So this morning I met HX during IPPT and he told me to blog about something.
Okay, it didn't exactly come out this way but he told me I was going to blog about it before he even told me about it.
There isn't much to talk about. It's good stuff, more people should go for such activities instead of just Christians.
Anyway he told me he was going to this marriage prep thing this evening, which is why he can't get hom early enough to play dota. According to him, it's for them to learn to get to know each other better (in ways you don't realize if you haven't got married, probably) and basically to prepare them for married life.
You know that joke about the three rings regarding matrimony, yea he's preparing for the third ring.
Disciples 3 is frickin buggy. No crashes but I've just found what I suspect to be a very annoying bug.
In the Empire campaign, third act, I was supposed to find this Forester in the southwest of a certain town. At the moment I've almost cleared the map except for the northeast corner and I have yet to find this NPC. To add to my suspicion, I spotted 2 enemies outside the map in the black area.
Google could not deliver and searches in the D3 forums yielded nothing. However, there were several mentions of missing NPCs in other maps, like in the second act of Empire campaign where the Inquisitor guard NPC was missing for someone.
Now I cannot finish this round and I've played too long to want to restart. I've got 2 armies worth of units, all fully upgraded!
I'm pissed.
Saturday 31 July 2010
Friday 30 July 2010
Rant 589 / I Keep Getting Things Right. Why Am I Not A Millionaire? What Went Wrong?
Remember when I mentioned how the most efficient food supply system would be one in which the suppliers harvest/slaughter only how much the consumers have ordered in advance and provide service over a large region?
Did I phrase it this way?
Anyway, SFI is actually closer to attaining this than I had expected. The following quote has no source cited but is what I found important:
In May, SFI entered into a JV agreement to set up a modern, integrated pig farm in China Yongji County, Jilin Province over six years. The integrated pig farm (IPF) aims to provide an integrated end-to-end supply chain, from feed mill and breeding to slaughtering and meat processing.
In other words, SFI owns a pig farm, an abattoir, a pig food factory, a food processing factory, all the kitchens that provide food for Singaporean soldiers and a rather well-known catering service at least in Singapore.
It may not as yet be able to satisfy the entire pork demand in SFI, but it can reduce the possibility of SFI ordering too much. For example, SFI can always order almost enough pork from its other sources in long-term bulk orders, then slaughter some more pigs from its own farm to supplement it.
The fact that this was done by a big company means they see what I see - that this system raises efficiency and hence profits.
If SFI can do this, do large food distributors in other countries have the same system too?
Just when you thought the German-speaking Australians were crazy, the French goes out of their way to prove us wrong. Obviously Europeans need to be re-educated in the magical wonders of the condom.
The Terminator is about to witness the termination of his state. He's finally declaring fiscal emergency, which is the official way of saying, "OH SHIT WE'RE GOING BANKRUPT FOR REAL!!!"
California has one of the largest economies in the US, which explains why this deserves to be on the front page of Reuters. It also means that if the Californian economy is allowed to collapse, the US economy will be dragged down beyond the shithole it's already in.
One reason cited as the cause of this nightmare is that the unemployment rate is high, causing income tax revenues for the state to be very low.
The steep drop in California's revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment ...slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.
However a recent report explains that the high unemployment is really caused by the Americans performing poorly in their job interviews.
According to the findings, seven out of 10 Americans could have landed their dream job last month if they had known where they see themselves in five years, and the number of unemployed could be reduced from 14.6 million to 5 million if everyone simply greeted potential employers with firmer handshakes, maintained eye contact, and stopped fiddling with their hair and face so much.
We can learn from these tips too.
Okay that wasn't really funny but it fitted too well for me to resist.
I don't know why but I just found this inexplicably funny. It makes sense, yet not.
I like how the units in Disciples 3 look so damn cool. Those in HoMM series tend to look fantastic. Not the great-looking kind of fantastic but the fairy-tale sort. But in Disciples 3, the units look strong and menacing. Lethal.
Ok so the translations aren't that good either. The description for the Elementalist didn't exactly make sense.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTT! SUNSHINE EMPIRE FINALLY EXPOSED AND THE TOP GOT JAILED!
SSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!
I THOUGHT THAT WASN'T GOING TO HAPPEN IN MY LIFETIME!!!
The reason I'm so excited is because I've worked with some guys who were in this organization during NS and nobody believed me when I expressed my suspicions. It began with one of the NS clerks whom I found out to be a member of this Sunshine Empire thing. I didn't know what it was but it seemed he was making money off it.
Eventually several other guys among us joined because of him. I got kind of suspicious because it was supposed to be profitable and easy, yet I don't see any publicity campaigns for it and I've never even heard of it from the news. How can such a good thing not be famous quickly?
So I spoke to them a little more, offended that clerk a little and found out they got commissions for recruiting new members. That screamed "Ponzi scheme!!" in my mind but this response was somewhat reduced by the fact that at least 3 of my friends had joined.
What's more is that the clerk was a JC grad (later SMU), which added to his credibility. The other guys who joined were all sensible people I could trust in our work.
I never did join it and when I asked, he had always sincerely replied that this organization just wanted to help people. Seriously, he looked honest to me when he said how he was talking to the other guys about it because he just wanted to help them learn about making money. IIRC they also had seminars or workshops for making money.
In fact, he had photos of it posted on his FB that were taken during events organized by Sunshine, gala dinners and stuff. They were all in some posh places with carpets and shiny marble floors, which adds more credibility to the organization. Last I heard, he was even given the post of Manager or something, and that was during NS.
I had always thought it was strange that no matter how much I talked about it and searched for online discussions about it, people never seemed to respond negatively to it.
Now that it's been officially revealed as a Ponzi scheme, what the fuck guys? I find it hard to believe, but the world is truly as gullible as that!
Fuck everyone man! You can call me paranoid or whatever, but from now on I'm going to take everyone's words with a pinch of salt. Yes, even if you're a close friend, even if you've saved my life a dozen times and even if you're a fucking professor from the University of Common Sense! The world, or at least the entire population of Singapore, has just ruined its credibility in my books! Fuck you guys!
Remember when I called it a Ponzi scheme in this blog and outside?
And you know what? It's frickin big! It's like an elephant in the room that no one saw except me! At least nobody in the BC joined, which is a good thing.
From Wikipedia:
The head of the now—defunct multi—level marketing firm, Sunshine Empire, 49—year old Phang Wah has been sentenced to nine years’ jail and fined $60,000.
Phang’s 46—year—old wife, Neo Kuon Huay was also fined $60,000 for her involvement in what is believed to be the biggest Ponzi—like scheme in Singapore.
All your friends who were in it, you can now secretly label them as morons. Be nice, don't tell them straight up; but if they happen to give you any advice in the future, remember this: they merely sound like normal people.
Oh btw, GJ CAD!
/applause
/standing ovation
Here's proof that the Singapore Police aren't all like the lazy guys we know who served their NS as policemen. Some are actually worth our taxes.
In the near future, we're all going to be frickin crazy. Nobody will escape and the entire Earth will become one gigantic asylum.
Did I phrase it this way?
Anyway, SFI is actually closer to attaining this than I had expected. The following quote has no source cited but is what I found important:
In May, SFI entered into a JV agreement to set up a modern, integrated pig farm in China Yongji County, Jilin Province over six years. The integrated pig farm (IPF) aims to provide an integrated end-to-end supply chain, from feed mill and breeding to slaughtering and meat processing.
In other words, SFI owns a pig farm, an abattoir, a pig food factory, a food processing factory, all the kitchens that provide food for Singaporean soldiers and a rather well-known catering service at least in Singapore.
It may not as yet be able to satisfy the entire pork demand in SFI, but it can reduce the possibility of SFI ordering too much. For example, SFI can always order almost enough pork from its other sources in long-term bulk orders, then slaughter some more pigs from its own farm to supplement it.
The fact that this was done by a big company means they see what I see - that this system raises efficiency and hence profits.
If SFI can do this, do large food distributors in other countries have the same system too?
Just when you thought the German-speaking Australians were crazy, the French goes out of their way to prove us wrong. Obviously Europeans need to be re-educated in the magical wonders of the condom.
The Terminator is about to witness the termination of his state. He's finally declaring fiscal emergency, which is the official way of saying, "OH SHIT WE'RE GOING BANKRUPT FOR REAL!!!"
California has one of the largest economies in the US, which explains why this deserves to be on the front page of Reuters. It also means that if the Californian economy is allowed to collapse, the US economy will be dragged down beyond the shithole it's already in.
One reason cited as the cause of this nightmare is that the unemployment rate is high, causing income tax revenues for the state to be very low.
The steep drop in California's revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment ...slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.
However a recent report explains that the high unemployment is really caused by the Americans performing poorly in their job interviews.
According to the findings, seven out of 10 Americans could have landed their dream job last month if they had known where they see themselves in five years, and the number of unemployed could be reduced from 14.6 million to 5 million if everyone simply greeted potential employers with firmer handshakes, maintained eye contact, and stopped fiddling with their hair and face so much.
We can learn from these tips too.
Okay that wasn't really funny but it fitted too well for me to resist.
I don't know why but I just found this inexplicably funny. It makes sense, yet not.
I like how the units in Disciples 3 look so damn cool. Those in HoMM series tend to look fantastic. Not the great-looking kind of fantastic but the fairy-tale sort. But in Disciples 3, the units look strong and menacing. Lethal.
Ok so the translations aren't that good either. The description for the Elementalist didn't exactly make sense.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTT! SUNSHINE EMPIRE FINALLY EXPOSED AND THE TOP GOT JAILED!
SSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!
I THOUGHT THAT WASN'T GOING TO HAPPEN IN MY LIFETIME!!!
The reason I'm so excited is because I've worked with some guys who were in this organization during NS and nobody believed me when I expressed my suspicions. It began with one of the NS clerks whom I found out to be a member of this Sunshine Empire thing. I didn't know what it was but it seemed he was making money off it.
Eventually several other guys among us joined because of him. I got kind of suspicious because it was supposed to be profitable and easy, yet I don't see any publicity campaigns for it and I've never even heard of it from the news. How can such a good thing not be famous quickly?
So I spoke to them a little more, offended that clerk a little and found out they got commissions for recruiting new members. That screamed "Ponzi scheme!!" in my mind but this response was somewhat reduced by the fact that at least 3 of my friends had joined.
What's more is that the clerk was a JC grad (later SMU), which added to his credibility. The other guys who joined were all sensible people I could trust in our work.
I never did join it and when I asked, he had always sincerely replied that this organization just wanted to help people. Seriously, he looked honest to me when he said how he was talking to the other guys about it because he just wanted to help them learn about making money. IIRC they also had seminars or workshops for making money.
In fact, he had photos of it posted on his FB that were taken during events organized by Sunshine, gala dinners and stuff. They were all in some posh places with carpets and shiny marble floors, which adds more credibility to the organization. Last I heard, he was even given the post of Manager or something, and that was during NS.
I had always thought it was strange that no matter how much I talked about it and searched for online discussions about it, people never seemed to respond negatively to it.
Now that it's been officially revealed as a Ponzi scheme, what the fuck guys? I find it hard to believe, but the world is truly as gullible as that!
Fuck everyone man! You can call me paranoid or whatever, but from now on I'm going to take everyone's words with a pinch of salt. Yes, even if you're a close friend, even if you've saved my life a dozen times and even if you're a fucking professor from the University of Common Sense! The world, or at least the entire population of Singapore, has just ruined its credibility in my books! Fuck you guys!
Remember when I called it a Ponzi scheme in this blog and outside?
And you know what? It's frickin big! It's like an elephant in the room that no one saw except me! At least nobody in the BC joined, which is a good thing.
From Wikipedia:
The company had gathered up to S$189 million in funds through investment schemes, alleged to have never materialised and in fact a Ponzi scheme. Initial trial revealed that over S$115m were paid out as 'investment returns', while another S$40m were transferred to associates as 'interest free loans' and the remaining believed to have been expended or paid out to directors as fees.
The head of the now—defunct multi—level marketing firm, Sunshine Empire, 49—year old Phang Wah has been sentenced to nine years’ jail and fined $60,000.
Phang’s 46—year—old wife, Neo Kuon Huay was also fined $60,000 for her involvement in what is believed to be the biggest Ponzi—like scheme in Singapore.
Some 20,000 people bought into the flashy scheme, which promised high returns on its lifestyle packages.
Sunshine sold these packages at its plush Toa Payoh Central office for over 15 months, before it was raided by officers from the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) in November 2007.
All your friends who were in it, you can now secretly label them as morons. Be nice, don't tell them straight up; but if they happen to give you any advice in the future, remember this: they merely sound like normal people.
Oh btw, GJ CAD!
/applause
/standing ovation
Here's proof that the Singapore Police aren't all like the lazy guys we know who served their NS as policemen. Some are actually worth our taxes.
In the near future, we're all going to be frickin crazy. Nobody will escape and the entire Earth will become one gigantic asylum.
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Rant 587 / Dots
Why does the US want to piss off China? Personally I find this misleading:
China's angry response to a U.S.-led confrontation over the disputed South China Sea raises the specter of a fresh rift between Beijing and Washington just as wounds from a combative start to the year are healing.
That's kind of true, but the root of this problem isn't "China's angry response" but Washington's nosiness. This problem has been around for a long time and it doesn't even have anything to do with the US directly.
"The seemingly impartial remarks (by Clinton) were in effect an attack on China and were designed to give the international community a wrong impression that the situation in the South China Sea is a cause for grave concern."
Why now? Hasn't the US government got enough shit on their hands at the moment, what with the recent document leaks and stuff? There is definitely something going on that I must be missing.
Anyway...
"I was told by a high-level Singaporean official in May that China has warned them all not to discuss the disputed island even among each other," he added.
... China rules Asia. It's a fact now, if not an official one.
Disciples 3 turned out to be a pretty good game. I've finished the tutorial and the first stage of the human campaign at the moment and have experienced not a single crash.
Graphics are excellent, at the same standard as most Korean/Taiwanese mmorpgs.
Music is average, not as dramatic as those in the previous Disciples games and nowhere as dark, though inferior to those in HoMM V.
Gameplay has been changed a bit, keeping only a few things from its predecessors like using only a few units in the army and having a chain of structures for each level of upgrade of the units.
Combat is almost exactly the same as that of HoMM, but because there are fewer units everything is simpler in Disciples 3.
The one thing I must mention is its bad voice acting. The narrator sounds like he's reading and the Titan has a much younger voice and style than one would expect from a giant. Some of the upgraded soldiers sound like green recruits and lacking confidence, which makes it feel slightly unnatural.
Overall I'd say it's a good game but HoMM5 is still better. Most importantly, it's not worth 40USD.
Starcraft 2 has been cracked by multiple groups. It's only been about 24 hours. Leeches and seeds number in tens of thousands. This is the same as when ME2 was first cracked.
It has begun.
Will they make a Starcraft version of DotA? It will probably be called Defense of the Space Station, or DotSS.
China's angry response to a U.S.-led confrontation over the disputed South China Sea raises the specter of a fresh rift between Beijing and Washington just as wounds from a combative start to the year are healing.
That's kind of true, but the root of this problem isn't "China's angry response" but Washington's nosiness. This problem has been around for a long time and it doesn't even have anything to do with the US directly.
"The seemingly impartial remarks (by Clinton) were in effect an attack on China and were designed to give the international community a wrong impression that the situation in the South China Sea is a cause for grave concern."
Why now? Hasn't the US government got enough shit on their hands at the moment, what with the recent document leaks and stuff? There is definitely something going on that I must be missing.
Anyway...
"I was told by a high-level Singaporean official in May that China has warned them all not to discuss the disputed island even among each other," he added.
... China rules Asia. It's a fact now, if not an official one.
Disciples 3 turned out to be a pretty good game. I've finished the tutorial and the first stage of the human campaign at the moment and have experienced not a single crash.
Graphics are excellent, at the same standard as most Korean/Taiwanese mmorpgs.
Music is average, not as dramatic as those in the previous Disciples games and nowhere as dark, though inferior to those in HoMM V.
Gameplay has been changed a bit, keeping only a few things from its predecessors like using only a few units in the army and having a chain of structures for each level of upgrade of the units.
Combat is almost exactly the same as that of HoMM, but because there are fewer units everything is simpler in Disciples 3.
The one thing I must mention is its bad voice acting. The narrator sounds like he's reading and the Titan has a much younger voice and style than one would expect from a giant. Some of the upgraded soldiers sound like green recruits and lacking confidence, which makes it feel slightly unnatural.
Overall I'd say it's a good game but HoMM5 is still better. Most importantly, it's not worth 40USD.
Starcraft 2 has been cracked by multiple groups. It's only been about 24 hours. Leeches and seeds number in tens of thousands. This is the same as when ME2 was first cracked.
It has begun.
Will they make a Starcraft version of DotA? It will probably be called Defense of the Space Station, or DotSS.
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Rant 586 / What Can Make A Man Hammer Stuff At 7AM For Half An Hour?
NASA has recently released a free game called Moonbase Alpha. It's a multiplayer game available on Steam that's supposed to test new ideas for NASA's upcoming mmorpg, Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond.
It's a different game from what I expected, but was unsurprising given that I have little idea what sort of game it was supposed to be other than a testing area.
Moonbase Alpha is really a game about organisational skill, an important aspect of leadership. You begin in a damaged moon base that was struck by some sort of meteorite. Because the life support system was hit, your oxygen is now limited to about 25 minutes of it (I think). The mission is to repair everything before you suffocate.
Repair work is simple but, at times, difficult. It's mainly just getting the right tool of the available two, the wrench and the welding torch, and clicking on the machine that needs attention. It will then automatically repair for you within minutes, but at regular intervals you are given a puzzle that would save you several seconds.
The puzzle is the sort where you have to move your cursor from one point to another without touching the border.
Follow the red lines from one point to another without touching the green borders. 9.6 is the number of seconds left. Level 4 is easy, fyi.
There are many parts that have been damaged to various degrees and in some places, you cannot access the faulty machines without the aid of a robot due to coolant leakage.
The game is in the 3rd-person view. This screenshot shows the player holding the pink and white robot and the Robot Control Unit (RCU) which is in the black suitcase.
The robot has limited power and has limited movement because it's on wheels. Also, there are two robots available - one with a welding torch and one with an arm for picking up objects.
To make things slightly more convenient and complex, there are several spare units of all the parts that need repair. Players can walk some distance and pick them up to replace the parts or go straight to the dirty work and hope it's faster than taking that short journey.
That was the simple part.
Each game has a leader who tells the others what to do. Basically it's identical to that test Singaporean recruits were given in BMT in which the officers look for potential cadets for OCS. The challenge is there, the objectives simple and the tools are freely available. How efficiently and effectively the leader get his team to get things done is the real game. All the times in multiplayer games are recorded and ranked so that there is a form of competition.
However, players are also given an additional problem - a machine somewhere would require immediate attention during the round. The leader is then tested on his response in emergency situations.
I have a feeling NASA is going to use that mmorpg to find new recruits for their space missions in the future, just like how the game America's Army was used to by the US military to advertise career opportunities within the game.
It seems Mount and Blade: Warband has a lot of mods that I'm not aware of, and it has already been updated to allow multiplayer mode.
I really need to check them out. L4D2 and Alien Swarm are getting boring, and Hammer is too tedious.
I think my penis has finally got big enough today. They finally stopped sending me those penis enlargement ads and are now trying to get me to look at retirement homes.
Introducing the "No One's Pleasure" condoms.
Contraceptive manufacturer Trojan unveiled its new line of “No One’s Pleasure” condoms Wednesday, the first prophylactic specifically designed to intensify sexual dissatisfaction among bitter and resentful couples.
“These condoms feel extremely unnatural, and their sandpaper-like texture is so rough and gritty it rubs everyone raw."
Want to have angry sex? Here's the solution. Put on a “Ultra-Chafe: Super Dry” and it will turn your romantic night into an abrasive nightmare both of you will never forget.
The Wikileaks documents were apparently seriously big. They have been claimed to show that the war in the Middle East is going worse than the US revealed, not that it's a big surprise. That doesn't matter though because it still hurts Obama's popularity after all the shit he's been getting for the BP oil spill.
Obviously he's not going to serve a second term... or is he?
A black couple has a white baby. It's not even mixed blood, but all white without being albino. What is going on?!
A medley of most, if not all, the music in Oblivion. Somehow it's much better than I remember. Maybe it's because I'm not distracted by monsters and quests now. Great stuff for Oblivion players, interestingly calm music for those who haven't tried this excellent game. Interestingly calm because such things don't usually appear on this blog.
Brings back memories.
If you have the money, these guys deserve to be paid.
Natural Selection 2 is out... in alpha phase. Only those who pre-ordered at double price (US$40, normal price US$20) got to play it.
Now the anxiety begins. I'm really interested to see what it's got but at the moment it's way too early to tell. The commander modes are limited and their is only a single map at the point of development. However, I'm already considering buying it when it's out on Steam, especially since new games always have a week of discount when they initially become available on Steam.
I'm kind of sure that it will be out on Steam only after beta phase, so I will see enough feedback to decide by then.
Starcraft 2 is out today. Big day for Blizzard. Not going to buy it since I'm 80% confident it's seriously overhyped and doesn't fill the shoes of the original SC. From what I've observed of WoW's heavy advertising, I can tell Blizzard has a formidable marketing department.
Therefore it's expected that we should all feel more anxious to buy it than we should really be.
Even if that's not the case, I'm not really an RTS gamer. I know for sure I won't be playing it all the time whether I buy it or not. In short, I'm not buying. At most I'll get a copy just to find out its story but there's no way buying a copy is going to be worth my money.
Frankly speaking, I think the RTS genre is dying. The most popular games out there are mostly FPS and RPGs, sometimes both. Behind these are racing and other sports games. Lagging somewhere behind are the horribly inane Flash games that the true casual players enjoy.
Even in South Korea where Starcraft is very big, I don't believe it's the most popular game there. The thing is that there's nothing to watch in a mmorpg combat. Trust me, the excitement of watching two characters fight seriously in WoW can be ranked somewhere between watching paint dry and reading my blog when I first started typing shit here.
The reason IMHO that SC has so many sponsored tournaments in S. Korea is because it's actually watchable, albeit only by people who have tried the game before.
Afghanistan whines about how the US doesn't do shit when Pakistan was revealed to be betraying the alliance by helping the enemies. I hope they aren't going to blame Obama for this war since common sense says that Bush is the guy who caused all that. But after Bush got voted for his second term, I'm not sure if the Americans have any common sense.
I really wonder how this war will be seen in the future by historians. Very curious. It's so damn obviously unjust with a casus belli that's clearly bullshit like the one used by Nazi Germany to invade Poland, yet nobody can do anything about that.
This war makes me think that we aren't actually living in a peaceful world. We're just living in the peaceful parts of the world. We aren't anywhere close to achieving world peace; it's just that we're so far away from the frontlines that the fighting is nothing but news reports to us. Real humans are dying everyday in the Middle East because of the invasion, both civilians and soldiers, yet to us they are just numbers.
Sad, isn't it? Admit it, your work/studies at the moment are much more important than the innocent lives being lost on a daily basis just because they're living in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Which is more important?
A) Doing something to stop the war.
B) Work you need to finish by today.
If you argue that if there's actually a way to accomplish A you would, then please answer to yourself honestly the following question:
Did you even bother to google for A before answering the above?
I don't need to know your answer, and neither is it important whether Google can actually deliver. What is important is whether you have tried to find a way before justifying your inaction by convincing yourselves that it's a lost cause.
All life is sacred my ass. Life is cheap and you know it. You and I can die today and life will still go on. A few tears may be wept but a year after, everything will be back to normal. I guess with six billion people around, even a hundred thousand deaths are merely a negligible percentage.
It's a different game from what I expected, but was unsurprising given that I have little idea what sort of game it was supposed to be other than a testing area.
Moonbase Alpha is really a game about organisational skill, an important aspect of leadership. You begin in a damaged moon base that was struck by some sort of meteorite. Because the life support system was hit, your oxygen is now limited to about 25 minutes of it (I think). The mission is to repair everything before you suffocate.
Repair work is simple but, at times, difficult. It's mainly just getting the right tool of the available two, the wrench and the welding torch, and clicking on the machine that needs attention. It will then automatically repair for you within minutes, but at regular intervals you are given a puzzle that would save you several seconds.
The puzzle is the sort where you have to move your cursor from one point to another without touching the border.
Follow the red lines from one point to another without touching the green borders. 9.6 is the number of seconds left. Level 4 is easy, fyi.There are many parts that have been damaged to various degrees and in some places, you cannot access the faulty machines without the aid of a robot due to coolant leakage.
The game is in the 3rd-person view. This screenshot shows the player holding the pink and white robot and the Robot Control Unit (RCU) which is in the black suitcase.The robot has limited power and has limited movement because it's on wheels. Also, there are two robots available - one with a welding torch and one with an arm for picking up objects.
To make things slightly more convenient and complex, there are several spare units of all the parts that need repair. Players can walk some distance and pick them up to replace the parts or go straight to the dirty work and hope it's faster than taking that short journey.
That was the simple part.
Each game has a leader who tells the others what to do. Basically it's identical to that test Singaporean recruits were given in BMT in which the officers look for potential cadets for OCS. The challenge is there, the objectives simple and the tools are freely available. How efficiently and effectively the leader get his team to get things done is the real game. All the times in multiplayer games are recorded and ranked so that there is a form of competition.
However, players are also given an additional problem - a machine somewhere would require immediate attention during the round. The leader is then tested on his response in emergency situations.
I have a feeling NASA is going to use that mmorpg to find new recruits for their space missions in the future, just like how the game America's Army was used to by the US military to advertise career opportunities within the game.
It seems Mount and Blade: Warband has a lot of mods that I'm not aware of, and it has already been updated to allow multiplayer mode.
I really need to check them out. L4D2 and Alien Swarm are getting boring, and Hammer is too tedious.
I think my penis has finally got big enough today. They finally stopped sending me those penis enlargement ads and are now trying to get me to look at retirement homes.
Introducing the "No One's Pleasure" condoms.
Contraceptive manufacturer Trojan unveiled its new line of “No One’s Pleasure” condoms Wednesday, the first prophylactic specifically designed to intensify sexual dissatisfaction among bitter and resentful couples.
“These condoms feel extremely unnatural, and their sandpaper-like texture is so rough and gritty it rubs everyone raw."
“These things are great,” said test subject Jerry Morelli, who explained that the condoms have helped him find new ways to loathe and disparage his wife of 15 years. “If I’m not gonna enjoy myself, I want to make damn sure she doesn’t either.”
Want to have angry sex? Here's the solution. Put on a “Ultra-Chafe: Super Dry” and it will turn your romantic night into an abrasive nightmare both of you will never forget.
The Wikileaks documents were apparently seriously big. They have been claimed to show that the war in the Middle East is going worse than the US revealed, not that it's a big surprise. That doesn't matter though because it still hurts Obama's popularity after all the shit he's been getting for the BP oil spill.
Obviously he's not going to serve a second term... or is he?
A black couple has a white baby. It's not even mixed blood, but all white without being albino. What is going on?!
A medley of most, if not all, the music in Oblivion. Somehow it's much better than I remember. Maybe it's because I'm not distracted by monsters and quests now. Great stuff for Oblivion players, interestingly calm music for those who haven't tried this excellent game. Interestingly calm because such things don't usually appear on this blog.
Brings back memories.
If you have the money, these guys deserve to be paid.
Natural Selection 2 is out... in alpha phase. Only those who pre-ordered at double price (US$40, normal price US$20) got to play it.
Now the anxiety begins. I'm really interested to see what it's got but at the moment it's way too early to tell. The commander modes are limited and their is only a single map at the point of development. However, I'm already considering buying it when it's out on Steam, especially since new games always have a week of discount when they initially become available on Steam.
I'm kind of sure that it will be out on Steam only after beta phase, so I will see enough feedback to decide by then.
Starcraft 2 is out today. Big day for Blizzard. Not going to buy it since I'm 80% confident it's seriously overhyped and doesn't fill the shoes of the original SC. From what I've observed of WoW's heavy advertising, I can tell Blizzard has a formidable marketing department.
Therefore it's expected that we should all feel more anxious to buy it than we should really be.
Even if that's not the case, I'm not really an RTS gamer. I know for sure I won't be playing it all the time whether I buy it or not. In short, I'm not buying. At most I'll get a copy just to find out its story but there's no way buying a copy is going to be worth my money.
Frankly speaking, I think the RTS genre is dying. The most popular games out there are mostly FPS and RPGs, sometimes both. Behind these are racing and other sports games. Lagging somewhere behind are the horribly inane Flash games that the true casual players enjoy.
Even in South Korea where Starcraft is very big, I don't believe it's the most popular game there. The thing is that there's nothing to watch in a mmorpg combat. Trust me, the excitement of watching two characters fight seriously in WoW can be ranked somewhere between watching paint dry and reading my blog when I first started typing shit here.
The reason IMHO that SC has so many sponsored tournaments in S. Korea is because it's actually watchable, albeit only by people who have tried the game before.
Afghanistan whines about how the US doesn't do shit when Pakistan was revealed to be betraying the alliance by helping the enemies. I hope they aren't going to blame Obama for this war since common sense says that Bush is the guy who caused all that. But after Bush got voted for his second term, I'm not sure if the Americans have any common sense.
I really wonder how this war will be seen in the future by historians. Very curious. It's so damn obviously unjust with a casus belli that's clearly bullshit like the one used by Nazi Germany to invade Poland, yet nobody can do anything about that.
This war makes me think that we aren't actually living in a peaceful world. We're just living in the peaceful parts of the world. We aren't anywhere close to achieving world peace; it's just that we're so far away from the frontlines that the fighting is nothing but news reports to us. Real humans are dying everyday in the Middle East because of the invasion, both civilians and soldiers, yet to us they are just numbers.
Sad, isn't it? Admit it, your work/studies at the moment are much more important than the innocent lives being lost on a daily basis just because they're living in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Which is more important?
A) Doing something to stop the war.
B) Work you need to finish by today.
If you argue that if there's actually a way to accomplish A you would, then please answer to yourself honestly the following question:
Did you even bother to google for A before answering the above?
I don't need to know your answer, and neither is it important whether Google can actually deliver. What is important is whether you have tried to find a way before justifying your inaction by convincing yourselves that it's a lost cause.
All life is sacred my ass. Life is cheap and you know it. You and I can die today and life will still go on. A few tears may be wept but a year after, everything will be back to normal. I guess with six billion people around, even a hundred thousand deaths are merely a negligible percentage.
Monday 26 July 2010
Rant 585 / Joker!
This made me lol. The humour in this is not very obvious but you just have to look at the picture he's holding carefully.
Today's class on analysing essays was more interesting than a typical class I'd have back in NTU, though it was still boring enough to make me check the time every half an hour. The main difference is that I actually listened for over 90 minutes. After that my mind just wandered away, then returned, then left again.
It wasn't exactly dry but my mental stamina sucks after so much multitasking I do on my computer for the last few months, like playing L4D2 and checking on BTO during breaks (I play all my games in Windowed mode).
The good players are no longer playing Co-op mode in Garena. I can tell. Though I haven't been playing L4D2 much in the last few days due to Alien Swarm, I clearly recall that I have practically carried the team in the last few games I did play.
Me, carrying the team. Most Chargers killed? Me. Most Boomers killed? Me. The most Smokers killed? Me. The list goes on. Just this last game I played before typing this, I was shooting with really dry eyes because it was 12am, my "usual" bedtime for now. Accuracy was 40%, while the rest were at 31-33%. As you can see, I'm not pro; the rest just suck.
The good players must be either playing something else or at the Versus games.
I've recently heard from some conversations in Empires (people chat in-game) that it's possible to cheat easily by rewriting the codes in the game. Someone said that he could write just one additional line to make all other players become visible to him (ie wall-hack). One line.
Apparently cheating may be more rampant than the rest of us had realized in the Empires community. It's sad though, that they would even bother to cheat in a game with such a small playerbase.
Sunday 25 July 2010
Rant 584 / The Cyber Police Hire Experts in Backtracology To Deal With Cyber Bullies. Beware!
This is what happens when you fail to have your shield of anonymity up before attention-whoring online. The above tried to make her out as the victim of cyberbullies when she's really her own victim.
First, she's 11. It was not even legal for her to post videos on Youtube or whatever.
Second, she took anonymous comments online seriously. Conventional wisdom among frequent Internet users is that you should not even bother to read comments like those on Youtube. In the case that you would do such a thing, disregard everything that even sounds negative.
Third, camwhores always get this sort of attention. The more dramatic their responses, the worse the hate. Schadenfreude is rampant on the Internet. They're making this bigger than it actually is.
Fourth, unless she's actually scum, those threats will forever remain threats. Anons talk big but the number of times they actually did anything serious in real life is negligible compared to the number of threats they make on a daily basis. There was absolutely no need for her to fear those bs they post.
Fifth, you dun goofed. Because he back traced it.
I wonder how long before they finally realize that giving children free access to the Internet is like letting them travel the world alone. As educational as it may sound, there are some things that most parents don't want their kids to be educated in.
Filters don't work well enough. What they do is similar to banning users from the red-light districts. They are still going to be able to find other places where other dangers lie.
I believe children should be restricted to only certain websites that are considered safe. Without adult supervision, they cannot access anything but a few websites in the list. Facebook should not be on that list, especially if you're moronic enough to post important person information like home address or phone number. Kids are expected to be that stupid, therefore should not be found on such websites.
How else do you think they found her address and home phone number? Obviously she had to have posted these on either her FB or her Youtube/Stickam profile. Anons are not that amazingly smart; they're all just script kiddies. The real hackers are busy doing other things and wouldn't waste their time on camwhores.
Even though I posted those links above, I'm not laughing. Neither do I pity her, for she's just going through a tough lesson in life. Shit happens, deal with it. There's no need to worry for her. She's got her parents and half her country on her side. I'm very sure she's been receiving lots of letters from strangers expressing sympathy and offering of help after that appearance on TV.
Anyway here's what the "cyber bullies" have on her. It's NOT work-safe due to a few ads on the side. And ignore the expletives.
They didn't do anything that an average Internet user can't - merely lots of googling. Found this after typing the above. Here's an interesting quote to prove what I had said:
As an eleven-year-old whore, Jessi accepted all friend requests; even from accounts with ridiculous names, such as I.P. Freely and Pedobear (SRSLY), resulting in anons obtaining her email address and place of residence.
^_^
Ban kids from FB and most of the Internet for their own good please. Freedom is what's hurting them, not the pedophiles or cyber bullies or whatever. It's like you're allowing them to explore the jungle on their own and then blaming the tiger when they get eaten alive. Whose fault is it, really?
Even if you're not going to follow my advise, please closely monitor the websites your kids visit. Children don't need privacy till they're old enough to drink and smoke. For example, placing the computer in the living room won't kill them. I know it didn't kill me.
League of Legends is coming to Garena! Yay!
League of Legends is a DotA-ripoff that's very popular outside of Asia. It's not available in Southeast Asia yet because they're still in the process of setting things up. The game's made by the some of the people who helped made DotA what it is today, so there are quite a number of heroes that are very similar to those found in the original.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm strange to not spend money. Yesterday I found my bro using a wireless controller to play a racing game on his laptop, one that looked like a standard PS DualShock.
Then I realized it is normal to buy such stuff at his age, from everything I have observed. All my friends bought stuff like iPod and iPhones and other trendy goods that won't last 3 years.
Why didn't I?
I'm not even joking here. The last electronic device I bought for myself that I can recall is this computer I'm typing on. Before that, it was my copy of Half Life 2 and the Acer laptop.
My bro, from I have seen, has a gaming laptop, a Zen, a few games bought during Steam sales and the controller. That's excluding the things he bought during dates that were a waste of money like the shirt that didn't fit very well but was picked by his girlfriend.
Then again, I did buy books and food. In recent years I've been spending about S$400-500 annually on novels and I've no idea how much I have spent at Cold Storage since I don't go regularly. When I do I spend about S$100 per trip, but this year I've only been there once or twice so far.
I can't criticize anyone for wasting money. Even I have wasted money by buying a few books that turned out to be worse than I expected. I consider it a waste of money if I don't read a book I bought at least twice.
Is it because I don't watch TV or visit malls much? Without these activities I can say I'm almost never exposed to the subliminal brainwashing by commercial advertisements, which would explain my spending habits. After all, you don't have to consciously see them to be affected by them.
But it may also be explained that I'm just stingy.
Which is why I cannot say for sure why I spend the way I do.
Male birth control pills, finally! Hey guys, say hi to Mr Penile/Prostate Cancer. It took decades for them to find out that female birth control pills can raise the chances of getting cancer, so I expect the same for this, if it's even going to pass their trials.
Friday 23 July 2010
Rant 583 / The S$48 Electronic Female Hygiene Device
Just found out about this new map generator for Alien Swarm called TileGen. It's basically a random map generator except several conditions like the objectives have been set.
The difference compared to using Hammer is that Hammer produces set maps like those found in the campaign Jacob's Rest. Also, Hammer is used for many other games that use the Source Engine including L4D2 and TF2.
Doesn't feel as good to use it but it's much simpler.
BTO is taking quite a bit of my attention now, ever since they started the Arena feature.
BTO is an entertaining browser game which I don't think I will play very long simply because the game allows newbies no chance of success in older servers, so all servers will never get re-energized by new blood. As a result, this is how it goes:
1) New server is opened.
2) Players join, both experienced players from older servers and newbies who clicked on the BTO ads like I did.
3) 1 month later, everyone who first joined have big wealthy corporations and anyone who joins now have no possibility of catching up.
4) Players eventually get tired of seeing the same names everyday and go to a new server or quit the game.
Pretty lame but damn it's successful. I couldn't believe how much money people are spending on this game until last week. That was when this thing called Bell Labs was about to be opened.
However before it could open, it required a certain amount of items which cost a certain amount of gold which, when converted to USD, costs US$100,000 per server. There were 20 servers. In less than 2 weeks, 3 servers completed the process, ie at least 300k USD were spent. 3 out of 20, the other 17 were mostly about 40% there.
Then let's look at their costs. It's made in China and all their mods and admins are from China, proven by the fact that they cannot see pictures hosted by most websites including Imageshack. One million US dollars for the company would be a huge fortune.
I thought it unbelievable, but since I'm in the strongest guild in my server I've read conversations where players admit they buy gold. When I checked their stuff, I could tell that some spend a lot.
Holy shit! S$48 iPad ripoff that can run on solar power! Of course it might lag if you type too quickly on MSWord on it but... solar power! Since it's Linux-based, it should be also very versatile and for S$48 it sounds like an incredible deal to me. Of course the price will be inflated dramatically the moment it enters the borders of Singapore but it obviously won't get more expensive than the iPad. Now I wonder what it can actually do.
The difference compared to using Hammer is that Hammer produces set maps like those found in the campaign Jacob's Rest. Also, Hammer is used for many other games that use the Source Engine including L4D2 and TF2.
Doesn't feel as good to use it but it's much simpler.
BTO is taking quite a bit of my attention now, ever since they started the Arena feature.
BTO is an entertaining browser game which I don't think I will play very long simply because the game allows newbies no chance of success in older servers, so all servers will never get re-energized by new blood. As a result, this is how it goes:
1) New server is opened.
2) Players join, both experienced players from older servers and newbies who clicked on the BTO ads like I did.
3) 1 month later, everyone who first joined have big wealthy corporations and anyone who joins now have no possibility of catching up.
4) Players eventually get tired of seeing the same names everyday and go to a new server or quit the game.
Pretty lame but damn it's successful. I couldn't believe how much money people are spending on this game until last week. That was when this thing called Bell Labs was about to be opened.
However before it could open, it required a certain amount of items which cost a certain amount of gold which, when converted to USD, costs US$100,000 per server. There were 20 servers. In less than 2 weeks, 3 servers completed the process, ie at least 300k USD were spent. 3 out of 20, the other 17 were mostly about 40% there.
Then let's look at their costs. It's made in China and all their mods and admins are from China, proven by the fact that they cannot see pictures hosted by most websites including Imageshack. One million US dollars for the company would be a huge fortune.
I thought it unbelievable, but since I'm in the strongest guild in my server I've read conversations where players admit they buy gold. When I checked their stuff, I could tell that some spend a lot.
Holy shit! S$48 iPad ripoff that can run on solar power! Of course it might lag if you type too quickly on MSWord on it but... solar power! Since it's Linux-based, it should be also very versatile and for S$48 it sounds like an incredible deal to me. Of course the price will be inflated dramatically the moment it enters the borders of Singapore but it obviously won't get more expensive than the iPad. Now I wonder what it can actually do.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Rant 582 / Hammer Time
The lag I mentioned 2 posts ago continued into the next day. My ping in the Singapore server on Speedtest.net remained at 55-65ms and my download speed never exceeded 5Mbps (search my previous posts with the search tool to see what my normal speed should be).
Really annoyed me because a full reset of the router and modem improved nothing. So I finally decided to do something I really try to avoid - fiddling with the router's settings.
Changing my channel from Auto to 10 worked somewhat. My ping still remained at 55ms at Speedtest.net but my ping to my router stabilised at below 10ms. My download speed rose to over 6Mbps, which is not that great, but I no longer have horrendous lag when playing.
Still a little concerned with my speed.
Now trying to learn to make maps for Alien Swarm. I have to learn to use Hammer from scratch, which is a bit of a pain. Hammer is the name of the map making tool for the Source Engine. With this I can even make maps for L4D2, I think.
So far, I've just managed to get the feel of placing brushes and entities but I still haven't figured out how to link them, let alone place event triggers.
Brushes are the stuff you cannot move with, like the ground and the walls. Entities are stuff that you can interact with, ranging from eye-candy barrels to weapons to monsters to event triggers.
At the moment I'm at the point where I should be finding out how to link the switches with the doors to make those Tech-only doors. I wonder if I will have the patience to master Hammer.
Here's an article that mentioned a rule that should be followed at all times.
Honor the conventional wisdom that suggests you shouldn't mix business with friendship. In the best of times, money issues can complicate or even ruin a perfectly good relationship.
Don't forget that. Money doesn't mix with a lot of things because most people take money too seriously.
Apparently I'm not the only one to think that the floods were caused by a lack of foresight.
Tessarina resident Tony Mok, 43, the head of training in a multinational company, said of the two year canal upgrading process: “We have to be practical, it takes time. The only thing is that it should have been done five years ago.”
They had the solution; they just didn't come up with it soon enough.
“When we get extraordinary rainfall like we had recently, no amount of engineering can prevent flooding,” he told The Straits Times.
Over at Bukit Timah, there is apparently space for canal upgrading, which will take two years to complete.
So it's impossible to prevent the floods but they're still going to improve the canal anyway. Anyone see the irony there? Either it's a waste of money to appease the public or the MM is exaggerating. I'm inclined to believe the former.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/542666
Mastermind's Shark Tank trap has a flaw.
Really annoyed me because a full reset of the router and modem improved nothing. So I finally decided to do something I really try to avoid - fiddling with the router's settings.
Changing my channel from Auto to 10 worked somewhat. My ping still remained at 55ms at Speedtest.net but my ping to my router stabilised at below 10ms. My download speed rose to over 6Mbps, which is not that great, but I no longer have horrendous lag when playing.
Still a little concerned with my speed.
Now trying to learn to make maps for Alien Swarm. I have to learn to use Hammer from scratch, which is a bit of a pain. Hammer is the name of the map making tool for the Source Engine. With this I can even make maps for L4D2, I think.
So far, I've just managed to get the feel of placing brushes and entities but I still haven't figured out how to link them, let alone place event triggers.
Brushes are the stuff you cannot move with, like the ground and the walls. Entities are stuff that you can interact with, ranging from eye-candy barrels to weapons to monsters to event triggers.
At the moment I'm at the point where I should be finding out how to link the switches with the doors to make those Tech-only doors. I wonder if I will have the patience to master Hammer.
Here's an article that mentioned a rule that should be followed at all times.
Honor the conventional wisdom that suggests you shouldn't mix business with friendship. In the best of times, money issues can complicate or even ruin a perfectly good relationship.
Don't forget that. Money doesn't mix with a lot of things because most people take money too seriously.
Apparently I'm not the only one to think that the floods were caused by a lack of foresight.
Tessarina resident Tony Mok, 43, the head of training in a multinational company, said of the two year canal upgrading process: “We have to be practical, it takes time. The only thing is that it should have been done five years ago.”
They had the solution; they just didn't come up with it soon enough.
“When we get extraordinary rainfall like we had recently, no amount of engineering can prevent flooding,” he told The Straits Times.
Over at Bukit Timah, there is apparently space for canal upgrading, which will take two years to complete.
So it's impossible to prevent the floods but they're still going to improve the canal anyway. Anyone see the irony there? Either it's a waste of money to appease the public or the MM is exaggerating. I'm inclined to believe the former.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/542666
Mastermind's Shark Tank trap has a flaw.
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Rant 580 / LAG RAGE!
Lag! My internet's been lagging since 10am and it is still sucking balls at 12.30pm. I can't play Alien Swarm! AAAAAAAARGH!
Lv17 now. I have a really cool Tesla Armour or whatever it's called that stuns anything that melees me and removes parasites (after a second or two). Really useful on a few maps where there are lots of parasites.
The Tesla Cannon is another noteworthy weapon because it damages groups of aliens. When you are electrifying one alien, any others that get close to it gets fried too but these secondary targets don't spread the electricity (I think).
I wonder what I will get as I level up further but I can't find out because MY INTERNET IS LAGGING LIKE I'M USING 56K AGAIN!
EDIT: It's 10pm and IT'S STILL LAGGING! WTF?!
Lv17 now. I have a really cool Tesla Armour or whatever it's called that stuns anything that melees me and removes parasites (after a second or two). Really useful on a few maps where there are lots of parasites.
The Tesla Cannon is another noteworthy weapon because it damages groups of aliens. When you are electrifying one alien, any others that get close to it gets fried too but these secondary targets don't spread the electricity (I think).
I wonder what I will get as I level up further but I can't find out because MY INTERNET IS LAGGING LIKE I'M USING 56K AGAIN!
EDIT: It's 10pm and IT'S STILL LAGGING! WTF?!
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Rant 579 / Only One Campaign That Has Seven Maps
Bookmarks. Why do we need anything fancy for bookmarks? Personally I use a strip of scrap paper and in the past, even toilet paper. Anything sheet of paper at hand can become a bookmark as long as it marks the page and does not deform/stain the book.
Alien Swarm is pretty darn good for a free game. Hell, if they made more maps they could sell it for money. It's completely free with no strings attached at the moment, so I suspect they will someday charge fees for maps like what Blizzard plans to do for SC2.
This game is a multiplayer co-op real-time tactical shooter where you play with 3 other guys in co-op maps to kill aliens and accomplish objectives. Think Diablo, except with guns and without the random loot. You look down from above and click to fire at the direction where you're pointing at.
Playing online gives experience to players which eventually allows them to gain better weapons like the Tesla gun or flamethrower.
If you're interested, I recommend downloading it now and starting while everyone is still new. Nobody would scream, "NOOB! GTFO!!" if you make any mistakes now. Even I just jumped in after finishing the single-player "Offline Practice", which doesn't cover everything, something I found out in the first online game I joined.
Steam is free and only takes a short registration, if you don't have it already.
This article is ridiculous.
LOL! Go away, IMF. This whole thing can probably be summarised and concluded by this paragraph:
The problem, to put it bluntly, is that Asia does not need the IMF or like the IMF, whose invasive policy prescriptions are blamed in the region for having exacerbated the 1997/98 meltdown.
Seriously.
The most striking imbalance in Asia is that it saves too much... But policymakers could do much more to promote more balanced growth, for example by building social safety nets to lessen the need to save for a rainy day, allowing currency appreciation and reducing corporate savings.
This idea is so absurd, I don't know why he even bothered to say this. I mean, it's supposed to be normal to spend everything we earn like the Americans? Because relying on national welfare is the way to go during recessions, right?
It stinks so much of bullshit, I'm surprised I don't see hoof prints blanketing my screen.
While we Asians are feeling disgusted by the amount of tax money Western countries waste through welfare policies, he's trying to tell us that we should have them too? What are these people planning to accomplish here?
I say if Asia ever needs such an organization to regulate monetary policies, we should set up our own. After what we've seen so far, I don't believe we should make another America out of Asia.
Alien Swarm is pretty darn good for a free game. Hell, if they made more maps they could sell it for money. It's completely free with no strings attached at the moment, so I suspect they will someday charge fees for maps like what Blizzard plans to do for SC2.
This game is a multiplayer co-op real-time tactical shooter where you play with 3 other guys in co-op maps to kill aliens and accomplish objectives. Think Diablo, except with guns and without the random loot. You look down from above and click to fire at the direction where you're pointing at.
Playing online gives experience to players which eventually allows them to gain better weapons like the Tesla gun or flamethrower.
If you're interested, I recommend downloading it now and starting while everyone is still new. Nobody would scream, "NOOB! GTFO!!" if you make any mistakes now. Even I just jumped in after finishing the single-player "Offline Practice", which doesn't cover everything, something I found out in the first online game I joined.
Steam is free and only takes a short registration, if you don't have it already.
This article is ridiculous.
IMF challenges Asia to change its economic habits
LOL! Go away, IMF. This whole thing can probably be summarised and concluded by this paragraph:
The problem, to put it bluntly, is that Asia does not need the IMF or like the IMF, whose invasive policy prescriptions are blamed in the region for having exacerbated the 1997/98 meltdown.
Seriously.
The most striking imbalance in Asia is that it saves too much... But policymakers could do much more to promote more balanced growth, for example by building social safety nets to lessen the need to save for a rainy day, allowing currency appreciation and reducing corporate savings.
This idea is so absurd, I don't know why he even bothered to say this. I mean, it's supposed to be normal to spend everything we earn like the Americans? Because relying on national welfare is the way to go during recessions, right?
It stinks so much of bullshit, I'm surprised I don't see hoof prints blanketing my screen.
While we Asians are feeling disgusted by the amount of tax money Western countries waste through welfare policies, he's trying to tell us that we should have them too? What are these people planning to accomplish here?
I say if Asia ever needs such an organization to regulate monetary policies, we should set up our own. After what we've seen so far, I don't believe we should make another America out of Asia.
Sunday 18 July 2010
Rant 578 / Forgot To Publish Last Night
Singapore's 3rd episode of severe floods in 2 months. What's up with that? Is it the drainage network at fault or is it really climate change manifesting itself in these downpours?
These rare floods are less rare than we're told to expect. Why?
Late last month, PM Lee warned Singaporeans that they cannot expect the island republic to be completely free of floods.
But we can expect such floods to be actually rare instead of being supposedly rare. I don't remember these many flood reports last year or the year before.
I'm not going all government-bashing now. It's too late for that. I'm no longer pissed, just disappointed.
He also added, “We have to learn from these episodes, do post-mortems, find out what happened, and upgrade our infrastructure and systems.”
I very much agree that this needs to be done. Problem is whether they can adequately upgrade them soon enough and whether they're going to plan far ahead like in MM Lee's day.
I see this flood problem as a symptom of a lack of foresight. Inadequate upgrades, poor maintenance (they wouldn't be clogged if they were good) and lack of supervision of road sweepers (I've seen a few sweeping dead leaves and trash into the drains) are the factors that appear to be causing these floods.
So, will they be looked into? Or are we to be told there are plans while they continue to hire cheap workers that provide shitty services that correspond to their shitty wages?
Star Wars Episode 3 was probably the best of the trilogy. Although some parts were a little abrupt while others were there for no other purpose than to link the film with Episode 4 (why wipe the memories of the droids in the end?), at least most of the acting was good and the story was more or less decent.
I don't know why but the lightsabre fights have been improving as time went on. In Episode 1 and 2, the Jedis seemed to be making poses instead of fighting. I believe it had to do with how they all appeared to slow down at the end of each stroke and felt no impact as the lasers collide.
In the third movie, the fights were much faster and there wasn't time for them to pause at each stroke, hence they looked more like sword fights.
Also, I think I figured out why I disliked Episode 2. It was basically a drama film about teenage rebellion and I have no interest in that.
I think the biggest flaw in this third movie was how the villain was so obvious right from the start. I know it was already easy to tell who Darth Sidius was from the first film but still, they could have tried.
But on the whole, I like the movie. The plot in general was interesting, the fights were realistic and George Lucas finally finished telling the whole story without ruining it any further.
Bridge of Birds was a better book than I expected. Although it started slowly, it became more than just a story of some guy trying to save his village halfway through the novel.
This book was written by an American and set in an imaginary ancient China. A village was struck by a strange plague so they sent one of the men to find a scholar sage who would help them.
Through the point of view of this man, Number Ten Ox, the story was told. Soon he found Li Kao, who actually did have "a slight flaw in his character", as he would say whenever he introduced himself. This man was so intelligent, he stopped being a criminal only because it was more challenging to solve crimes than to commit them.
Together they worked to find this magical ginseng root that would cure the plague. While Number Ten Ox was strong, Li Kao was cunning and not above using underhanded (and sometimes humorous) means to resolve tricky situations.
I'm only about 3/4 through the book but I have to say it was not what I thought it would be when I first read it.
Tried to record a video of my performance in L4D2 but it failed badly. It was supposed to be a record of my gameplay when I'm tired but I ended up with 46% accuracy due to the modifications (mods) used by the host.
A free game on Steam. I have no idea why an online game store would do anything that's unprofitable, but this Alien Swarm is about to be released in a few hours. Copied from the Steam page:
Alien Swarm is a game and Source SDK release from a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community. Available free of charge, the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics. With your friends, form a squad of four distinct IAF Marine classes.
Sounds interesting. Trying it tomorrow.
Holy crap we're getting close to seeing cyborgs that once only existed in sci-fi!
Someday, it's going to get so real it will become part of the field of cosmetic surgery. It won't be just about improving appearances but also for increasing physical strength and dexterity. And what's bad about having an arm that has a USB drive for direct PC connection (and hence control)?
I wonder if this particular arm in the video is the same as the one featured in the National Geographic magazine some months ago. In the magazine the main point about the prosthetics was how they no longer stuck wires into the flesh but instead have some sort of wireless connection between the nerves and the mechanical limb.
Just like the one in the video, they had to wear this shoulderpad-like device, so it might be the same but more advanced. I believe the biggest problem is still about increasing the number of degrees of movement of the arm and hand, ie the number of ways they can move.
These rare floods are less rare than we're told to expect. Why?
Late last month, PM Lee warned Singaporeans that they cannot expect the island republic to be completely free of floods.
But we can expect such floods to be actually rare instead of being supposedly rare. I don't remember these many flood reports last year or the year before.
I'm not going all government-bashing now. It's too late for that. I'm no longer pissed, just disappointed.
He also added, “We have to learn from these episodes, do post-mortems, find out what happened, and upgrade our infrastructure and systems.”
I very much agree that this needs to be done. Problem is whether they can adequately upgrade them soon enough and whether they're going to plan far ahead like in MM Lee's day.
I see this flood problem as a symptom of a lack of foresight. Inadequate upgrades, poor maintenance (they wouldn't be clogged if they were good) and lack of supervision of road sweepers (I've seen a few sweeping dead leaves and trash into the drains) are the factors that appear to be causing these floods.
So, will they be looked into? Or are we to be told there are plans while they continue to hire cheap workers that provide shitty services that correspond to their shitty wages?
Star Wars Episode 3 was probably the best of the trilogy. Although some parts were a little abrupt while others were there for no other purpose than to link the film with Episode 4 (why wipe the memories of the droids in the end?), at least most of the acting was good and the story was more or less decent.
I don't know why but the lightsabre fights have been improving as time went on. In Episode 1 and 2, the Jedis seemed to be making poses instead of fighting. I believe it had to do with how they all appeared to slow down at the end of each stroke and felt no impact as the lasers collide.
In the third movie, the fights were much faster and there wasn't time for them to pause at each stroke, hence they looked more like sword fights.
Also, I think I figured out why I disliked Episode 2. It was basically a drama film about teenage rebellion and I have no interest in that.
I think the biggest flaw in this third movie was how the villain was so obvious right from the start. I know it was already easy to tell who Darth Sidius was from the first film but still, they could have tried.
But on the whole, I like the movie. The plot in general was interesting, the fights were realistic and George Lucas finally finished telling the whole story without ruining it any further.
Bridge of Birds was a better book than I expected. Although it started slowly, it became more than just a story of some guy trying to save his village halfway through the novel.
This book was written by an American and set in an imaginary ancient China. A village was struck by a strange plague so they sent one of the men to find a scholar sage who would help them.
Through the point of view of this man, Number Ten Ox, the story was told. Soon he found Li Kao, who actually did have "a slight flaw in his character", as he would say whenever he introduced himself. This man was so intelligent, he stopped being a criminal only because it was more challenging to solve crimes than to commit them.
Together they worked to find this magical ginseng root that would cure the plague. While Number Ten Ox was strong, Li Kao was cunning and not above using underhanded (and sometimes humorous) means to resolve tricky situations.
I'm only about 3/4 through the book but I have to say it was not what I thought it would be when I first read it.
Tried to record a video of my performance in L4D2 but it failed badly. It was supposed to be a record of my gameplay when I'm tired but I ended up with 46% accuracy due to the modifications (mods) used by the host.
A free game on Steam. I have no idea why an online game store would do anything that's unprofitable, but this Alien Swarm is about to be released in a few hours. Copied from the Steam page:
Alien Swarm is a game and Source SDK release from a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community. Available free of charge, the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics. With your friends, form a squad of four distinct IAF Marine classes.
Sounds interesting. Trying it tomorrow.
Holy crap we're getting close to seeing cyborgs that once only existed in sci-fi!
Someday, it's going to get so real it will become part of the field of cosmetic surgery. It won't be just about improving appearances but also for increasing physical strength and dexterity. And what's bad about having an arm that has a USB drive for direct PC connection (and hence control)?
I wonder if this particular arm in the video is the same as the one featured in the National Geographic magazine some months ago. In the magazine the main point about the prosthetics was how they no longer stuck wires into the flesh but instead have some sort of wireless connection between the nerves and the mechanical limb.
Just like the one in the video, they had to wear this shoulderpad-like device, so it might be the same but more advanced. I believe the biggest problem is still about increasing the number of degrees of movement of the arm and hand, ie the number of ways they can move.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Rant 577 / And Not A Single Fuck Was Given That Day.
This article totally reminds me of something I read long ago. First of all, I should describe what this article is. It's a joke news report of the response to a change of laws that would allow homosexuals to join the military. One reaction is the fear that this would cause men to have wild gay orgies in the battlefield instead of going out to fight.
Another article I read long ago said the exact same thing except that guy was serious. I wonder if he still thinks the same today.
This is the price of ignorance, I suppose. No matter how well-educated and how smart people are, there are always those who aren't aware of certain relatively common knowledge and hence make fools of themselves.
What I believe is that people should be exposed to certain topics after they reach 18, forcibly if need be. This is the 21st century. We have the Internet, a tool with which we can find out everything that everyone else knows. There is little excuse for not knowing things that lots of people are already aware of, especially if you're posting it online. It's like not looking at both sides before telling everyone that the road is clear.
"Our men need to know they can count on each other in battle, and we can't have them getting distracted by illicit romantic dalliances," said Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps. "Especially if one's a little blond Adonis farm boy and his buddy's a real tough street kid straight out of Brooklyn. I mean, think about it: What if they lock eyes and abandon their post to start ripping each other's fatigues off, revealing twin sets of glistening washboard abs and at last fulfilling their hidden passions?"
This may be a work of fiction, but know that there are some Singaporean youths out there who actually think like that. If one person can say/write something, ten are thinking it.
A man... in another man.
Brokeback Mountain, coming soon... in an ass near you.
No matter how I see it, I cannot understand why anyone would think that Sarah Palin has a chance in the American elections in 2012. Here's the biggest question I have:
WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE FOR HER?
Just check out the number of videos of her blunders on Youtube; there are tons of those and more than Bush afaik. Another thing I don't like is how supportive she has been to the oil industry. The two terms served by Bush Jr may have been a sign of stupidity among the Americans, but if Palin even gets into the Presidential Elections it's going to show that their collective idiocy has come to a whole new level.
As an ex-governor, she is definitely not as moronic as many make her out to be. However she has not done much to prove her competence as a politician other than her ability to appear on the front pages seemingly at will. Even when she resigned back then, it was claimed to be a relief to the government because her legal troubles were costing her as much as what she was paid.
Then again, they sometimes put some guy in the elections that the majority would not vote for probably because there isn't anyone else suitable and they were holding an election for the sake of having an election.
One sign I recognize that I'm playing too much of a certain game is when I dream of it. I dreamt of L4D2 last night.
Recently I've been playing pretty well but I'm disappointed at my accuracy. I'm almost always second, usually at around 35-45% despite my enthusiasm for sniping instead of spraying. I don't like being second when I know I'm good at it.
I also don't understand why my accuracy is that low. I can't remember many times when I miss, but then again I don't remember most of the events in the games I play.
Some people are better than me, I admit. They can even do things I am only beginning to master, like stopping Hunters and Jockeys who leap at me. This can be done only by instinct and never by conscious thought. The trick is to right click the moment you see a clear line of sight between you and the Hunter/Jockey. If you melee when it leaps, you're already too late due to the minuscule lag that's calculated in merely milliseconds.
Anyway I've recently seen some videos of L4D2 gameplay on Steam servers and I have to say that it's better over there. I should have bought L4D2 during the recent sale but I didn't come across those videos until recently.
The first reason for it is because some servers on Steam can handle 16 players. On Garena where players host servers on their own computers, their PC hardware and bandwidth almost always limits the max player limit to 8 or less.
Another reason is that it's easier to find modded servers whereas in Garena only a few players have the computer literacy to find and mod them. Even I myself only have 3 mods when I host and I find it troublesome to have to type in several commands every time I host.
If I'm still playing L4D2 the next time they have a sale and L4D3 hasn't been announced yet, I'll probably buy the game.
Some game modes are actually very exciting, even for someone's who's getting numb to most of what vanilla L4D2 has to offer. I've just tried this mode called "Tanks versus Humans" in which the survivors only encounter tanks and no other zombies.
Let me tell you that when you can hear 5 tanks behind you, you will run like hell, you will not look back and you will tremble in fear until you reach the saferoom. That's what happened to me anyway. By the time I reached the saferoom as the first person to do so, I realized my legs were a little unsteady. I was like "HOLY SHIT I JUST OUTRAN 5 FRICKIN TANKS!!" and there they were banging on the door like the mad zombies they were while my team members were far behind, struggling to catch up.
Not a welcoming sight for them at the door since they had to go through them plus the tanks behind them.
Here's a video that's kind of similar, except in the mode I mentioned our HP resets to full bar whenever we managed to kill a tank.
RAAAAARRRR!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!
But after speaking to my bro, who had bought L4D2 on Steam during the sale, I found out that it's actually better for Singaporeans to play on Garena. According to him, most servers on Steam (Steam is the only way to find truly legit servers and not those in what I consider the grey area) are laggy compared to those hosted on the computers of Garena members, and there are much fewer slots for us to use.
The only thing better for Steam users is that it's easier to update since Garena users have to do it manually and they also have to install the Standalone patch (synonymous with crack) every single time they update their game.
Strange that buying a legit copy does not provide a better gaming experience. This just proves that life is counter-intuitive occasionally. Common sense doesn't always work because it's based on assumptions that can sometimes be wrong.
After watching Star Wars Episode 1 again, I found it to be a worse film than I expected for a franchise this famous. Mostly it's because of Anakin's horrible acting abilities but the rest of it was fine.
Star Wars Episode 2, which I don't remember watching before, plain sucks. Even though I'm only halfway through the movie I'm already inclined to fast forward to the ending, if not skip the rest of it entirely.
Another article I read long ago said the exact same thing except that guy was serious. I wonder if he still thinks the same today.
This is the price of ignorance, I suppose. No matter how well-educated and how smart people are, there are always those who aren't aware of certain relatively common knowledge and hence make fools of themselves.
What I believe is that people should be exposed to certain topics after they reach 18, forcibly if need be. This is the 21st century. We have the Internet, a tool with which we can find out everything that everyone else knows. There is little excuse for not knowing things that lots of people are already aware of, especially if you're posting it online. It's like not looking at both sides before telling everyone that the road is clear.
"Our men need to know they can count on each other in battle, and we can't have them getting distracted by illicit romantic dalliances," said Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps. "Especially if one's a little blond Adonis farm boy and his buddy's a real tough street kid straight out of Brooklyn. I mean, think about it: What if they lock eyes and abandon their post to start ripping each other's fatigues off, revealing twin sets of glistening washboard abs and at last fulfilling their hidden passions?"
This may be a work of fiction, but know that there are some Singaporean youths out there who actually think like that. If one person can say/write something, ten are thinking it.
A man... in another man.
Brokeback Mountain, coming soon... in an ass near you.
No matter how I see it, I cannot understand why anyone would think that Sarah Palin has a chance in the American elections in 2012. Here's the biggest question I have:
WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE FOR HER?
Just check out the number of videos of her blunders on Youtube; there are tons of those and more than Bush afaik. Another thing I don't like is how supportive she has been to the oil industry. The two terms served by Bush Jr may have been a sign of stupidity among the Americans, but if Palin even gets into the Presidential Elections it's going to show that their collective idiocy has come to a whole new level.
As an ex-governor, she is definitely not as moronic as many make her out to be. However she has not done much to prove her competence as a politician other than her ability to appear on the front pages seemingly at will. Even when she resigned back then, it was claimed to be a relief to the government because her legal troubles were costing her as much as what she was paid.
Then again, they sometimes put some guy in the elections that the majority would not vote for probably because there isn't anyone else suitable and they were holding an election for the sake of having an election.
One sign I recognize that I'm playing too much of a certain game is when I dream of it. I dreamt of L4D2 last night.
Recently I've been playing pretty well but I'm disappointed at my accuracy. I'm almost always second, usually at around 35-45% despite my enthusiasm for sniping instead of spraying. I don't like being second when I know I'm good at it.
I also don't understand why my accuracy is that low. I can't remember many times when I miss, but then again I don't remember most of the events in the games I play.
Some people are better than me, I admit. They can even do things I am only beginning to master, like stopping Hunters and Jockeys who leap at me. This can be done only by instinct and never by conscious thought. The trick is to right click the moment you see a clear line of sight between you and the Hunter/Jockey. If you melee when it leaps, you're already too late due to the minuscule lag that's calculated in merely milliseconds.
Anyway I've recently seen some videos of L4D2 gameplay on Steam servers and I have to say that it's better over there. I should have bought L4D2 during the recent sale but I didn't come across those videos until recently.
The first reason for it is because some servers on Steam can handle 16 players. On Garena where players host servers on their own computers, their PC hardware and bandwidth almost always limits the max player limit to 8 or less.
Another reason is that it's easier to find modded servers whereas in Garena only a few players have the computer literacy to find and mod them. Even I myself only have 3 mods when I host and I find it troublesome to have to type in several commands every time I host.
If I'm still playing L4D2 the next time they have a sale and L4D3 hasn't been announced yet, I'll probably buy the game.
Some game modes are actually very exciting, even for someone's who's getting numb to most of what vanilla L4D2 has to offer. I've just tried this mode called "Tanks versus Humans" in which the survivors only encounter tanks and no other zombies.
Let me tell you that when you can hear 5 tanks behind you, you will run like hell, you will not look back and you will tremble in fear until you reach the saferoom. That's what happened to me anyway. By the time I reached the saferoom as the first person to do so, I realized my legs were a little unsteady. I was like "HOLY SHIT I JUST OUTRAN 5 FRICKIN TANKS!!" and there they were banging on the door like the mad zombies they were while my team members were far behind, struggling to catch up.
Not a welcoming sight for them at the door since they had to go through them plus the tanks behind them.
Here's a video that's kind of similar, except in the mode I mentioned our HP resets to full bar whenever we managed to kill a tank.
RAAAAARRRR!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!
But after speaking to my bro, who had bought L4D2 on Steam during the sale, I found out that it's actually better for Singaporeans to play on Garena. According to him, most servers on Steam (Steam is the only way to find truly legit servers and not those in what I consider the grey area) are laggy compared to those hosted on the computers of Garena members, and there are much fewer slots for us to use.
The only thing better for Steam users is that it's easier to update since Garena users have to do it manually and they also have to install the Standalone patch (synonymous with crack) every single time they update their game.
Strange that buying a legit copy does not provide a better gaming experience. This just proves that life is counter-intuitive occasionally. Common sense doesn't always work because it's based on assumptions that can sometimes be wrong.
After watching Star Wars Episode 1 again, I found it to be a worse film than I expected for a franchise this famous. Mostly it's because of Anakin's horrible acting abilities but the rest of it was fine.
Star Wars Episode 2, which I don't remember watching before, plain sucks. Even though I'm only halfway through the movie I'm already inclined to fast forward to the ending, if not skip the rest of it entirely.
Saturday 10 July 2010
Rant 576 / FFXIV Sounds Like A Potential Option
Of course I'm full of shit.
FF14 confirmed to charge extra per additional character.
Game price, comes with 30 days of subscription - US$50
Subscription rate, includes one playable character and one NPC for storage/merchant matters - US$13 per 30 days
Additional playable character - US$3 per 30 days
Additional NPC - US$1 per 30 days
Conclusion - This is like a blend of f2p and p2p MMORPG because more p2p MMOs traditionally do not have extra costs. However, I don't mind playing with a single character since I always prefer to do that as long as storage is not a problem. I may consider it if it is popular enough and the NPC's storage is adequate.
You know, I've never considered the idea that it is not common practice to reuse your teabags. It was only recently that I read someone mentioned his/her grandmother having this habit since WWII. I was slightly surprised to find out that people don't normally do that.
I have always done that at home. In fact, I only use two teabags a day and keep two 1.5L bottles of water near my teapot next to my computer. The teabags stay in the pot from the time I get out of bed till I get out of bed on the next day. Only the first pot is filled with boiling water, both to sterilize the inside of the pot and to make actual hot tea.
From some articles I've read, you're supposed to use hot water to brew tea because certain substances in the leaves are activated only by water above 90 degrees Celsius. So it's good to fill your pot with hot water the first time.
It is true that I drink only 3-4 cups of real tea per day and the rest are more like fragrant water but come on, that's better than drinking plain water. I've nothing to lose by soaking used teabags in water for 24 hours and I'm used to drinking this sort of diluted tea since I was a child when I mixed my parents' tea with water with a rough ratio of 1:9.
What's so bad about drinking diluted tea anyway? It's not like tap water is really that tasty, especially in Singapore.
You can probably do the same with coffee beans but I don't have a French press to test this theory with. Very diluted coffee made from reused beans can probably be drunk by itself.
Speaking of French press, I remember my mum bought one many years ago. She told us we could use it to brew coffee but I never understood how that was used until years later when I realized that there are non-powder coffee beans available out there.
The thing's gone now. We never used it for brewing coffee.
I wonder why I've never seen CZY play L4D2 after I handed him the game almost a month ago.
I'm going to be an admin on the currently most popular server for Empires. With only 3-4 servers that can be considered as "active", that really isn't saying much. Still, I get to hold a banhammer!
I wonder why one of the senior admins offered the position to me. I don't usually talk to him. I can only guess it's because I've been around for years and my record's perfectly clean.
All those Catholic pedo-priests made me wonder if monks (and nuns) also have sexual issues. So I googled "gay monks" and after the initial surprise at discovering the fetish for homosexual monks, I found that in Thailand they actually do have such problems.
In Buddhism they don't prevent homosexuals from becoming monks, so I guess they must have a significant population of openly gay monks. Even Tibetan monasteries accept gay men. Christian monks? Same, and they do have problems with them "flaunting" their homosexuality.
Catholic nuns can be lesbians too, and not just those in Europe/America.
Since monks and nuns are celibates, I can see why they have no reason to forbid homosexuals from joining their ranks. A gay man and a straight one can't be too different if they both overcome their sexual desires and live identically dry lives, theoretically speaking.
Transgender monks, how does this work? Guys with fake breasts wearing monk robes, or ex-females? I mean, if they haven't gone through any part of the sex-change process they can't be called "transgender", right? And the first step to this is to implant breasts or get hormone therapy, and either way they're going to end up with feminine chests, I suppose.
Hmm... Monks with tits, not a pleasant thought at all.
Holy crap Shutter Island was a better film than I thought. Or maybe it's just that I like this sort of film. Oh wait, before I go on any further...
A spoiler is an literary aerodynamic device whose intended function is to "spoil" unfavourable air movement across a body of text in motion. Take caution and carry a first-aid kit at all times if you don't know that Verbal Kint is Keyzer Söze, Buffy dies twice, Tetra is Zelda, Mordred is King Arthur's son, Tony gets shot by Chino and dies in Maria's arms, Janus grows up to be Magus, Sasuke eventually kills Orochimaru, the Joker kills Jason Todd, our World is behind the Gate, Fayed detonates a nuke, and Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!
The film was misled me so much that the ending was nothing that I expected.
At first it appeared that the asylum staff were trying to make him go mad, so I thought the psychiatrists were mad, that maybe they had killed the previous doctors and took over their identity or something.
When he went apparently crazy near the end, I thought he was mad and his superiors had used this case to lure him here for his own good.
At no point did I suspect that he had been a patient there all along and the entire story was really an experimental act to see if he could be cured if he was allowed to act on his hallucinations and fantasies.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FF14 confirmed to charge extra per additional character.
Game price, comes with 30 days of subscription - US$50
Subscription rate, includes one playable character and one NPC for storage/merchant matters - US$13 per 30 days
Additional playable character - US$3 per 30 days
Additional NPC - US$1 per 30 days
Conclusion - This is like a blend of f2p and p2p MMORPG because more p2p MMOs traditionally do not have extra costs. However, I don't mind playing with a single character since I always prefer to do that as long as storage is not a problem. I may consider it if it is popular enough and the NPC's storage is adequate.
You know, I've never considered the idea that it is not common practice to reuse your teabags. It was only recently that I read someone mentioned his/her grandmother having this habit since WWII. I was slightly surprised to find out that people don't normally do that.
I have always done that at home. In fact, I only use two teabags a day and keep two 1.5L bottles of water near my teapot next to my computer. The teabags stay in the pot from the time I get out of bed till I get out of bed on the next day. Only the first pot is filled with boiling water, both to sterilize the inside of the pot and to make actual hot tea.
From some articles I've read, you're supposed to use hot water to brew tea because certain substances in the leaves are activated only by water above 90 degrees Celsius. So it's good to fill your pot with hot water the first time.
It is true that I drink only 3-4 cups of real tea per day and the rest are more like fragrant water but come on, that's better than drinking plain water. I've nothing to lose by soaking used teabags in water for 24 hours and I'm used to drinking this sort of diluted tea since I was a child when I mixed my parents' tea with water with a rough ratio of 1:9.
What's so bad about drinking diluted tea anyway? It's not like tap water is really that tasty, especially in Singapore.
You can probably do the same with coffee beans but I don't have a French press to test this theory with. Very diluted coffee made from reused beans can probably be drunk by itself.
Speaking of French press, I remember my mum bought one many years ago. She told us we could use it to brew coffee but I never understood how that was used until years later when I realized that there are non-powder coffee beans available out there.
The thing's gone now. We never used it for brewing coffee.
I wonder why I've never seen CZY play L4D2 after I handed him the game almost a month ago.
I'm going to be an admin on the currently most popular server for Empires. With only 3-4 servers that can be considered as "active", that really isn't saying much. Still, I get to hold a banhammer!
I wonder why one of the senior admins offered the position to me. I don't usually talk to him. I can only guess it's because I've been around for years and my record's perfectly clean.
All those Catholic pedo-priests made me wonder if monks (and nuns) also have sexual issues. So I googled "gay monks" and after the initial surprise at discovering the fetish for homosexual monks, I found that in Thailand they actually do have such problems.
In Buddhism they don't prevent homosexuals from becoming monks, so I guess they must have a significant population of openly gay monks. Even Tibetan monasteries accept gay men. Christian monks? Same, and they do have problems with them "flaunting" their homosexuality.
Catholic nuns can be lesbians too, and not just those in Europe/America.
Since monks and nuns are celibates, I can see why they have no reason to forbid homosexuals from joining their ranks. A gay man and a straight one can't be too different if they both overcome their sexual desires and live identically dry lives, theoretically speaking.
Transgender monks, how does this work? Guys with fake breasts wearing monk robes, or ex-females? I mean, if they haven't gone through any part of the sex-change process they can't be called "transgender", right? And the first step to this is to implant breasts or get hormone therapy, and either way they're going to end up with feminine chests, I suppose.
Hmm... Monks with tits, not a pleasant thought at all.
Holy crap Shutter Island was a better film than I thought. Or maybe it's just that I like this sort of film. Oh wait, before I go on any further...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPOILER ALERT!
A spoiler is an literary aerodynamic device whose intended function is to "spoil" unfavourable air movement across a body of text in motion. Take caution and carry a first-aid kit at all times if you don't know that Verbal Kint is Keyzer Söze, Buffy dies twice, Tetra is Zelda, Mordred is King Arthur's son, Tony gets shot by Chino and dies in Maria's arms, Janus grows up to be Magus, Sasuke eventually kills Orochimaru, the Joker kills Jason Todd, our World is behind the Gate, Fayed detonates a nuke, and Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!
SPOILER ALERT!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The film was misled me so much that the ending was nothing that I expected.
At first it appeared that the asylum staff were trying to make him go mad, so I thought the psychiatrists were mad, that maybe they had killed the previous doctors and took over their identity or something.
When he went apparently crazy near the end, I thought he was mad and his superiors had used this case to lure him here for his own good.
At no point did I suspect that he had been a patient there all along and the entire story was really an experimental act to see if he could be cured if he was allowed to act on his hallucinations and fantasies.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Spoiler.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday 9 July 2010
Rant 575 / I Forgot To Type In A Title Until After I Published The Rant
After a long time in L4D2, I've finally realized that though all weapons have their place in the game, the truth is that this is a misleading concept.
Since I'm bored (no games everywhere atm), I'll just go through all the weapons in L4D2.
First, the pistols, ALL of them. The best thing you can do with them is to throw them away and get a melee weapon. Why?
1) You already have a ranged weapon as your primary weapon.
2) The best is either you get a magnum (shown above) which is slow but accurate or you get dual pistols that have horrible accuracy but 30 rounds per load. Due to the first point, these are actually moot. Get a baseball bat. It wipes out everything on your screen when the horde swarms over you.
3) There's a certain rhythm to push and melee (right click and left click) that you can use that basically makes you untouchable at close range until you begin to tire and your push gets a cooldown timer. No pistol can do that.
Pistols are useless. Dump them. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to reload while a teammate is disabled and no one else is able to help him but you, your team sucks. 4 of you sticking together should not result in this at all. When it does happen, just reload and let him suffer till you're done pushing rounds into your gun, or use your melee weapon if possible.
Second, melee weapons! My favourite weapon type because it is the best against everything but Tanks and Smokers. Yes, even against Spitters despite the pool of acid that appears when they die. Just melee them and jump away immediately and you can get away without getting hurt.
I'll even melee the Boomers if there's a corner I can back into close by.
Here are the weapons placed in levels according to my personal experience with them:
Best melee weapon:
The nightstick because it's the fastest of all melee weapons.
First runner-up:
The katana and machete because they are only a tiny bit slower.
Everything else not mentioned above are the same - better than pistols. All melee weapons do the same damage to everything, so only the speed matters.
The Chainsaw has its own category, which is separate from Everything Else. I avoid it because it takes too long to set up. In other words, when you switch from your gun to the chainsaw, it takes a lot of time before you can use it. Worse is that it has limited fuel and there's no guarantee you will find another melee weapon before you finish it.
To use a Chainsaw properly, you will have to use it as your primary weapon due to its long setup time. This means you MUST be leading the team because it's too dangerous to be used frequently when a teammate is in front of you. And again, limited fuel means you will run out quickly.
The Pump and the Chrome Shotguns are the worst guns in the game. As powerful as they are, they have a long cooldown between each shot and can only hold 8 rounds at a time, meaning you have to reload constantly.
They suck at mid to long-range, and at close range all the melee weapons can beat them. The only time where they are better than an axe is when you encounter Boomers or Tanks since these are huge targets that you don't want to get into melee range with.
But like I said before, I'd rather get a crowbar than any of these shotguns since they're better in most situations and my teammates can cover the Boomers and Tanks.
If you insist on using these, then this would be one of the few situations in which pistols are a better option than melee weapons in order to kill at mid-range.
The Combat and Tactical Shotguns are a major improvement over the previous shotguns. These two are supposed to be slightly different in that the Combat Shotgun has a smaller spread but IMO they both feel the same.
These guns are actually slightly effective at mid-range, which is kind of useful at times but personally I still dislike shotguns because they're prone to hitting my teammates when I try to cover their backs. However the roar of the Tactical Shotgun does one give a sense of power when firing.
A magnum (and no other pistol) is a good choice as a secondary weapon for these shotguns since you can snipe with it.
The Silenced Submachine Gun and the Submachine Gun are the basic machine guns in L4D2. I always go for them because they are too accurate to ignore compared with the other starting weapons, ie the worst guns in the game.
The difference in damage and accuracy is minimal but the Silenced SMG does not attract attention when you hit the zombies from afar. However, both suck when you're fighting a horde of common infected aka normal zombies. In such a situation, you need melee weapons to take over.
These two are great at the beginning for helping your buddies since they're accurate enough to not hit them when you fire at the zombies close to them.
This is the Combat Rifle. Its main selling point is that it's the most accurate when you're moving, ie it's the best for shooting on the go. Damage isn't as good as the AK47 and accuracy while standing isn't as good as the M16. Probably the best rifle for the final map in the Parish campaign in which you had to run across the bridge, if you're the spraying type.
Greatest disadvantage is its max ammo capacity. Since it fires 3 rounds per tap and has 60 rounds per magazine, that makes only 20 shots per reload. To make it worse, you only carry another 360 rounds so that's 6 reloads or 7 magazines total. Ammo conservation is the most important thing to remember when using this gun. Every shot must count.
The M16 is the most accurate rifle in the game outside of the sniper rifle category. Its killing power may be crap compared to the Combat Rifle and the AK but you can semi-snipe with it and spray at the same time.
This is the best rifle for Headshot-Only mode. In other situations, I prefer a sniper rifle if I wanted to snipe or an AK47 when playing in Realism Mode.
This is the famous AK47. All first-person shooters set in the present times must have this Russian gun. It's probably the best Russian invention after vodka, and is easily recognizable by its brown wooden parts.
Like in reality, it has better damage than the M16 but worse accuracy. While the AK47 can kill a normal zombie with one bullet in Normal difficulty, it has difficulty in long-range combat situations.
When I'm in the mood for spraying, I prefer this to the M16 just because things just die when I fire. However, it gets annoying when I can't help a buddy who is somewhat far away from me.
Speaking of spraying, the AK47 is not meant to be used as a machine gun. You do not hold your fire button and let the bullets fly. The accuracy of this gun deteriorates horribly as you spray, so it's best to crouch and fire one bullet at a time with taps.
The Hunting Rifle is the inferior version of the Sniper Rifle. Best accuracy together with the Sniper Rifle but half the magazine size. It also kills common zombies with one shot plus it can kill multiple zombies in a line.
Not only does it pierce through zombies but it can do the same to teammates too. However this is not recommended since it can seriously injure your friends on Advanced and Expert difficulties.
Not to forget, it has the Scope mode in which you look through the rifle scope to greatly increase your accuracy. However I've never bothered to use it mainly because I wasn't aware of it until recently, and that in turn was because I don't have a Mouse3 button (mousewheel click). Even after I learnt of it, I still disliked it because it made me blind to too much of my surroundings.
The Sniper Rifle is my favourite weapon in L4D2, as I have said before long ago. It's basically the same as the Hunting Rifle except it's got a 30-round magazine. With this gun and a decent hand-eye coordination, you're basically a killing machine at mid and long-range.
This gun is great for killing zombie hordes that are running towards you from a distance, which happens fairly frequently especially in final maps. In addition, it makes it possible to kill all special infected other than the Tank before they can hit your team.
The biggest con of this gun is that you can't fire while moving. You always have to crouch before firing to get the maximum accuracy so on maps like the bridge-crossing one in the Parish, it's only good for killing special infected and covering any team members who are straggling behind.
With some experience and enough open space, you can actually hold off a small wave of zombies without resorting to your melee weapon.
Also has the Scope mode but like the Hunting Rifle, I just crouch and fire without it.
The M60 machine gun has only 150 rounds and no reload. Despite of this, it is still a pretty good weapon due to its killing power. High firing rate and and fantastic damage makes this gun extremely powerful in most situations.
This gun is like the AK47 but even more powerful. It's great at mid and short-range and kind of decent at long-range.
Ammo conservation is of utmost importance when using this gun. Avoid using more than 1 round per common infected as much as possible since it only takes 1 to make them explode. When facing a horde of them, snipe till they get close enough to hit you, then either spray or switch to melee. Crouching is a must when you want to save ammo by raising accuracy.
The most powerful weapon in the game, the Grenade Launcher. If you thought killing 3 zombies per shot with that Sniper Rifle was an achievement, that's actually nothing compared to killing an entire horde of 15+ zombies with 1 shot from the GL.
Due to its massively destructive nature, it's a very clumsy weapon. You cannot help your buddies with this weapon except in the more dire situations because it most likely WILL hurt that buddy you're trying to help as well.
The Grenade Launcher takes some getting used to due to its trajectory. You have to use it for some time to get a feel of its curve. If you aren't good with this, avoid it like the plague on Advanced and Expert. You'll be a bigger threat to your team than a frickin Tank if you take it.
It's not merely because of the friendly fire you will cause but also because of the Witches you may accidentally disturb. Witches disable you with one hit on Advanced and kill you outright on Expert.
I'm getting the impression that my course cohort may be small and most of the other students are going to be working adults. Anyway I found an interesting news article in the documents folder in the students portal which was from the Chinese morning paper on the 12th of April. It discussed the poor environment that professional translators in Singapore find themselves in due to a misconception: that Singaporeans believe that anyone who can speak two languages can be a translator.
Here's why that isn't right:
李成业也以亲身经历说明“会双语”，并不代表就能做翻译。
他说，几年前有个中国代表团到本地一家公司参观考察。这家公司派了个懂得双语的高级职员负责翻译工作，这名高级职员把“I now invite you to see for yourselves the latest production equipment of our company”通译成“我现在请各位去参观本公司的最新生产设备，给你们见识见识！”
参观后回返的路上，代表团团长告诉李成业：“幸亏我们听说过新加坡人一般华文水平不高，要不然当翻译说‘给你们见识见识’，我们还以为被看不起，当做乡巴佬。”
In addition to the languages, a translator needs to know the cultures and have knowledge of a wide variety of general topics. Of course, this doesn't apply to our daily lives where only basic stuff are translated, but the above faux pas is a pretty strong reason why companies can't just get anyone to translate for them.
In fact, the article often compared translation with playing the piano. Heck, they can compare it with any musical instrument for that matter. Just because you can read musical scores and know which note each string produces on a guitar doesn't automatically make you the next Santana.
With the same example interpreted differently, this is what the head of my programme said：“本地虽然是双语环境，可是大部分人都是英文较好，而中文相对很弱，这样是做不好翻译的。这好比弹钢琴，只有左右手都一样娴熟，才能弹出动人的乐曲。”
Oh shit, I'm going to need to read more Chinese papers and start on Chinese books. That article alone took me half an hour to read and understand thoroughly.
Speaking of this, I just realized a significant portion of UniSIM is really spread around Singapore. For example, I have to collect my course materials in Ngee Ann Poly and according to various websites, many classes take place outside of the UniSIM campus.
Bleh. No choice. What do?
Reader's Digest sent me another stack of letters regarding their sweepstakes again. As usual, it's full of explosive words and colours that make it appear as if I've already won. In fact, a large part of those letters were about the arrangements for after my winning the sweepstakes, like whether I want to go to the gala dinner in a limo and whether I prefer to take my winnings in one lump sum or in instalments spread over several years.
Like before, one of the most attention-grabbing features is the fake car key that's supposed to open the door to the car I'm "going to" win.
All I need to do to get over 10 tickets for the lottery is to reply with the YES labels. It's THAT easy!
Not quite, actually. There's this tiny problem printed in fonts just as tiny on the YES!!!!! envelope which is that I have to subscribe to a year of RD magazines for a low, low price of $59.
It's true that it's cheap - I pay over $70 a year for my NGM subscription. But I'm just not interested in the stories they have in RD. So now I have lots of waste paper for spitting bones on during my meals and this metal key that I'm sure I can find a use for.
Before I threw them aside, I found that there was the NO envelope with which I could still enter the sweepstakes without subscribing. The catch is that I won't get the car and the laptop. Not a problem. So I'm sending it to them with all the required parts of the letters. Not expecting to win but I've got nothing to lose by sending the NO envelope.
I'm sure some people really spend a lot of time to plan these letters. They sounded so personal and sincere! Here's an example, copied exactly:
I am particularly pleased to prepare these special benefits for you today, as we know you were once a Privileged Subscriber. However, we were surprised to find one of our EXCEPTIONAL MERIT customers not enjoying our signature magazine - Reader's Digest - at the current time. Therefore, in order to win you back, I'm happy to extend to you this exclusive invitation to enjoy a year of great reading at a fantastic saving: it's like receiving SIX MONTHS ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Feel the false warmth? It's basically implying that they found that I was not subscribing and were doing all that for me alone. Like I would fall for that. LOL!
Since I'm bored (no games everywhere atm), I'll just go through all the weapons in L4D2.
First, the pistols, ALL of them. The best thing you can do with them is to throw them away and get a melee weapon. Why?
1) You already have a ranged weapon as your primary weapon.
2) The best is either you get a magnum (shown above) which is slow but accurate or you get dual pistols that have horrible accuracy but 30 rounds per load. Due to the first point, these are actually moot. Get a baseball bat. It wipes out everything on your screen when the horde swarms over you.
3) There's a certain rhythm to push and melee (right click and left click) that you can use that basically makes you untouchable at close range until you begin to tire and your push gets a cooldown timer. No pistol can do that.
Pistols are useless. Dump them. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to reload while a teammate is disabled and no one else is able to help him but you, your team sucks. 4 of you sticking together should not result in this at all. When it does happen, just reload and let him suffer till you're done pushing rounds into your gun, or use your melee weapon if possible.
Second, melee weapons! My favourite weapon type because it is the best against everything but Tanks and Smokers. Yes, even against Spitters despite the pool of acid that appears when they die. Just melee them and jump away immediately and you can get away without getting hurt.
I'll even melee the Boomers if there's a corner I can back into close by.
Here are the weapons placed in levels according to my personal experience with them:
Best melee weapon:
The nightstick because it's the fastest of all melee weapons.First runner-up:
The katana and machete because they are only a tiny bit slower.Everything else not mentioned above are the same - better than pistols. All melee weapons do the same damage to everything, so only the speed matters.
The Chainsaw has its own category, which is separate from Everything Else. I avoid it because it takes too long to set up. In other words, when you switch from your gun to the chainsaw, it takes a lot of time before you can use it. Worse is that it has limited fuel and there's no guarantee you will find another melee weapon before you finish it.
To use a Chainsaw properly, you will have to use it as your primary weapon due to its long setup time. This means you MUST be leading the team because it's too dangerous to be used frequently when a teammate is in front of you. And again, limited fuel means you will run out quickly.
The Pump and the Chrome Shotguns are the worst guns in the game. As powerful as they are, they have a long cooldown between each shot and can only hold 8 rounds at a time, meaning you have to reload constantly.They suck at mid to long-range, and at close range all the melee weapons can beat them. The only time where they are better than an axe is when you encounter Boomers or Tanks since these are huge targets that you don't want to get into melee range with.
But like I said before, I'd rather get a crowbar than any of these shotguns since they're better in most situations and my teammates can cover the Boomers and Tanks.
If you insist on using these, then this would be one of the few situations in which pistols are a better option than melee weapons in order to kill at mid-range.
The Combat and Tactical Shotguns are a major improvement over the previous shotguns. These two are supposed to be slightly different in that the Combat Shotgun has a smaller spread but IMO they both feel the same.
These guns are actually slightly effective at mid-range, which is kind of useful at times but personally I still dislike shotguns because they're prone to hitting my teammates when I try to cover their backs. However the roar of the Tactical Shotgun does one give a sense of power when firing.
A magnum (and no other pistol) is a good choice as a secondary weapon for these shotguns since you can snipe with it.
The Silenced Submachine Gun and the Submachine Gun are the basic machine guns in L4D2. I always go for them because they are too accurate to ignore compared with the other starting weapons, ie the worst guns in the game.The difference in damage and accuracy is minimal but the Silenced SMG does not attract attention when you hit the zombies from afar. However, both suck when you're fighting a horde of common infected aka normal zombies. In such a situation, you need melee weapons to take over.
These two are great at the beginning for helping your buddies since they're accurate enough to not hit them when you fire at the zombies close to them.
This is the Combat Rifle. Its main selling point is that it's the most accurate when you're moving, ie it's the best for shooting on the go. Damage isn't as good as the AK47 and accuracy while standing isn't as good as the M16. Probably the best rifle for the final map in the Parish campaign in which you had to run across the bridge, if you're the spraying type.Greatest disadvantage is its max ammo capacity. Since it fires 3 rounds per tap and has 60 rounds per magazine, that makes only 20 shots per reload. To make it worse, you only carry another 360 rounds so that's 6 reloads or 7 magazines total. Ammo conservation is the most important thing to remember when using this gun. Every shot must count.
The M16 is the most accurate rifle in the game outside of the sniper rifle category. Its killing power may be crap compared to the Combat Rifle and the AK but you can semi-snipe with it and spray at the same time.This is the best rifle for Headshot-Only mode. In other situations, I prefer a sniper rifle if I wanted to snipe or an AK47 when playing in Realism Mode.
This is the famous AK47. All first-person shooters set in the present times must have this Russian gun. It's probably the best Russian invention after vodka, and is easily recognizable by its brown wooden parts.
Like in reality, it has better damage than the M16 but worse accuracy. While the AK47 can kill a normal zombie with one bullet in Normal difficulty, it has difficulty in long-range combat situations.
When I'm in the mood for spraying, I prefer this to the M16 just because things just die when I fire. However, it gets annoying when I can't help a buddy who is somewhat far away from me.
Speaking of spraying, the AK47 is not meant to be used as a machine gun. You do not hold your fire button and let the bullets fly. The accuracy of this gun deteriorates horribly as you spray, so it's best to crouch and fire one bullet at a time with taps.
The Hunting Rifle is the inferior version of the Sniper Rifle. Best accuracy together with the Sniper Rifle but half the magazine size. It also kills common zombies with one shot plus it can kill multiple zombies in a line.Not only does it pierce through zombies but it can do the same to teammates too. However this is not recommended since it can seriously injure your friends on Advanced and Expert difficulties.
Not to forget, it has the Scope mode in which you look through the rifle scope to greatly increase your accuracy. However I've never bothered to use it mainly because I wasn't aware of it until recently, and that in turn was because I don't have a Mouse3 button (mousewheel click). Even after I learnt of it, I still disliked it because it made me blind to too much of my surroundings.
The Sniper Rifle is my favourite weapon in L4D2, as I have said before long ago. It's basically the same as the Hunting Rifle except it's got a 30-round magazine. With this gun and a decent hand-eye coordination, you're basically a killing machine at mid and long-range.This gun is great for killing zombie hordes that are running towards you from a distance, which happens fairly frequently especially in final maps. In addition, it makes it possible to kill all special infected other than the Tank before they can hit your team.
The biggest con of this gun is that you can't fire while moving. You always have to crouch before firing to get the maximum accuracy so on maps like the bridge-crossing one in the Parish, it's only good for killing special infected and covering any team members who are straggling behind.
With some experience and enough open space, you can actually hold off a small wave of zombies without resorting to your melee weapon.
Also has the Scope mode but like the Hunting Rifle, I just crouch and fire without it.
The M60 machine gun has only 150 rounds and no reload. Despite of this, it is still a pretty good weapon due to its killing power. High firing rate and and fantastic damage makes this gun extremely powerful in most situations.This gun is like the AK47 but even more powerful. It's great at mid and short-range and kind of decent at long-range.
Ammo conservation is of utmost importance when using this gun. Avoid using more than 1 round per common infected as much as possible since it only takes 1 to make them explode. When facing a horde of them, snipe till they get close enough to hit you, then either spray or switch to melee. Crouching is a must when you want to save ammo by raising accuracy.
The most powerful weapon in the game, the Grenade Launcher. If you thought killing 3 zombies per shot with that Sniper Rifle was an achievement, that's actually nothing compared to killing an entire horde of 15+ zombies with 1 shot from the GL.
Due to its massively destructive nature, it's a very clumsy weapon. You cannot help your buddies with this weapon except in the more dire situations because it most likely WILL hurt that buddy you're trying to help as well.
The Grenade Launcher takes some getting used to due to its trajectory. You have to use it for some time to get a feel of its curve. If you aren't good with this, avoid it like the plague on Advanced and Expert. You'll be a bigger threat to your team than a frickin Tank if you take it.
It's not merely because of the friendly fire you will cause but also because of the Witches you may accidentally disturb. Witches disable you with one hit on Advanced and kill you outright on Expert.
I'm getting the impression that my course cohort may be small and most of the other students are going to be working adults. Anyway I found an interesting news article in the documents folder in the students portal which was from the Chinese morning paper on the 12th of April. It discussed the poor environment that professional translators in Singapore find themselves in due to a misconception: that Singaporeans believe that anyone who can speak two languages can be a translator.
Here's why that isn't right:
李成业也以亲身经历说明“会双语”，并不代表就能做翻译。
他说，几年前有个中国代表团到本地一家公司参观考察。这家公司派了个懂得双语的高级职员负责翻译工作，这名高级职员把“I now invite you to see for yourselves the latest production equipment of our company”通译成“我现在请各位去参观本公司的最新生产设备，给你们见识见识！”
参观后回返的路上，代表团团长告诉李成业：“幸亏我们听说过新加坡人一般华文水平不高，要不然当翻译说‘给你们见识见识’，我们还以为被看不起，当做乡巴佬。”
In addition to the languages, a translator needs to know the cultures and have knowledge of a wide variety of general topics. Of course, this doesn't apply to our daily lives where only basic stuff are translated, but the above faux pas is a pretty strong reason why companies can't just get anyone to translate for them.
In fact, the article often compared translation with playing the piano. Heck, they can compare it with any musical instrument for that matter. Just because you can read musical scores and know which note each string produces on a guitar doesn't automatically make you the next Santana.
With the same example interpreted differently, this is what the head of my programme said：“本地虽然是双语环境，可是大部分人都是英文较好，而中文相对很弱，这样是做不好翻译的。这好比弹钢琴，只有左右手都一样娴熟，才能弹出动人的乐曲。”
Oh shit, I'm going to need to read more Chinese papers and start on Chinese books. That article alone took me half an hour to read and understand thoroughly.
Speaking of this, I just realized a significant portion of UniSIM is really spread around Singapore. For example, I have to collect my course materials in Ngee Ann Poly and according to various websites, many classes take place outside of the UniSIM campus.
Bleh. No choice. What do?
Reader's Digest sent me another stack of letters regarding their sweepstakes again. As usual, it's full of explosive words and colours that make it appear as if I've already won. In fact, a large part of those letters were about the arrangements for after my winning the sweepstakes, like whether I want to go to the gala dinner in a limo and whether I prefer to take my winnings in one lump sum or in instalments spread over several years.
Like before, one of the most attention-grabbing features is the fake car key that's supposed to open the door to the car I'm "going to" win.
All I need to do to get over 10 tickets for the lottery is to reply with the YES labels. It's THAT easy!
Not quite, actually. There's this tiny problem printed in fonts just as tiny on the YES!!!!! envelope which is that I have to subscribe to a year of RD magazines for a low, low price of $59.
It's true that it's cheap - I pay over $70 a year for my NGM subscription. But I'm just not interested in the stories they have in RD. So now I have lots of waste paper for spitting bones on during my meals and this metal key that I'm sure I can find a use for.
Before I threw them aside, I found that there was the NO envelope with which I could still enter the sweepstakes without subscribing. The catch is that I won't get the car and the laptop. Not a problem. So I'm sending it to them with all the required parts of the letters. Not expecting to win but I've got nothing to lose by sending the NO envelope.
I'm sure some people really spend a lot of time to plan these letters. They sounded so personal and sincere! Here's an example, copied exactly:
I am particularly pleased to prepare these special benefits for you today, as we know you were once a Privileged Subscriber. However, we were surprised to find one of our EXCEPTIONAL MERIT customers not enjoying our signature magazine - Reader's Digest - at the current time. Therefore, in order to win you back, I'm happy to extend to you this exclusive invitation to enjoy a year of great reading at a fantastic saving: it's like receiving SIX MONTHS ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Feel the false warmth? It's basically implying that they found that I was not subscribing and were doing all that for me alone. Like I would fall for that. LOL!
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