myself, not so soon.

Rant 459 / Nobody Wants To Be The CEO Of The Bank Of America

MSG. There is little evidence that MSG harms you. All you anti-MSG elitist, go put your anti-MSG sentiments where the sun doesn't shine. Here's some of my research:

-A 2000 review found that large doses of MSG given without food may elicit more symptoms than a placebo in individuals who believe that they react adversely to MSG. However, the frequency of the responses was low and the responses reported were inconsistent and were not reproducible. The responses were not observed when MSG was given with food.

-A 2002 report found that rats fed on diets supplemented with 10% and 20% pure monosodium glutamate suffered retina degeneration, possibly through glutamate accumulation in the vitreous humor. However, such extreme amounts are more than one order of magnitude higher than those used for flavoring or found in foods.

For the ignorant, one order of magnitude = 10 times. More than an order of magnitude = 10 times, 100 times or more. At 10 times of the amount described, you would have to consume about a ladle of that stuff.

In conclusion, it's all in your head! MSG IS SAFE!

However,

-Prevalence of overweight was significantly higher in MSG users than in non-users.

This can easily be explained by that fact that food just tastes... heck, life just tastes better with MSG. It is no wonder they get fat. And here's something to back my point:

- The epidemiological survey of 4,938 ethnically Japanese men drawn from the Honolulu heart program in Hawaii found that self-reported dietary monosodium glutamate consumption was not statistically linked with obesity. Researchers furthermore found that frequent monosodium glutamate consumption did not significantly affect blood sugar or serum cholesterol levels among the participants.

See? Even if you gain weight quickly, it's not directly due to the MSG. You just like eating more!












I have just been screwed by Borderlands. I opened it a few minutes ago and discovered all my skill points are gone and weapon proficiencies have been reduced to zero. I googled this and discovered that this is a bug of moderate frequency. MODERATE FREQUENCY!

There is no fix. They are gone. Time to either get a new character or delete the game.












Democracy. Democracy is an illusion. You would be surprised by what people want without proper guidance.

People don't want a lot of things they seem to want today. They don't want meritocracy; they want wealth without work. They don't want a smart man who seem to know how to run a country; they want "one of them" with 20 years experience as an office worker, doesn't know shit about government but understands their troubles. People want the facade of being civilized, not actual civilization.

Without being told who to vote for, democracy would kill.

It is stupid to assume everyone likes what you like, think what you think and believe in everything you believe in. Some people don't care for technology, others don't want people with degrees to get better pay just because they spent a couple of years in an university.

Write down a list of things you assume is important in the government of a nation and someone's bound to disagree with you. Lots of someone's. That is democracy.

Uncontrolled democracy is chaos. Or rather, democracy is controlled chaos. Just look at games. Game are never designed by democracy. Gamers don't vote for what they want in a game. Few features are ever derived this way. The number of repeated support posts for an idea does not reflect the probability of it being implemented.

In Empires, democracy decides what maps we play in the server I frequent. Very often, people would vote for maps that generally considered bad and stupid. Other times, people would just hit the 1 key no matter what map it is.

The internet is an excellent place to see the thoughts caused by free will.


















Read the Wiki article on the Siege of Leningrad, which occurred during WWII when Hitler made the mistake of attacking the USSR. If you thought Russia had it easy back then, you were very wrong.

Now renamed as Saint Petersburg, the city was large, being the ex-capital of the Russian Empire. There were 3.5 million people excluding unregistered (and there were lots of those) civilians in the city before the Germans arrived. 1.4 million were evacuated. 872 days later, only 700,000 people were left. 500,000 were civilians.

872 days = 28 months = 2.5 years. 8 September 1941 - 27 January 1944.

Things were so bad, children were deployed to fight fires after the frequent bombings. 15,000 children were later decorated for their actions during the seige.

Food was a huge problem. Within 5 days of the seige, all restaurants were cleared of their leftovers and had to close. Money became worthless since it couldn't buy food any longer (note how food supply affects the value of money).

At the beginning, the analysis was already very grim.

It was calculated that the provisions both for army and civilians would last as follows:

grain and flour	35 days
groats and pasta	31 days
meat and livestock	33 days
fats	45 days
sugar and confectionery	60 days

Food rationing was the only option. It started in July 1941 before the city was encircled. On the 2nd of September the same year, it was reduced to:

manual workers had 600 grams of bread daily; state employees, 400 grams; and children and dependants (other civilians), 300 grams per day

Then due to the successful bombings of most of the warehouses by the Germans between August to October that year, it was reduced again on the 12th of September to:

the workers received 500 grams of bread; employees and children, 300 grams; and dependants, 250 grams.

Rations were reduced yet again in Oct, followed by two more cuts in November. By the last reduction, the rationing was as follows:

250 grams daily for manual workers and 125 grams for other civilians.

That's almost as bad as being a POW. 125g of food is like... 3 slices of ham? A handful of rice?

By the winter of 1941, all rats, pets and birds were consumed. Anything that walks was food, and reports of cannibalism began from that point on. The severity of this problem led to a special unit of police being created to fight cannibalism.

It is estimated that this siege did more harm than the nuclear bombs dropped in Japan. Not only was the city as good as razed, it had contained several of the most beautiful palaces from the Tsarist era (it was the ex-capital, as mentioned before). Many of the palaces were looted and destroyed by the Germans before they left.

A diary of an 11-year-old girl who lived through the siege still exists in a museum in Russia, though the author passed away from intestinal tuberculosis after being rescued. Tanya Savicheva was born on 23rd January 1930 and had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Also with them were 2 uncles and a grandmother. Of her entire family, one brother was outside the city before the siege while a sister was evacuated without their knowledge. Her father passed away before it happened and everyone else perished during the siege.

Excerpt from her diary:

Zhenya died on Dec. 28th at 12:30 A.M. 1941

Grandma died on Jan. 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942

Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 A.M. 1942

Uncle Vasya died on Apr. 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942

Uncle Lesha on May 10th at 4:00 P.M. 1942

Mother on May 13th at 7:30 A.M. 1942

Savichevs died.

Everyone died.

Only Tanya is left

In May 1942 when she wrote her last entry, she was only 12 years old and worked as a trench-digger and fire-fighter. She was rescued in August that year, found to be very ill and eventually died in July 1944.

All in all, this event caused the most casualties ever in a modern city.












At first I read this report about a discussion on what is unacceptable when using human genes in animals to grow human parts. Then I read the next report on rabbits that were given lab-grown penises that mated better and I thought Reuters was being very humorous here.












Kraft is getting warmer. It just offered $16.2 billion for Cadbury, or 709 pence per share. Cadbury investors rejected it of course, saying they will consider no offer below 800 pence per share. (1 pound=$1.6713)

No one else is competing against Kraft. Not Nestle, not Hershey, not PepsiCo.

From the report:

Pepsi, which owns snack-maker Frito-Lay, is buying its two largest bottlers and may have little appetite for a new deal.

Nestle has said it plans no big acquisitions. Hershey has been interested in Cadbury, but cannot afford it on its own and is hampered by the control structure of the Hershey trust.

Two titans are about to merge. Pretty dramatic.

China lends US$10 billion to African nations at below-market interest rates, among several other things it is doing to help Africa. It looks to me like China wants to take over the domination of African resources from Europe.

I think Africa is deliberately being kept in such poverty so that Europe can exploit their resources cheaply, and now China wants a large portion of this pie.