Friday 31 December 2010

Rant 691 / Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan

I am confused.

I was looking through the various New Year's Day eCards on Care2.com when I came across this phrase "Chu Shen Tan" which was supposed to mean "Happy New Year" in Mandarin.

This sounds nothing like "新年快樂" (xin1 nian2 kuai4 le4), so I thought maybe the reason I didn't understand it was that they were missing the tones.

So I googled it and found that the entire phrase was supposed to be "Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan" which apparently means "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year."

See why I'm confused?

The thing is, in Mandarin, the only verbal consonants that words can end with are "r", "n", "ng" and "m". In other words, "His" does not represent any word in Mandarin.

Therefore, "his" must have originally been "hsi".

Which would give us "kung hsi hsin nien bing chu shen tan".

I believe "kung hsi hsin nien" is supposed to be "恭喜新年" which in english is approximately "wish you a happy new year", although this is wrong and is barely understandable. "恭喜" is closer to "congratulations".

What about "bing chu shen tan"?

I'm guessing "bing" is 並 which can mean "and", and "shen tan" probably is 聖誕 which is the Mandarin for "Christmas".

The "chu" is the problem here. The closest and best guess I can offer right now is "祝" (zhu4) which is the more proper way of saying "wish" as in "wish you a merry Christmas".

If so, this entire phrase should mean "congratulations new year and wish Christmas". Or else, I'm entirely wrong.

Better New Year's Day greetings in Chinese can be found on this page. No English pronunciation guides there though.

If you search this phrase on Google, you'll be surprised how many results there are for it.





Since 主義 means "ideology", 社會主義 = "social ideology"? If so, the following wouldn't make sense... would it?



Produce more steel to speed up the construction of our social ideology?

I know it doesn't sound right but I need to understand this before I can phrase it better.







Often when fighting in RPGs I'd think at the back of my mind how these enemies are always isolated in tiny groups that make no tactical sense. Not in Mass Effect 2 since they sometimes come in squads of 6-7, but in other games like Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas or Oblivion, they often come in duos or trios.

Now if you have an army defending a location, why would you ever want to spread them out like that?

Even in ME2, many incidents would have ended tragically for Shepard if the enemy had just focused all available firepower on a single choke point.

That's not the only common strategic blunder in games.

The other thing I notice is this strange habit that all villains have of sending their weakest minions/henchmen first before sending progressively stronger soldiers.

That doesn't make sense. In real life you don't read about historic generals sending their greenest recruits to sally outside a city during a siege, and you don't see modern era commanders posting recruits to the frontlines without a good reason. Instead it is often the commandos, ie the best soldiers, who attack first. Meanwhile, the worst soldiers are kept at the back for defence or used as cannon fodder.

In other words, if villains in games were to make use of proper strategies, we would be fighting the final boss in the prologue. Come to think of it, maybe that's why they don't.






Ordered Sarpino's last night. Even though the pizza I picked was the Ultimate Double Meat, it was surprisingly full of vegetables, mainly tomatoes, onions and green peppers. The cheese is quite light and the meat is mostly buried under the veggies, making it almost vegetarian. It's not bad, really. In fact the tomatoes are juicier than I expected.

Adding the fact that the menu contains more vegetarian pizzas than any other pizzerias that I know of, I feel that Sarpino's is a good choice for people who are more inclined towards a herbivorous diet.

Unfortunately that does not include me.

I like the garlic bread sticks though, despite the fact that the jalapeno dip is just mayo.







So apparently there is an auction site for first-hand goods for Singaporeans. At Bidhere.com people bid for stuff and the highest bidders gets the items. The catch is that each bid costs money.

Initially I wanted to wait till they offer good signup bonuses before making an account but I couldn't find a list of prices for their BidPacks, so I made an account out of curiosity.

This is the price list for Singaporeans. Prices differ in other countries.



At S$0.85 per bid, it's not that cheap when you take into account the possibility of making lots of bids for really hot items. Boxed options are temporary offers.

However, look at what I found on the Ended Auctions page:
 



So if you're actually into online shopping and have some patience, this looks like a great website for you. But for me, this is just a place to keep an eye on. Maybe someday I will see something I want.

The PS3 is great but so far hackers have only managed to jailbreak it this month. There is still a long time before we can play pirated games on it.

Anyway I've later noticed that this isn't the only one and is probably just one of many out there that Singaporeans can use. Another thing is that these auction sites may be scams.

Thursday 30 December 2010

Rant 690 / Now With Ten Times As Many 69s!

My modem, as expected, recovered last night. This time I'm not going to cancel the technician's appointment. If they ever call me back to confirm the time, that is.

Still got to wait till March before I get my fibre optics cable point installed, then a little longer to get the new broadband plan.

It's actually cheaper to use the broadband plans for the fibre optics cable but there has to be a catch somewhere.


Meanwhile, my bro has gone to his gf's place and staying there for an unknown period of time partly because of the temporary death of the modem. He didn't actually say he was staying there for the internet access but he has, in the past, admitted that both his gf and him prefer his room to hers. So whenever he stays there, we know it's not because he likes to sleep in an intimate position with her on her tiny bed.

No sarcasm here. They do stay here together much more often than they do there.






Here's an interesting article about different types of plastics and food safety regarding them.

If you spy a number 3 or 7, well, those containers should probably go to the craft room or garage to store buttons or screws rather than food.
1. Know your plastics. Plastic items are marked with a resin identification coding system (the number surrounded by arrows), which stand for:
1 polyethyelene terephthalate (PETE)
2 high-density polyethylene (HDPE)
3 vinyl, polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
4 low-density polyethylene (LDPE)
5 polypropylene (PP)
6 polystyrene (PS)
7 other (includes polycarbonate, acrylic, polylactic acid, fiberglass)


2. When you need to use plastic, these are the safer choices to use with food: 1, 2, 4 and 5.


6. Never microwave foods in plastic containers. “Microwave safe” means the container won’t melt or warp, but doesn’t mean it won’t leach. Heating plastics increases the potential for leaching of chemicals into your food.

I know those numbers in the triangle at the bottom of most plastic containers help recyclers differentiate between the types of plastics, but I never found out what they really meant. And point 6 was not obvious at all. How could anyone know instinctively that "microwave safe" doesn't mean it's perfectly safe to cook food in?





Things to note about McDelivery's breakfast menu:

If you are going to order combo meals and ala carte items, pick the right ala carte items.

For example, if someone wants a Sausage McMuffin w/ Egg combo and another wants just a Big Breakfast, order a Sausage McMuffin by itself and a Big Breakfast combo instead.

Why?

Because upgrading a Sausage McMuffin w/ Egg to its corresponding combo meal costs an additional $2 ($4.05 -> $6.05), while doing the same for Big Breakfast only costs $1.35 ($4.95 -> $6.30).

As for the other items, Big Breakfast Deluxe requires an extra $1.75 to upgrade, both McGriddles require $1.95 and everything else requires $2.

If you order both breakfast and lunch for multiple people like I do, the differences can possibly add up to an additional McMuffin.

When you are keeping things for lunch, things grow cold and soggy. This means ordering hashbrowns for your lunch item is not a very good idea. Therefore, skip the combo and just get the ala carte stuff.

Also I remove the lids for Big Breakfast and Hotcakes and open the wrappings for all the McMuffins if I'm not eating them immediately. None of the items on McDonald's menus taste good soggy, and fortunately I have no bugs in my room.







Just found this website called Cuisine Xpress that looks quite interesting. However, prices are at restaurant levels and can get quite expensive. For example, I randomly checked 4 main courses in one of the available restaurants located in Holland V (it's got lots of restaurants on the list) and I managed to exceed S$100.

May look at the other restaurants next time but for now, I'm not going to try it till I have a very good reason to do so.

Wednesday 29 December 2010

Rant 689 / Human-Flavoured Tofu For Vegetarian Cannibals

Tue

That night at CZY's place his sister was, for some reason, saying that Justin Bieber was a 51-year-old man and that it was on the Internet. Obviously she has been visiting Onion News.


Justin Bieber Found To Be Cleverly Disguised 51-Year-Old Pedophile

The ending in which the "real" Bieber sang without his disguise was quite creepy. Somehow I just couldn't connect the voice to the face.

Which showed to me how the brain works regarding preconceptions and what we "know". If we "knew" something to be true all our lives, then we would find it hard to believe it was false even if we were to see proof of it with our own two eyes.

So the next time you feel frustrated because someone just flatly refuses to believe what you say no matter the evidence, remember this video and understand, especially if you felt the way as I did about the singing.



Oh, and she's a complete attention whore. My guess is she probably loves Facebook. If not, she definitely will when she gets older.

Or maybe she was just bored. Either way, she was probably our pre-emptive karma for making so much noise later that night.






Finally getting used to handling the Engineer class in ME2. Now I always kill normal enemies without spending ammo, especially when there is no urgency. Minibosses are also easier since I have the Combat Drone. All I need to do is spam Shift to keep pausing every 4 seconds or so in order to keep the miniboss busy with a constantly respawning Drone while my team members take care of any henchmen. Not my problem if none of the AI can kill it within 4 seconds in Hardcore difficulty.






If a country is always in an increasing debt and yet still manages to grow economically, how is it different from a gigantic Ponzi scheme?







NWN2 Platinum Edition (aka with both expansions) for 10USD on Steam. I didn't know they usually go for $20 only. Speaking of this game, I just noticed the 2D sprites used in ME2.

Normally, I don't look up a lot but a few days ago I did. That was when I saw that all those people on the upper floors in Ilium consisted of only 2 sprites being used repeatedly. Worse still, they looked horrible close up (eg on the left outside the windows of Liara's office), obviously because they were never meant to be seen from that distance.

These sprites immediately reminded me of those in Baldur's Gate 2, except larger. The reason is that they keep doing the same action, like raising their hands and leaning forward, then back to standing straight again. I know these sprites are used in order to create a more lively background using minimal processing power, but seriously, they could have designed it better. At the very least, don't give us a chance to see them like 3m away. That asari sprite looks like a man-sized blurry mass. A disturbing sight IMHO.

If I didn't know better, I'd say Bioware had re-invented Ivan Ooze in ME2.






Found a new server for Empires today that's based in Hong Kong. Fantastic. Good ping, all newbies, filled with Cantonese speakers. Unfortunately it showed me that ping isn't the reason why I suck at shooting. I just have no talent at aiming with the gun.

And they keep calling me "鬼佬" which means white guy, just because I don't have a mic and can't type Chinese in the game, even though when each player joins the server his country is announced in English. As you can deduce, their English is horrible, hence I've given up on trying to tell the comm what to do.

I'd comm but I know it's not good to have a leader who cannot communicate with the team, even if he's better at it than any of them.






The boat that sank in Mersing was apparently inspected and found to be "seaworthy" by the local authorities. And it sank before the local meteorological station issued the category 3 alert.

So the problem has to lie in either the inspection or the standards of the inspections. Do the inspectors just look around and search for holes in the hull?






You know what's the best thing about McDelivery? Ordering breakfast on the night before so that all I need to do the next day is wake up at the right time.





Wed

My modem died. It had lost the internet connection since 12am last night. As usual, I restarted it before going to bed. Assuming there would be no problem, I didn't wait for it to finish booting before switching off my PC.

This morning, there was still no connection. My bro, who usually wakes up at 7, had resorted to using his phone for its tiny bandwidth. Me, I have the USB modem. My mum has nothing. =(

This has happened twice before. Both times it returned to normal within 48 hours. I assumed it would be so again this time, but decided to do something about it for my mum's sake.

So I went through all that "switching cable points" routine that the Starhub call center told me to do the last 2 times. Just before I finished the final test of connecting the modem directly to a computer, the modem did not turn on at all.

Now the modem is completely dead. I believe the term for it is "bricked".

So I called Starhub. The customer service guy, upon hearing that my modem doesn't even turn on, said he would forward it to the appropriate department and asked me for my number.

I'm very likely not going to get a good connection until they send a technician over.

No online games till then, which sucks because I managed to set up my shitty mic and was planning on playing Empires on the HK server again.

Fortunately I still have ME2, Deathspank and Arcania: Gothic 4.

Monday 27 December 2010

Rant 688 / Sunday Rant, Monday Post.

Major PC problem again today. I'd switched it off this morning before I went to bed, but when I switched it back on again in the evening, IT DID NOT BOOT!

Here's what happened.

1) I switched it on. Fans blew at max power for no apparent reason, buttons did not respond. Happened occasionally before but merely needed a restart by switching off power.

2) Switched off power, then on again after 35 seconds (yes I'm old school and cautious like that). Fans started gently, LEDs for Caps Lock and Scroll Lock and Num Lock flashed. Everything was normal... Except nothing happened after that. Screen went to sleep mode, PC remained in that state. Fans worked but that was all. Buttons did not respond.

3) Oh shit.

4) Repeated step 2 for 5 times to no avail.

5) Oh fuck!

6) Brought out trusty Acer laptop. Never thought I'd say this but it has become a good backup worthy of trust.

7) Watched movie during dinner. People do get hungry, you know?

8) After dinner, tried switching on PC again. Started with the motherboard's brand screen instead of the black screen with all the words that make no sense to me about masters and slaves. Finally stopped on this black screen with words on it that made no sense to me except at the bottom where it said, "CMOS Checksum Error" and "Press F11 to Boot Menu".

9) I pressed F11. Nothing happened. Looked above the error and it says "Press F1 to BIOS menu" or something very close to that.

10) I followed that instruction to enter BIOS.

11) BIOS menu. Blue screen with all the options. I didn't know what to do but the sight of the menu immediately reminded me of what happened the last time I cleaned my PC with a vacuum cleaner.

12) Turned to face my laptop which had Internet access via the Starhub MaxMobile USB modem. Went to my blog here, searched "BIOS" in the Google search box.

13) Hope shined through screen.

14) Went to my rant which described my experience on that day and found those photos I took in case it happened again.

15) Compared BIOS screens with those I see on my PC.

16) Changed the option for "Hold on Errors" to "No Errors" instead of "All Errors" and option for "Boot from other Device" to "No" from "Yes".

17) Saved and Exit.

18) Voila!

I am concerned that these changes worked. Doesn't that mean I'm getting errors while booting but I'm forcing my PC to ignore them? How's that supposed to be a good thing?

Furthermore, I'm getting my motherboard's logo screen when booting instead of the usual screen with all the texts.

So I googled this and found that I could change that by going into BIOS and enabling Quick Boot and disabling the motherboard screen. Found these two options but Quick Boot was already enabled. The second was enabled, which I changed. Now my computer appears to be back to normal again.

If I hadn't recorded those photos I'd have spent another $50 on a quick repair again, although tbh I really didn't know which options were important. I didn't actually remember what the technician had fiddled with but I did recall which screens looked familiar, hence the photos instead of actually saying what was changed.








This is interesting. I used to get around 100 views daily before the Sonic Boom Appreciation Week. Yesterday I got around 50.

This can be due to either of these reasons:

1) Google removed a lot of data (especially images) that lead to my blog from its databases.
2) There are about 50 people out there who used to visit this blog regularly, or less due to possible repeated views on the same day.

I did think about that Monetize feature but decided it's a bad decision. First, I'm not short on spare change. Second, it ruins the personal feel of this blog.

Nevertheless, this also proved that the Sonic Boom Appreciation Week was a bad idea. Doesn't mean I won't do it again though.

Sunday 26 December 2010

Rant 687 / If We Are What We Eat, Then All Vegetarians And Vegans Are Fruits And Vegetables

Tried First Choice brand's whole milk the other day. After many years of drinking only fresh milk, I've almost forgotten what cartoned milk tastes like.

The first mouthful did not taste like anything I expected it to. Instead, I immediately asked myself," Wtf am I drinking?"

Next came the test of freshness. Was it sour? No. Stink? No.

So, it tasted nothing like fresh milk and kind of like what I expected milk made from milk powder to taste like.

In conclusion, it was not expired stuff. It's just that I'm not used to this sort of milk. I think it's also more diluted than the other brands' cartoned milk I used to drink long ago. Furthermore, dunking doughnuts into this sort of milk does not improve the experience.

I don't drink milk a lot, but these days I buy them for two reasons:

1) My bro drinks a lot of it but it's heavy so it's not convenient for my mum to buy it regularly
2) It's a good way to convert those $50 notes that the ATMs give us to smaller, more usable units of cash. Cab drivers in particular hate $50 bills.






I was so tempted to buy both ME and ME2 on Steam for US$35 (half price for both games) but had to remind myself I can't spend the money I have on this sort of thing.

The reason for buying is not merely to support the company, but also to download the expansions without the risk of viruses. Apparently the newer expansions for ME2 aren't very popular so it is kind of risky to download the few that are available.

Now the offer's ended. The best discount for today is the Fallout: New Vegas at US$30.

But if I'm going to buy this, I'd rather buy the Bethesda Mega Pack for US$70 which includes both FO3 and FNV, Oblivion, Morrowind, Call of Cthulhu and Rogue Warrior.

Still, I'm not going to buy this for the same reason as stated above.






Also decided not to buy NS2 yet. Was very close to buying it when I first saw the 2-for-1 offer but decided it was too early to buy. It's still in what most big gaming companies would label as "alpha" phase, though UWE calls it "beta" in order to attract more players to play and test for them.

Very buggy, lots of people can't even start the game, very few maps, several features missing, etc etc.

Despite seeing good patches every week that implement significant improvements in the game, it looks like it is going to take at least half a year before it becomes something I'd enjoy playing.

Hence, my answer is no, even though it's cheap enough that I really don't mind buying it. US$35 is about S$45, so that makes each copy's price S$22.50.

I'll most likely buy it next year when it's done and appears in one of these insane sales that Steam loves to organize.






Played Taboo and Monopoly Deal last night from the time I arrived till after 6am when I left the next morning. Pretty fun, both games, but Taboo doesn't seem like the kind of game you can play very long due to the limited number of words. Deal was fun but the outcome of each game was as dependant on the luck factor as Monopoly itself.

It was probably the first time in many years that we did not play DotA at CZY's place due to problems with his router. Just something worth mentioning.


As for the port wine, I learnt that I do not like it either. Fortunately I was right in guessing that someone among that many people would like it, hence it wasn't wasted.








Beijing is going to buy Portugal's debts just months after it did something similar for Greece. Doesn't this remind you of what the US did during WWII for Britain and some other countries?

When these countries finally repay their debts with interests, China's going to be filthy rich in the long term.

Friday 24 December 2010

Rant 686 / The Sundial Is A Solar-Powered Timepiece

I've said this a few times before and apparently I'm not the only one to see it. Nationalism and building a national identity is no longer top priority in the to-do list of the government because of the necessity of bringing in so many foreigners that their combined influence will overwhelm the native culture, however little it is.

Ever played the Civilization games? I'm talking about a Cultural Victory here, and Singapore-born Singaporeans aren't the winners.

We've always lacked a cultural identity. That's obviously because we lack history that we can be proud of. But we're getting pass that point. One change I've noticed is that Singaporeans actually like local singers in recent years. That's a good thing. Fans of these singers, even if they don't know it, are helping the local culture grow.

What can ruin this is if we begin to have celebrities who don't sound local (other than those who sound European/American because that has always been the direction we've been taught to go anyway). The day I see it shall be the day I know we're in deep trouble.

Foreigners who have that Singapoean/Malaysian accent are alright. It makes them appear naturalized.

As for everything else that forms a national identity, they will come eventually. Whether we have enough time to get to that point is another story.







"Good deeds are like pissing yourself in dark pants. Gives you a warm feeling but no one really notices."
- Jacob, Mass Effect 2






Mass Effect 2 in Hardcore mode is hard. I was quite shocked, actually, when I could die multiple times in missions I've completed in a single try in the last run.

It could be that I'm now playing as an Engineer, one of the three classes that have no expertise in weapons other than pistols. Hence, I lack firepower.

Not really used to that, but I'm beginning to get the hang of it.

My first run was completed as a Soldier, which means I could use the best guns. Hence I was used to shooting the heck out of everything. Took me several missions to realize I can't rely on mainly pistols to kill.

As an Engineer, I specialize in tech abilities. Among them is the Drone, a great decoy. It doesn't last long and doesn't hurt shields and armour much, but its cooldown is short! In addition, somehow enemies close by have to focus on killing it first.

This means I can constantly distract a single opponent while allowing my AI teammates to take down other targets.

Doesn't work so well when fighting 4-5 targets, so I have to change my strategy when there are over 3 enemies.

Fortunately for me, completing Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 enables me the bonus of having another ability that my class does not offer. In my case, I picked Reave to offset my lack of biotic powers.

Overload is a given since no Engineer can leave home without it. Together with Miranda's Overload, I've got enough to take down most shields quickly without investing a lot of skill points on it. After that, I Reave like crazy. If there's only a single target, I realized I can now just Reave it to death. The cooldown is exactly as long as the effect, so I can reuse it the moment the target recovers.

When there are multiple targets, that's where Zaeed and later, Jack, comes in. Concussion Shot and Shockwave/Pull are good for stopping targets that are getting too close, though they need to be de-shielded and de-armoured first.

At the very worst, I send my Drone as a decoy while I wait for Miranda's abilities to cooldown.

Fortunately, even though the enemy AIs in ME2 are more aggressive than those in ME, relatively few enemies will actually try to charge and melee us. When I meet any, eg Krogans and Harbinger, they become my first priority.







I have come to the unpleasant conclusion that this hand-cranked flashlight does not have a rechargeable battery. This fits all the things I've noted in the previous rant. Without a rechargeable battery, the switch does not close the circuit. Instead, it functions as a switch between 2 different circuits. One holds the battery that has now gone almost completely flat. The other uses the dynamo.

Now it all makes sense. The light does not flash brightly when I squeeze it while it's "switched on" because the dynamo's circuit is not connected to the LEDs.  If I pump it for a while, the light does not become brighter when I switch it on because no energy was being stored while it was switched off.

I'm pretty sure there is a way to change this torch to what I originally thought it was but it's beyond my abilities to do so. For example, I have no idea if the dynamo would melt any battery I put in and if the new battery would overload the LEDs or something.

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Rant 685 / I Should Really Get A Pair Of Rubber Gloves

Visited the website of Beeconomics recently. It's the Singapore version of Groupon and probably works the same way. Basically it gets some company to offer really cheap deals on the condition that a certain minimum number of people must buy it within 24 hours, which is the length of time at which each deal is offered.

So everyday there is a new deal displayed on the front page of the website and there is a counter and timer to show how many people have bought it and how long there is before the offer can no longer be bought.

Here's my referral link. If you're going to sign up, using this link to do so won't cost you anything.

http://www.beeconomic.com/?r=7sYyrE%2bDRDSKN64N5s63Yg%3d%3d&v=fyI290lvL01EANA9dXWcsA%3d%3d

The website looks interesting but there isn't anything I'm particularly keen on getting. Maybe the ones for restaurants, but who knows what they're going to offer in the future. Still, no harm keeping an eye on the daily deals.

Maybe someday they'll offer coupons for restaurants at Holland V.







Holy crap! Berkshire Hathaway A class shares cost US$120k each! I never knew stocks could be that expensive! I'm quite serious and definitely not mistaken!



According to Wikipedia, this is because Berkshire Hathaway A class shares have never been split before. As far as I can tell, shares are usually split into multiple cheaper units when their prices are high enough.

In the case of BRK.A, this has never happened before because Warren Buffett wants to attract long term investment instead of speculation. However, Class B shares were created some time ago that were basically like mini-Class-A-shares that are kept at 1500th of the price of Class A shares and 10,000th of the voting right. Class A shares can be converted to Class B shares, but not vice versa. Hence Class A shares can only get rarer.

At the moment,



Still aren't cheap, but definitely doesn't create a frickin black hole in anyone's pockets with a single trade the way Class A shares do.








Apparently bodybuilders can't run, or at least it isn't a good form of cardio exercise for them because of it's high-impact, which is bad for their legs, eg knees. This is mainly because of the weight of their upper body. Instead they are supposed to swim or walk. According to one of the PTIs, his CO does bodybuilding and walks on the threadmill everyday for his cardio.

Other than cycling and swimming, that's probably the least damaging to the legs. Compared to those 2, walking is most definitely the simplest.

Another strange thing is how none of the bodybuilders he knew cycles. The theory is that because of their huge thighs and their shapes, they're more likely to get abrasions when cycling. Nobody really knows. Maybe he's just unlucky enough to know no bodybuilder who favour the bike.

But this news article and this say that cycling hurts your sperm quantity.








Whoa! Something happened last week that made my stocks' prices drop significantly. Now I'm back in the red and the net loss of the stocks are at -$1200. Wtf? Mostly it's due to the Chinese companies but Nvidia fell too.

EDIT: Oh wait, it rose back to +$74 again last night (Tuesday in the US). Again it was the Chinese companies that gained a few %.








Decided not to open the bottle of port till the Christmas dinner. Doesn't feel nice to bring an opened bottle.

Monday 20 December 2010

Rant 684 / Pantsu

Just finished Divinity 2. Conclusion: it's better than Risen and Two Worlds 2 in so many ways. For example, the voice acting doesn't suck as much. Another is how every is wrapped up so nicely compared to the others. Okay, I didn't actually finished Risen to see how it ended but even in the beginning it did not impress me with how the girl, who was shipwrecked together with you, walked with you to the first house you find and helped you along the way, was just thrown aside (figuratively speaking, of course) and left at that house for the rest of the game. It kind of gives me an idea how good the game's ending is going to be.
 
Slightly surprised by the ending and kind of dismayed. Anyway I ended it at lv35 and had spent as many points on Wisdom as I could. The only reason I didn't get even higher was because I didn't complete every quest in the first part before entering the Battle Tower. Not sure if it was worth the points because that's about 23 points IIRC spent on other stuff, excluding points I got from quests, Mindreading and Skill books.

Not to mention how each point spent on that skill may be worth less despite the increase in experience bonus because the number of quests the additional percentage is going to apply on is fewer. That is, unless I grind. After all, there are multiple places where I could have just stood around fighting monsters all day long, eg Keara's Flying Fortress. However, if I had done that, would it be fun?

In fact, by the time I began to work on the flying fortresses (I left them for the last), I was getting bored with the game. The only reason I finished all of them was that I wanted to finish the game and didn't know how to do it. The quest log was surprisingly unhelpful at the point.




===============================================================

Spoiler Alert!

===============================================================




The final battle was relatively exciting since it was actually a little challenging. Almost died a few times because I took a while to get used to having to watch my HP. The Divine was strong but Zandalor was actually the most irritating opponent in that fight. He kept running and healing himself after getting hit a few times and I had to time myself so that I don't spam too many clicks that would make me just stand there swinging my warhammers at nothing while he ran.

I even took my time to kill off the paladins before the two so that I could get as much of the loot as possible. Turned out that I didn't need to because the game ended right after that battle.

Now for the ending. It was a bad ending and a cliffhanger. Like I said, I was surprised and dismayed. Surprised because I thought I was getting the bad one out of multiple possible endings despite being the good guy the majority of the time. Dismayed because I didn't know what I could do to change that. I had completed every single quest in the second part of the game.

So I googled for the answer and eventually learnt that that was the only ending of the game. No matter what I had chosen, Damian would have won.

I guess we will have to play an expansion or a sequel to get an actual end to the story.

Oh well.






===============================================================

End of spoilers.

===============================================================





Now considering the idea of replaying Mass Effect 1 and 2. Or maybe just 2. I've played ME so many times I can almost recite all the dialogues. No, I'm kidding but you get my point.








As for Fallout: New Vegas, I did think about it. The game still very good especially with that exceptionally satisfying final battle. In fact, it's got the best final battle among all the RPGs I've ever played. The best moment was probably the B52's bombing run IMO. And I get a long, challenging fight before being given a choice of fighting a little more or talk my way out of the hardest boss fight in the game. Basically, it's got everything a final battle ever needs.

Still, the rest of the game just isn't that interesting to me yet.






Today the torch has finally got dim enough to be completely useless. Last night it was still bright enough to let me see in the dark and not blind me. Now it isn't anymore. So it took days to almost empty the battery for what I can probably assume to be close to full capacity.

Now that I'm playing with it again, something I noticed raised another question in my head.

Why does it produce a flash of light when I squeeze it hard when it is switched off, yet shows no such reaction when I do the same while it is switched on?

In other words, when I squeeze it while it's off, the squeeze causes the LEDs to glow suddenly. When it is on, the light does not respond.

I can understand that when it is off, the LEDs glow for a while because too much energy was being produced per unit time and the rate of absorption(?) by the battery is much lower than that. The excess energy is then dissipated by the LEDs.

So why doesn't it do the same when the light is on, even when it is so close to dying that it barely helps me see anything in the dark? If the above guess is right, the light should brighten for a moment. So is my understanding of the workings of this torch as described above wrong? Or am I just missing something?







I can type all kinds of shit but nobody will see them till after Christmas.






This blog is actually still up but the domain name has been altered. That's all. Of course everything Google gives you that is supposed to be from this blog all goes to the Sonic Boom Appreciation Week thing because Google takes time to create new caches. Which means Google results for anything related to this blog is going to be fucked for a while since new caches are being created for this new domain name while the old ones for the original domain name are being deleted.

Fortunately, new Google results for the Sonic Boom nonsense won't exist because I've set it to not appear on search engines while making it so that it couldn't be found prematurely. Yes it was already up for some time but on a really random domain name.

If you had any idea how to find my blogger ID you could probably have seen my Blogger profile page and found it, but I know nobody ever looks at the Blogger profiles unless he/she is one heck of a blogger.

Speaking of the Blogger profile page, I just learnt this blog actually has a follower. Saw it when I went to my Dashboard to create the new "blog". I'm quite surprised, really, that there is any at all. Makes me realize that I'm probably not the most bored person in the world even in my most bored moments.

This leads to a possible answer to one question I've had for a while back when I still watched my Stats. Apparently some people had been viewing my latest rants quite quickly after I published them. I was wondering why there was anyone who visit so often that they're almost always there to see my latest bullshit first.

Oh yea, the Views graph totally flatlined. I just checked. It seems I've been getting the same amount of traffic despite not blogging for a couple of days before I changed the blog and now that nobody knows about the new address, absolutely no one has visited.

Which means that I was right when I said that most of the traffic to this blog is for the images that dated back to the old days when I frequented 4chan /b/. Not my proudest of deeds but everyone has done things that they learnt not to do after.

I did and still do visit the Sonic Boom Appreciation Week site a lot for Guile's Theme music. Will probably end after Christmas when I change the view Permission to Authors Only.

Another thing that caught my eyes when I saw the Stats page is that there are views from countries I haven't seen there before. For example, I'm getting views from Malaysia and Taiwan. I don't get a lot of views from Asia and most Asians that visit this blog are from Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. I have no idea why.

Aruba is the third country that's new in the list. I had no idea where that is and had never heard of it until now. According to Wikipedia, Aruba is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Not part of Netherlands. Almost typed that. I'm guessing that would have been like saying that that Scotland is part of England or that Taiwan is part of China (I know these two examples are quite different).

Speaking of which, the Chinese mainlanders really do believe that Taiwan is part of China and the Taiwanese are wrong. Not neutral about it or anything like that. At least, that's the reaction I observed from the PRC students I met in the past. As for the Taiwanese, they can get quite pissed if anyone mentions in their presence that Taiwan is part of China. Saw some European guy ask about that in a Taiwanese channel where I was watching SC2 GSL. It was something like, "Is Taiwan part of China?" I can describe what I saw in just three words:

- Instant
- Successful
- Troll

One moment everyone was discussing SC2 or trying to get the attention of the few girls there. In the next moment, everyone was trying to clarify to him that Taiwan is "NOT part of China!!!"

If it was deliberate, it would have been that - a great troll. But it was most likely not, so it doesn't actually qualify as a troll. Nevertheless, it shows that it does work as a very good troll topic among certain groups of people.

Oh, and I have absolutely no views from the PRC. Strange, yet not. Not strange because English isn't a commonly used language in China and hence relatively few visit English sites, let alone English blogs. Strange because of the 1.3 billion people there should be enough web-surfing anglophones to have a few accidentally stumble upon this blog.







RT! Just one last session today and an IPPT test on Wednesday!

I've been joining the green tags despite receiving the blue tags every session. Except for one session last week when I decided to join the blue tags thinking, "How bad could it be?"

20 counts of 4 of "chicken backside" is no joke. Really. I swear.

In case you don't know what this exercise it, it's a great way to train your jumping power.

First, stand up, straighten your legs and bend over.

Second, grip your ankles or as low as you can if you can't reach it.

Third, while gripping your ankle (or lower shin), squat down.

Fourth, stand up again while keeping your grip.

1 count of 4 means doing these twice. 1 for squatting down, 2 for standing up, 3 for squatting again, 4 for standing again.

Even 10 counts of 4 can be tiring for an average person.

Another was the bridge, aka plank.

We had to hold this position for 30 seconds... twice. The countdown started only after everyone was in this position, which meant it was longer than 30 seconds.

Basically they did mostly thigh exercises, like I've described before, but the chicken backside was the worst. After all that, the session ended with a jog. Initially the instructor wanted everyone to run 2.4km (3 laps on the road) at their normal IPPT pace, but I think he noticed me and changed it to 20 mins.

I haven't finished a 2.4km run in less than 20mins in years. So I was one of several who only completed 1.6km (2 laps) while the rest finished 2.4km in the same amount of time. I came in last. Fuck.

Never joined the blue tags again.

The green tags get the best training regimen. When I say "best", I mean "easiest". We walk... and walk. Nah, just kidding. That was only for a single session. For some reason, the instructor gave us a choice after the first 20-min walk - more walking or some static exercises. We picked walking. In the end we walked a total of 50mins. Quite boring, yes, but it's still easier than doing 40 counts of 4 of overhead claps.

Overhead claps, again in case you don't know what it is, is an exercise for training your upper arms and probably shoulders. Used to be called "Buddha Clap" but I guess they were told to change that for obvious reasons.

Anyway you just sit down, straighten your arm and clap above your head with your arms still straight. A single count of 4 would be 2 claps. 40 counts would be 80 claps. It's easy, yes, but by the 60th clap it can get quite tiring and hard to keep the arms straight.

Last session on Saturday was quite easy because the instructor didn't really care how fast we walked. We were merely told to walk faster than our normal walking pace.

So mostly I just walked kind of quickly but due to the cold post-rain weather I barely sweated at all. Halfway through the instructor joined in probably out of boredom. His pace was almost a jog, but not quite as fast to require the bounce. Slightly faster than HX's pace.

Since I didn't want to finish the session completely dry, I walked at his pace. After a lap or two, he noticed me and gave me some encouragement for following his speed. Then we just started chatting about exercises.

Told him about how, several years ago after NS, when I tried to jog every morning, I got this ache in my shin after roughly 6 days. Turns out it was most likely an early form of shin splint. According to him, it could be that I was pulling my feet (or toes) too high when they landed and it could have caused too much stress in the shin. My weight could also have been another factor. Having flat feet or high arch could also cause this, but I have neither.

It was strange that he kept talking about flat feet and high arch as if he thought that was what caused the shin splint for me and wasn't convinced when I said my feet are fine. Even recommended shoes designed for such feet. Apparently PTIs in NS are taught these stuff too.

Saturday 18 December 2010

Rant 683 / Why Does It Rain Every Time I Attend RT?

I wonder why I would ever need any of the other combat skills in Divinity 2. Right now I'm only focusing on Dual-wield Expertise and I'm slicing through enemies like a hot knife through butter. Maybe it's because my level is a little higher than them since I completed all the quests in the fjords before moving on to the flying fortresses.

Hmm...

I don't know. What I do know is that I haven't been using potions until the boss battles and even then, I don't need my best potions which I've been creating on a regular basis.

And if you ever plan on playing this game, here's one tip I'm 100% sure will be useful for you:

Don't use any Malachite gems (not the ore) till you either have level 10 enchantments or have the one quest in the fjords that require 2 of them. They are that rare.

In fact if you find them on sale (I believe I've met one NPC that sold them for 2k), buy them asap. It's definitely worth the money.







Just don't feel like blogging for some reason. I wonder why.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

Rant 682 / Scrambling

Divinity 2 is better than I expected after a while. The game took some time before getting to the interesting part, just like most of the RPGs I've played in recent years, but I guess it was necessary to provide a contrast to make the rest of the game appear more fun.

The only problem I have is with the difficulty level. It used to be so hard in the boring part but now battles are easy enough that I don't have to change my armour before entering boss battles. Maybe it was because I spent more points in the Summon skills after maxing the Lockpicking and Wisdom. I don't know.

Anyway now life is simple in Divinity 2. At lv20 I spent 5k to unlearn all skills in order to get my points from the Summon Undead and spend them on Summon Demon. Together with my melee-focused undead creature made by my Necromancer, I basically just stand around and maybe join in when they look like they can't handle the fight. Maybe I should unlearn all skills again and be a bow-user. Nah, it costs 10k this time. Can't afford it.







The LED torch is still working, although it's too dim to have any meaningful purpose other than for sneaking around in the dark without waking anyone up. It's been over 72 hours but the battery just won't go flat! The battery's storage capacity and the LEDs' efficiency are just amazing.










An actual railgun! I didn't think they were still developing it.

A railgun works by using magnetic fields to induce a force on a projectile.

According to the Wikipedia article, a railgun would allow the military to carry less explosives and more ammo. In addition, conventional explosive artilleries have their ranges and projectile speeds limited by the laws of physics.

This is kind of like using a high-end PC to play pirated games. The gun is bloody expensive but the ammo is easy to get. All you probably need is a chunk of metal.

I wonder how they got over the problem with friction and managed to attain the rate of 10 shots/min (1 shot every 6s). Friction has to be a major problem when you're dealing with those speeds (projectiles from a railgun fly faster than a bullet from the M16).

Monday 13 December 2010

Rant 681 / 24 Hours And Still Isn't Flat.

The entire report really wasn't that worth mentioning here until the end:

Mr Koh is also recorded praising China’s ”investment and intelligent diplomacy in the region”.
He is reported to have said, “I don’t fear China. I don’t fear being assimilated by China” while he also hailed its decision to invest in Africa ”without lecturing them about human rights and democracy as the West does”.

So I've talked about it before and apparently the government has considered this eventuality (if he's thought of it, the rest of them must have too).

Someday we'll be voting for the CPC instead of the PAP, if there will be votes then at all. How do you feel about that?

All hail our CPC overlords.








You will never know what you missed until you see something you wrote or did at least 5 years ago. Despite the impression you may have that you have always been you, the truth is that you are not. It is regrettable that the old self is gone forever, but this blog serves to save an image of myself as I grow. It's exactly like the video below, except this is done with words instead of pictures.



Reminds me of this line in The Ring of Time by E.B. White:

"She is at the enviable moment in life... when she believes she can go once around the ring, make a complete circuit, and at the end be exactly the same age as at the start."

Which, of course, is a false belief.

This blog will present an incomplete image of my mental self, but it would happen anyway even if there is a way to record every single moment of my life in 3D holographic video.







Having my PC remain online overnight while having my air conditioner turn off automatically in the early morning is not a good idea. Room gets warm, I get warm, I get woken up too early. Not good at all.

In order to have the best of both worlds, I realized I needed a way to shut down my PC some time before the air conditioner turns off. How does one set a shutdown timer for a PC?

Apparently, you can do so by using the Task Scheduler in Vista.

Just need to create a basic task, enter the time and date, pick Start a Program, enter "shutdown" without quotes in the Program/Script blank and "-s -f -t 0" without quotes in Arguments, and then it's done.

This way I can start a disk scan when I go to bed and not have to wake up to switch it off.







5pm. The LED torch is still working. I'm very impressed. Another 5.5 hours and it will have lasted 24 hours. Just to make things clear, I've only squeezed it twice last night before remembering not to do so.

True that it's not very bright. We're having a cloudy day in Singapore and my window is 4/5 covered. The light from the torch is still visibly reflected off the white wall at 1m, although it's so dim that I have to move it to differentiate the LED's light from the sunlight coming straight from the window to the same part of the wall.

What kind of battery is it using? Or have I underestimated the efficiency of the LEDs?

From this experiment, I've learnt how long the battery can possibly last. Next, I need to find out how long I should squeeze it to give it this much energy. This step will take a long time.

The goal of this is not what you think it is. I just don't want to overcharge the battery and ruin it, that's all. In fact, the original objective of this experiment was merely to let it go flat so that I can keep squeezing without fear of overcharging it. I'm not that incredibly smart and curious, y'know?

It was only until last night when I was surprised by the battery's capacity that I decided to record it and find out how long it can last. I don't even know if it started at max capacity!



9.53pm: It's still glowing! Though almost invisible now on the wall 1m from it (light in room is on), it still qualifies as "incredible". What unholy magic is this?!?

You know what? This torch is staying in my bag all the time whenever I go out, together with my keys and Swiss Army knife, and definitely coming with me if I go overseas.

I want to squeeze it.

Fingers... itchy...

But I can't.

For science!

Rant 680 / Squeeze Squeeze Squeeze Squeeze Squeeze



This is making me want to play Mass Effect 1 and 2 all over again. Probably after Divinity 2.

Speaking of Divinity 2, it's hard! Or maybe I just placed my skill points in the wrong places. So far I've only 2 points in the Undead summon (shoots fireball), 1 point in Fireball(?) that was given in the beginning, 1 to Magic Missile(?) from an item, 3 in Wisdom for 8% extra exp bonus and the maximum 5 in Lockpicking so that I never have to worry about not being able to open a lock.

You can see why I find the game hard. I should have put more points in the combat-related skills but it's just so frustrating not being able to open chests! Who knows what's inside and whether I'll ever remember to come back in the future?

So far the Fireball and Magic Missiles are almost useless. The Undead does take some of the heat off me but it can't withstand too much damage. Just one of the monsters I'm currently facing is enough to kill it if I don't try to help it. On the other hand, it does do some decent damage.

I really need the ability to summon more than 1 creature. Either that or I should learn something else.







The bag of Super 3-in-1 Coffeemix turned bad. The powder in every packet has turned chunky and the last packet that was opened did not dissolve in warm water.

That wouldn't have been worth mentioning if not for the expiry date printed on the back - 30122012.

This bag of instant coffee was supposed to expire 2 years from now!

Since when have Singaporean products become such substandard bullshit? Not only does it taste bad, they don't even preserve it properly.

Congratulations to Super brand for being promoted to #1 on my blacklist!







My bro gave me a hand-cranked LED torch today after coming home from his chalet stay. When I saw the name of his school in NUS printed on it, I got curious about how he got it especially since his exams were over the week before last.

According to him, the chalet outing was organized by and for all students in his year in his faculty. Numbering merely over 50 of them, there are much fewer taking his major than what I've seen in NTU.

And because a lot of them didn't turn up, he brought home 5 torches, all brand new and still in their packaging.

I have no use for it actually, but I'm leaving it here to relieve frustration (LOADING SCREENS!!! ARGH!) and train my finger strength.

So after an afternoon of intermittent squeezing, I decided to test its battery's longevity. Switched it on sometime before 9.47pm, probably 9.30pm. It's 12.41am and I can still see light on the wall 1m away from it. Given that my room's fluorescent tube has a pretty low wattage, 3 hours are still longer than I expected. A conventional torch doesn't even last 2 hours afaik.

Anyway the model is almost identical to the one below except it uses 3 LEDs instead of 2 and the openings for them are combined.

Saturday 11 December 2010

Rant 679 / Tree Planting Is Being Offered At Half Price (500 Credits) At Care2.com

Here are my stats in Heroes of Newerth. Like I've said before, I don't play this often.



I just got back to my starting PSR of 1500. Played only 32 (Official) games so far, 94% of which I used the Keeper of the Forest aka "the tree" while in 7% (2 games) I used Balphagore.

22% of these games were played in Easy Mode, which means the game goes faster (doesn't mean the opponents are easier to kill).

Won 14 games, lost 18. 2 ended in disconnections (honestly) and my team conceded 4 times.

The total number of times I've killed an enemy hero is 52, yet I've died exactly 150 times.

My average Kill/Death/Assist ratio is 1.63/4.69/6.31, which means on average I kill only 1 guy, die 4 times and assist my allies in killing enemy heroes 6 times per game.

Average creep kill is 29.9 and average deny is 3. Yes I don't even bother.

I have never placed a single ward in HoN in my entire life because I rely completely on the tree's ability to plant eyes.

My average APM is 83.9, which takes into account the time I spend idling to read recipes or camp at the fountain when fighting becomes futile.

I've only hit Serial Killer twice, the rank I get when I kill 3 enemy heroes before dying or the end of the game.

Only once in the 32 games have I done a Double Tap, which means I killed two enemy heroes at almost the same time.

I have merely 1 Bloodlust, which means I've got the first kill in a game only once.

All these do not include my stats from playing Unofficial games, which are games that do not have the stats recorded.



Just proof of how serious I am about this game (and DotA).



Anyway I just realized HoN is still in closed beta for Garena. I thought this was open beta! I was wrong then.

Not worried at all about whether this game will become p2p (pay to play) when it finally gets officially released.

For one, S2Games has made a free game before - Savage 2. I used to play this for a while but stopped because of the community and the focus on melee combat. Savage 2 offers Premium Accounts that provide more features, but that's all.

In addition, HoN 2.0 is going to feature an in-game store through which players can buy unnecessary items with real money. Don't underestimate the attraction of items that change the looks of your avatar and heroes. Lots of games sell such things and often it is obvious how well they sell when I look around.







So Lamebook isn't the only website with hilarious things from Facebook. There's also Failbook which seems to share several contributors with the former.











Jinro got totally pwned in today's match. Bunkers were practically useless against MC who has come up with a new way to counter them. By surrounding the back half of the bunkers with forcefields, he prevented SCVs and mules from repairing them, rendering them soft as butter.

Due to this tactic, the Terran race has lost one of its strongest defensive feature.

In the final game, Jinro finally thought of a way to counter the forcefields - Thors. Despite being able to easily overrun MC's forcefields, MC's DTs destroyed his base the same time he wiped out MC's.

Despite early initial opinions that Jinro had the advantage of flying his base away, they weren't on a level playing field because MC's stalkers simply shot his flying CC down. Furthermore, MC had enough resource for a new Nexus while Jinro had to spend his remaining minerals on Turrets to fend off the last DTs (no CC, no scan). Having no idea whether there were more, he could not risk sending his army far from the Turrets he had built in what used to be MC's main base.

When Jinro finally saw the new Protoss base at the end with his last vf from his old main, he just gave up. The immediate frustration and hopelessness was apparent on his face on screen. Totally sucks but at least he got to the semifinals. No other non-Korean has ever reached this far in the history of SC2 GSL (and maybe even SC1 GSL).

Still, I wonder what Terrans can use to counter the forcefields in an early rush. I think we will find out next Saturday when MC plays against Rain, a Terran player.

Rain now has a week to invent a brand new tactic to counter this new counter or he will stand to lose 70 million Korean wons overall (100mil for winner, 30mil for runner-up).

70,000,000 KRW = 80k SGD = 61k USD

I'm sure he will be working his ass off to surprise everyone on Saturday. I mean, I would if I were in his shoes.

As for Jinro, he's getting 10mil KRW for getting this far, which is US$8700, S$11,000 or, since he's Swedish, 60,000SEK. That should be more than enough to cover his air tickets, food, accommodation (many of the non-Koreans seem to be staying with the Korean people involved in this, so it's probably cheaper than hostels) with several thousand dollars to spare.



There are plans for next year's GSL tournaments already. From the linked page:

There will be 12 tournaments throughout 2011, and there will be 4 types of tournaments.

1. GSL (Ran in January, March, April, July and September) - Main League. 32 Code S players tournament and 64 Code A players tournament.
2. World Championship (Ran in June and October) - 4 representative from each region in a 16 man tournament.
3. Ladder Tournament (Ran in February, May, August and November) - Tournament to decide best of Battle.Net ladder. Top 200 from each region are invited to participate in a preliminary for a 16 man double elimination tournament.
4. Blizzard Cup (Ran in December) - Top 8 (of GSL ranking I'm guessing?) will be invited to decide the best player of the year in a Bo5 Playoff format tournament.


Lots of tournaments next year. Blizzard must have been busy pulling strings.


Whatever MC did and will do, I have more confidence in him than in Rain. Rain just doesn't surprise us the way MC does. For now, I think MC is going to be the winner of Season 3.

When that happens, it will prove one thing - SC2 is too new a game to have "standard" strategies. There are just too many unexplored possibilities for players to get stuck with specific openings and tactics. Instead, they should all emulate MC and keep thinking of new ways to play the game.

This, of course, was what SlayerS_BoxeR was famous for in the original Starcraft. From what I've seen this season, MC is one of the few who has realized this - whoever is the most creative and successful shall take the place of BoxeR as the new Emperor.







 Holy crap! FF14 is so bad, SquareEnix actually sacked/transferred the producer, director and several other leads from the team!


 The above linked article is the latest news on the front page of this FF14 website. If you browse through their older news, you'll notice that in the last 3 months there had been 2 extensions of free trial.

This is how desperate they are in trying to save the game. Quotes from the linked page:

While more than two months have passed since the official launch of FINAL FANTASY XIV service, we deeply regret that the game has yet to achieve the level of enjoyability that FINAL FANTASY fans have come to expect from the franchise, and for this we offer our sincerest of apologies.
 
Taking over the role of producer and director is Naoki Yoshida, a passionate individual for whom customer satisfaction has always taken top priority

It is because of this that we ask our customers to be patient until we are able to confidently present them with a concrete plan outlining FINAL FANTASY XIV's new direction. The free trial period will be extended until that time.

...we have made the difficult decision to delay the release of the PlayStation 3 version beyond the originally announced date of March 2011.


The changes in the near future will likely change the game into something totally different. Never have I heard of any game that went through such a dramatic evolution but if they hadn't done this, FF14 might end up the same way as Hellgate London did.

Like most, I had no idea what Naoki Yoshida, who's taking the jobs of two men simultaneously, has worked on before this. One of the results from google shows that he is a JRPG specialist but I'm not impressed. Maybe it's because I've never even heard of his games before. Then again, I haven't been looking at JRPGs much in the last several years.

From what I can see, FF14 is a very important investment for SquareEnix not only because of the amount of money they have put into it, but also because it's supposed to be a major source of revenue so that they can have the money to spend on future FF games.

This is my guess anyway and it applies to Blizzard's WoW too. I bet WoW provided a significant amount of funding for the development of SC2. In other words, if not for WoW, SC2 wouldn't have been as great. If FF14 does not become popular soon, the future FF games will likely be disappointing.

One example of how not having enough money can possibly ruin a game is the present state of development of Natural Selection 2. Due to a lack of funding, Unknown Worlds Entertainment had to put NS2 into beta phase well before the alpha phase testers could agree that it was playable enough for the next stage. Now that it's in beta, the game still doesn't have all the features ready, let alone free of major bugs.

By pushing it into beta, more players who pre-ordered would be able to play it and spread the word. But if things go on like this, the game may still be incomplete by the time they are forced to release it in the future due to similar financial difficulties.

Of course they will try hard to avoid it, but shit happens. Just look at the creator of Freeman's Mind. Who would have thought a single short episode of machinima would take years to complete?

Friday 10 December 2010

Rant 678 / Zombies Can't Say No

So Anonymous was up to their usual anarchic behaviour and fought for just causes via the wrong methods again.
Mastercard said in a statement it was "experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate website - MasterCard.com - but this remains accessible...There is no impact whatsoever on MasterCard or Maestro cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions."

Contrary to the above statement, www.mastercard.com was down. I know because I've tried. I don't think I need to show you a screenshot of my screen when I have this screenshot that I took:



Fortunately for many of us, it's already past 11pm on a Wednesday night, so there won't be many victims here.




12pm the next day now. The above report was replaced by the one linked below on the front page of Reuters sometime last night.

But it said the attack, mounted by hackers using simple tools posted on the Web, had extended beyond its website to payment processing technology, leaving some customers unable to make online payments using MasterCard software.


Another difference is that it does not mention the website of the group known as "AnonOps".

These days, it's just too easy to find tools to DoS with. All you need to do is go to /b/ in 4chan when there is a DDoS being organized/used/planned and there will be a lot of threads with the proper links. However I don't recommend joining the event if you're an amateur like me since we don't have the computer expertise to:

1) hide behind trusted proxies that can protect us from the FBI/CIA/whatever.
2) detect codes that may turn our PCs into zombie computers of any of the botnets out there without our consent.

I've said many times before that I don't like risks and I've not made an exception for this. Furthermore, this is just rash and ineffective. Right now all the attacks have accomplished is make a lot of noise, give Assange a little joy that he has lots of young supporters who probably don't fully understand the extent of the consequences of his actions, and made the perpetrators possible targets of the FBI/CIA/whatever.

Unless they can take down the payment servers for at least a day, the DDoS really doesn't have much of an effect on anyone.







MC showed everyone the power of psionic storms only 2 days ago and HongUn has obviously been practising with high templars ever since. The psionic storms in the first round were epic. The only thing I didn't understand was why when he sent the group of zealots and high templars, he pulled them back before he could wipe out the SCVs with storms.

On an unrelated note, Artosis was actually in the Ro64 in Season 1. Didn't know this because I missed most of the games in that part of the first season but the guy whose channel I was on mentioned that. Not mentioning names these days because the last time I did, he got into some kind of trouble with GOMtv. His friends who also streamed the games and recorded videos encountered the same problems later.

Anyway the last round was madness. Why didn't HongUn retreat when he saw the 10+ SCVs arrive to repair the bunker? He practically lost the game right there when he refused to pull back despite the fact that the bunker remained in green health after the first few seconds of the attack. That was pure stupid madness.

HongUnPrime.WE, known for his skilful micromanagement of individual units and their activated abilities, lost to TSL_Rain in a futile attack against an indestructible bunker.







So in British English, it's spelt "skilful" with a single "l". Kept getting an error above for spelling it as "skillful".






Finally there's a report from a more serious news source discussing the impact of Anonymous on the Internet. After all the DDoS attacks they have done over the years, they're now getting the attention they've been seeking all along.

In spite of the name and the perceived organzation behind them, Anonymous doesn't seem to have any specific long-term members and "core" other than those who frequent /b/ in 4chan.

"This whole... episode is causing a snowball effect," said Noa Bar Yosef, senior security strategist from Imperva. "The more attention it is receiving, the more people who are joining the voluntary botnet to cause the DDoS."

That's exactly how they roll. The more attention it gets, the more people download their softwares to join in the DDoS attacks. 4chan mods have evidently been trying to stop threads about DDoS from popping up but to no avail. Which means if you want to see Anonymous in action, all you need to do is to go to /b/ the moment you see any name containing "Anon" involved in anything online.


Of course they can be tracked and arrested, but the number of people involved and the effort it requires will probably stop the police from doing so.














I should reassess my opinion of Two Worlds 2 now that I've completed the game in Single Player.



Graphics are pretty good. Nothing outstanding enough mention. Same with the music.


Voice-acting, now that's another story. It sucks. Totally. 

Cassara doesn't follow her script, as shown by the very different subtitles. Not that it's really a bad thing, but what she says doesn't always connect to the lines of the protagonist, making the dialogue very disjointed at times.


The protagonist himself only mumbles. No emotions, not even when he was saying how his sister was being imprisoned by some mage and he was going to do all he could to save her. Was he losing his voice or something?


I wish they would take lessons from Japanese voice actors. Or at least watch some animes just to listen to how it should be done.


The main problem with games and cartoons is that the animated faces alone cannot express the emotions as well as real human faces can. Therefore emotions in the voices need to be exaggerated to compensate. That is exactly why Japanese dialogues in animes sound much better, to the point where most non-Japanese fans would rather listen to it and read English subtitles simultaneously than listen to inferior English voice dubs.


Heroes in games need to learn to shout.


Plot was good in the beginning but became terrible in the end. Anyway, before I go on, I should interrupt this with the necessary warning.

 

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Warning: The following text contains spoilers. A spoiler is a literary device whose intended design function is to 'spoil' unfavourable air movement across a body of a text in motion by disrupting airflow passing over and around it. This diffusion is accomplished by increasing amounts of turbulence flowing over the shape, "spoiling" the laminar flow and providing a cushion for the laminar boundary layer.

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Maybe I missed something, but I don't remember them ever explaining why the god of fire needs to be in her body.

Sordahon was another mystery to me. Why was he special in any way? All he did in this game was suck and die, twice if you don't count the time he sucked in the intro cinematics. Was he supposed to be strong at all??

Another strange thing is how Dar Pha just appeared in the castle in the end and seemed to be an expected guest.

Most importantly, the switch of the role of the main villain from Gandohar to Cassara was way too abrupt. I fought all the way to the final part of the final dungeon expecting to fight a powerful mage and suddenly...

GANDOHARISGOODCASSARAISBAD

and I was like," What?"

Then the game threw me into the final battle in which I couldn't save the game and there wasn't even a hint that I was supposed to hold the left mouse button to load the ballista. Embarrassingly, I died in my first attempt trying to shoot with them in rapid fire mode.

How did Dar Pha know Gandohar is good? Why did Gandohar go to such lengths to become the Emperor? Why would Aziraal favour the dragons? Why didn't the other orcs join in the fight? Why was an orc's blood needed? Why would Gandohar need the body of a queen to hold Aziraal when he could pick someone with like 6-7 siblings and a humongous extended family?

As far as I can tell, the orcs in this game merely served as the deus ex machina. Other than that, they just gave me a few quests and spent the rest of the days standing around looking cool.

Oh right, and I've almost completely forgotten about an earlier incident.

WHERE WERE THE CRYSTAL GOLEMS?!?!?

Seriously, wtf?

It's like they started out by making the crust for a meat pie and in the end I got egg tarts. What's going on? Did I miss something here too?


From all these, I can deduce that they had a great plan in the beginning but lost steam halfway through development. By the time they worked on the ending, they were like, "Screw it. Just get it over with."



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End of spoilers.

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So now I'm going to work on Divinity 2: Ego Draconis. This game looks better now, probably because I'm comparing it with Two Worlds 2 instead of Mass Effect 2. I'm not sure if it's about the standard of the game or just the settings and controls.








Finally found the latest entrance used by the ants in my bathroom. Noticed a whole trail of them last night going from beneath a horizontal sewage pipe to my shower drain. Now I have no idea why bugs like the drain, but that's where the flies congregate at night. I make sure it's clean all the time, so don't ask me what they're doing there.

Since flies go there, I was not surprised when the ants joined them. Maybe they were feeding on the dead flies that were stuck in some crevice inside after I sprayed the drain with insecticide the night before.

Anyway I covered the entire trail and the surrounding area with generous doses of Baygon. Spent a little more time holding the button down with the spray aimed at the tiny hole under the pipe. The pipe connects the basin in the other bathroom to the main sewage pipe in my bathroom, so I assume the crack must lead to the bathroom and the kitchen.

That would explain the larger size of the ants. Ants in my kitchen are larger, probably different species that recently migrated from somewhere outside, or maybe they're just better fed.

After the Baygon treatment I rinsed everything with my shower. Then more Baygon into the crack.

If I see the ants coming from it again, I'm going to use a straw like the last time. Not doing it now because I'm reluctant to get direct skin contact with the insecticide that would inevitably stream down the straw.







My Steam account got disabled. I have no idea why. Since it's not a VAC ban, it means it was not for hacking like the bullshit FoM ban. However, this means my account may be suspected for fraud and such, which makes just as little sense since I only have two games that were bought by me and my bro in that account - Half Life 1 and 2.

Ticket was sent this morning but because of the timezone differences, I have no idea when I will get an answer. So for now, no more Empires. Not that I'll be missing much but it just sucks that I'm not allowed access to two games that were legitimately bought.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

Rant 677 / Two Worlds 2 Ending Is Somewhat Disappointing.

See?? MarineKing lost because MC found a crazy way to counter marines and MM - psionic storms. That psionic storm spam was incredibly effective against all the bio units. MarineKing was probably wondering if he should change his name at the end when he was looking so glum after the 3rd loss. I'd say that he must - he's too predictable now.

Jinro's match was relatively boring compared to his previous matches, but those games can still be used for educational purposes for all budding Terran players. Simply put, choya was outclassed. Their skill levels were simply too different. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say choya was both out-microed and out-macroed. As Jinro is the MLG champ this year, I'm starting to have a little more respect for the MLG tournaments.

JINRO "Gorilla Terran" Fighting

If you've been watching all three seasons of SC2 GSL on GOMtv.net you should be able to notice a gradual evolution of gameplay in the game. In Season 1 the Fruit Dealer showed us the might of the Baneling/Zergling combo while in Season 2, we saw TLO's nukes used as a viable offensive tactic. Now, Season 3 features Psionic Storms used by MC and Pylon spam used by HongUn.

What will we see next in the semifinals and final match?

What will we see in Season 4?

Disclaimer: I might have missed certain things since I haven't played SC2 for quite some time now.

Also, I haven't been watching it on GOM since it skips a lot like a horribly scratched CD. Instead I'm watching it on several channels rebroadcasting the stream hosted by several Taiwanese guys. Somehow they receive the stream much more smoothly from GOM and I get to brush up on my Chinese there. Still hearing proverbs that I didn't understand though   T.T







Assange's in jail. His charges are just part of the smear campaign in response to the leaks by Wikileaks and it's obvious when it was mentioned that one of the four women sued only because he refused to wear a condom while they had sex.

Lawyer Gemma Lindfield, representing the Swedish judicial authorities, said the extradition case contained allegations of four sexual assaults by Assange against two women in Stockholm in August 2010. One charge over Miss A is that Assange "sexually molested her" by ignoring her request for him to use a condom when having sex with her.

I hope at least one of them has evidence for his/her side of the story though. Seriously, how is anyone going to prove whether or not a condom was used, unless Assange is still holding the disgusting rubber bag of fermented come while the woman has... I don't know, traces of his DNA still on/inside her after all this time?

If that's the case, shouldn't Assange be the one worried about diseases then??

Meanwhile, everyone in the courtroom is about to listen to some real life erotica.

So technically, Julian Assange is an international criminal wanted by the Interpol for having sex without a condom.









This blog is getting 10 times as many views from the US as those from Singapore this week.







As much as I like my home for its size and location, I must say I'm also worried about its age. Not because of the lease but because old flats have their own problems too. I've seen my maternal grandmother's flat in Hong Kong, which my grandparents had bought like half a century ago. It's ugly and full of age-related problems like cracking walls, ancient wiring and irreparably damaged piping. Contractors have been hired before and the most honest one told my uncle that the best he could do was give it a cosmetic makeover.

Of course if we look carefully at Singapore's current trend, we can tell that we won't be reaching that stage in the future. Instead, this block will probably be sold back to government to be demolished and the land used for newer buildings, while we are given another flat of lower value nearby.

This presents to me and my brother a problem that most won't encounter. The current flat is still under my mother's name, but like I've mentioned before, she is not destined for longevity. When she goes, it will be under both our names.

However, when the government gives us a new replacement flat, what happens then?


After reading some pages on the HDB website, I found that there is this Orphan Scheme which apparently means that my bro and I can get the new flat under our names after all, if he isn't legally married by then. If he is, all three of us can get the new flat under the Public Scheme.

The latter will require some discussion. As a bachelor below the age of 55, I won't qualify for any public housing alone, which means I must rent if I don't get the flat with them. That will suck. I'd prefer very much to get a room for free for the rest of my life (legally half or a third of the flat) to receiving a big sum of cash that comes with a permanent money drain.

I know my bro won't mind since he's the "anything" sort of person, but I know too little about his girlfriend to make an educated guess. Potentially large problem here.







Some old players who had left Empires (HL2 mod) a long time ago returned recently. Now, a few players are reusing old strategies to win games and making me feel nostalgic. One instance was when someone told the comm to drop a vf and then got an APC, then told everyone to get it.

With the full APC, he drove us to the enemy bases shouting, "PAAARTYBUS!!" and wiped out everything. Reached early expansion base, get out, destroy everything, get back in, reach enemy main, wipe out opposing team except the comm, get back in, chase enemy commander vehicle, gg.

I have not seen such an organized partybus rush in quite some time. All that was missing was the Indiana Jones music spam.

I don't know why those vets came back. It may have to do with the devs finally working on the aircrafts. As far as I can tell from watching their tests, the aircrafts still can't fly straight and there are only one or two models completed.

Still some time before we finally get aircrafts in the mod. By then, I have no idea if it will still be alive. Right now we barely have enough to fill a 63-player server. Usually it's just up to 50+ players.







Starhub did call back. Except they called my bro again. I am not amused.

So my bro handed it to my mum since the accounts are all under her name and in the end we decided to cancel whatever it was they thought we did and just get my recontract from the shops outside.

The online store is supposed to be more convenient yet it turned out to be more troublesome than anything.