Not having decent coffee at home is a terrible thing. The coffee they sell in coffeeshops in my neighbourhood may be excellent stuff, but an obvious problem exists whenever you find yourself in need of a delicious stimulant at 2am in the morning.
Therefore a bag of Capparoma Low Fat 50% Less Sugar now exists to replace the bag of crap they call Super Regular 3-in-1 Coffeemix. All of Capparoma's coffee are Low Fat, but there are also Regular and 25% Less Sugar. The price also greatly differs from Super in that this Capparoma Bag of 25 sticks (packets) goes for S$6.90 compared to Super's 40 packets per bag priced at S$4.90.
After a few days of Super, this cup of Capparoma tasted fantastic even without adding any additional stuff.
This is it. The end of human celebrities is at hand. With Japan pioneering the virtual entertainers technologies, we no longer need to have homosapiens humiliate themselves for the sake of "the performing arts". No more shall people appear on ugly celebrity gossip news and drop from the apex of their careers to become known as sluts, playboys and scum of society.
If things don't improve, eventually something big is going to happen there, and it won't be pleasant. Not for the entire Asia.
WHY CAN'T I PLAY MY PS2 ON MY LCD MONITOR?!?!?!?
Actually I can but I will need some special gadgets and cables. It's cheaper to just get the emulator.
It's spreading! It may be Greece at the moment, but far-seeing investors are now also looking at Portugal, whose credit rating was also reduced to A- at the same time as Greece's was slashed to BB+. Hopefully the Portuguese will look hard at the Greeks and do whatever it takes to save themselves before this plague of crises spreads further.
(explanations of acronyms in red)
This has to be one of the best 4chan threads I've seen in a very long while. What kind of suggestion is that?? Let an old, desperate and ugly gay man (if he was young and handsome he wouldn't be desperate; if he wasn't desperate he wouldn't need to check Craigslist for sex) suck on your penis just for free alcohol? What the heck?
And I love the reply at the bottom about free housing.
No woman, no cry = if you don't have a woman in you life you won't cry.
XD
That's one of the most ridiculous interpretation of song titles I've ever seen.
Here's WWII, summarised into an animated GIF and translated to modern Internet English.
I wonder if 4chan is going to do anything about that. I expect it to be extremely hilarious to see a bunch of Internet Tough Guys involved in an expletive-filled, illogical and one-sided debate with the leader of a socialist country. If it happens, I'll be taking lots of screenshots of this monumental event.
FYI, junk status means it's not recommended to invest in it even if it's the highest of this category. Buying Greek bonds now would be more of an act of charity than anything else. Also FYI, buying a bond is one way for people to lend the country money, usually done as a form of investment.
The spike in unemployment rates and loss of national pride after having to ask (read beg) for help from the EU and IMF is going to cause lots of social unrest, which will make it even harder for the country to recover. The unemployment rise is also predicted to cost the government more money due to more people needing welfare to survive.
11% unemployment is no joke. That's more than 1 in 10 adults without a job, ie everyone knows at least one person who's looking for work. It's just like the US, especially in California where Arnold Schwarzenegger is struggling to prevent the state from going bankrupt.
I've just found a way to use this Super 3-in-1 Regular Coffee Mix that would otherwise be wasted. It's very suitable for making Yuan Yang, a drink that's basically a blend of tea and coffee with sugar and milk. Usually Nescafe coffees are too strong to mix with a packet of instant milk tea 1v1 (1 packet of each in one mug), but Super coffee is bland enough that it doesn't cover up all the tea aroma and still gives a hint of coffee. Going to try it with a packet of Lipton Yellow Label instead of instant milk tea.
Just watched Alphaville, a 1965 French sci-fi film about a secret agent sent to destroy the computer that ruled the city that this movie was named after. As a very old film, it inevitably showed me what the acting was like by the actors in the age of black and white films. Seriously, it didn't suck but some parts were rather awkward probably due to the director.
One of the more unforgettable moments of such awkwardness was when the agent first met some guy at the lobby of the apartment near the beginning. This guy walked in and seemed to have spotted him, yet he just stared at the protagonist for several seconds. Then he turned to the guy at the counter and asked for the keys, all the while our hero was there shouting for his attention. It made me confused about whether the man saw him and whether he recognized him.
The level of violence was also very different from the third oldest movie I have seen so far, A Clockwork Orange. In the later movie, there were lots of nude scenes and mildly violent actions, which were necessary due to the nature of the plot. In Alphaville the most violent scenes were either the protagonist firing his pistol at random policemen who seemed to have no blood or the one where he wrestled and killed some guy in order to steal his car.
Even in the latter fight, it was not the sort we're used to, but was a montage of 1-second clips of the agent posing with the victim in several positions that appear to be fighting moves, including things like locking the arm around his neck and putting the unconscious head in front of the wheel before driving over it. The head was not seen anymore once it was placed there.
Throughout the entire film only one single scene contained blood and it was not because our hero donated blood during the story. Surprisingly in all the other scenes involving gunfire, everyone in Alphaville seemed to be cotton golems. But when he tried to escape from the three plainclothes policemen in Alpha 60, one of them had blood flowing from above his forehead despite the fact that we didn't see him get shot. Sounds of the gun firing was heard, then we were shown this guy with a river of blood down his face and staring woodenly at... something.
I'd say that if this film was to be rated using today's standards, it would be somewhere below G - even foetuses can watch it. I'm not joking when I say most of the Disney films that have been produced in recent years have more explicit violence (as opposed to implied violence described in previous paragraphs) than Alphaville. If the most exciting fight scene was two guys clearly making poses that simulated wrestling moves, I don't see why it can be too violent for anyone.
I haven't tried Super brand coffee since many years ago and my supply of coffee powder, which had always been various versions of Nescafe, was recently replenished with the Super 3-in-1 Regular coffee. Since my tastes have been shaped by years of Nescafe coffee, I was curious what Super coffee was like compared to it.
As I suspected, it was significantly blander. When I poured a packet Nescafe powder into my mug of hot water, I'd see a dark brown within white as the powder on the surface dissolved. Super Regular coffee, when added to hot water, was mostly white with slivers of light brown. The aroma was barely detectable before drinking and the flavour was light. With Nescafe I'd usually prefer to add one packet of sugar, but with Super I did not see the need to. It may be just me I admit, but it tasted more like coffee-flavoured creamer than coffee with creamer. I've tried drinking water with nothing but creamer powder so I know the taste pretty well.
While I sipped on this hot coffee, I felt like Winston Smith with his Victory Gin from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The government-produced Victory Gin (it was a socialist society) was described to be fairly disgusting in terms of taste and smell, but was the only alcohol the middle class could legally obtain. Honestly speaking, even First Choice brand (a brand commonly associated with low price products) Mint Tea is much more enjoyable than this coffee. Not that the tea is bad but it's cheaper despite the better experience it provides.
Another brand of coffee I've tried is Owl, which is from the same company, Super. It's different but just as bad, to be honest. Can't remember other brands.
It's sometimes hard to understand why people try to deny some things so hard. It's like those people who deny that the Holocaust in WWII or the moon landing ever happened. We're getting new records in all sorts of weather-related levels like snow and temperature and there are people who still don't believe there's anything different?
In a party conference in April, Republican firebrand Sarah Palin, a potential 2012 presidential nominee, mocked what she called the "snake-oil-based, global warming, Gore-gate" crowd.
It is obvious to anyone who isn't blind that something is happening that wasn't there 40 years ago. This month's National Geographic has two photos of Mount Everest's East Rongbuk Glacier, one from 1921 and the other from 2008. In 1921 the glacier covered almost the entire landscape with ice while in 2008 I couldn't even tell that it was a glacier because it looked more like just some snow covering the hills.
I'm not saying I'm completely in support of these scientists, it's just that it's wrong to deny numbers. I don't agree with doing everything we can to reduce our carbon emissions because its rise is inevitable as long as human population increases. This is just a delaying action and by how much, we cannot say.
Instead I'd suggest hoarding money and investing in flood protection, water conservation and storage, new desalination techniques, more land-efficient farming technologies and Soylent Green.
Flood protection and water conservation are necessary for obvious reasons.
New desalination techniques are necessary because today it's still pretty expensive in terms of money and energy compared to having fresh water sources.
More land-efficient farming technologies are good not just because arable land is being destroyed by floods or droughts, but because if you can have a multi-storey farm building it may be possible to have them built closer or within cities to reduce transport costs.
Soylent Green was a joke; we're not that desperate yet.
Simply put, I'm more interested in the cure than prevention since the latter doesn't make much sense to me anymore. But like the scientist in the article said, I didn't do any research. I have no data to back my opinions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be one of the few females in the male-dominated political arena, but damn she's got more balls than everyone else. All the other leaders have been so quick to express their desire to send financial aid to Greece that it really did feel like they were trying to gain popularity regardless of the long-term effects on their own economies. Haste is understandably necessary because each day they delay the value of the Euro drops a little more, yet too much haste would not allow them enough time to think things through.
She's the only one who dares to speak out in order to do what has to be done for the good of their currency. Unfortunately, people are people and some Greeks don't seem to understand what she's doing other than making them suffer. Of course, that's to be expected since they're the ones who are going to be punished. Worse is that she's also making enemies among her peers. I think this is going to be a major test of unity among the EU members. Of course it won't break since too much are at stake, but cracks can lead to bigger things when they are allowed to accumulate.
500MW for a day = 43,200,000MWh = 43,200,000,000kWh of energy
Second, they increased the weekend by a day. Well we've done that here in Singapore too by getting rid of the half-day on Saturday, but they're doing this for different reasons despite the economic impacts of forcing citizens to stop working for one day every week.
Third, power to government offices was cut by half. HALF! What are they suggesting? Reduce air-conditioning in their server rooms? Because that is one major energy black hole there. Are they going to revert to candles and buffalo chips to replace electric lights? Or just get lots of hamsters on steroids?
That's a squirrel but you get the idea. Fourth, commercial centres to be closed at 8pm. EIGHT?!?!? That's barely dusk! No more late-night movies or shopping for Pakistanis until this is over. Night life sucks at the moment over there.
Indonesian police has stopped recruiting men who have had their penis enlarged. At first I thought this was related to the email spams I get all the time. Were they... real? Turns out the penis enlargement refers to the technique used by men in the province, Papua, which makes them swell so much it "causes 'hindrance during training'".
I wonder why they can't just wear briefs or cups. Does it get so huge even without an erection that they can't find a suitable size?
China is considering copying MAS when they finally abandon their USD peg. I am sure they will not use the exact method judging from how the yuan is a much larger thing than the Singapore dollar. I'm not even sure if they should do it at all. Would the control of exchange rate instead of interest rate work for larger countries?
When a country's central bank adjusts interest rates to control its currency, it encourages or discourages lending and borrowing according to the current inflation rate. For example, when the inflation rate rises, it implies that the same amount of money will buy less goods in the future. This means the lender is going to make less if he charges the usual interest rates. Raising interest rates would prevent this loss. When the lender is the central bank, a loss would translate a loss in value of the currency.
Singapore's method of manipulating the exchange rate is much different from the above. Common sense says that this is much more closely related to international trade and doesn't affect internal trade as much. In fact it directly affects all trades that have to do with foreign currencies and has only indirect effects on industries that are only concerned with the SGD.
This means if China uses MAS's method, it would be placing a huge emphasis on its exports and much less attention on its internal economy. It works fine for Singapore because our city-state thrives on international trade, but the size of the PRC makes it strange to me that they would seriously consider this idea.
I never knew this was possible. If one in a million men have two penises, I don't think life for them would be as easy as this. For example, how would they fit in normal pants? Wouldn't they need two hands when they take a piss? Or at least 3 fingers?
I Love my GIRL and i take care of all of my responsibilities but everytime i save the money to buy something for the car is a problem. Even when i ask her and tell her what i am going to do in advance and at first she is ok with it then out of no where!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY YOU GOT THAT SHIT IT DOESNT LOOK GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHY DOES THE CAR GET ALL THAT ATTENTION AND I DONT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BITCH COUSE ALL THAT CARS DOES IS GIVE ME PLEASURE AND ALL YOU DO IS FUCKING COMPLAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
I SWEAR SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS SINGLE BUT IT IS NOT ALWAYS BAD AT TIMES SHE CAN BE THE RIDE OR DIE CHICK THAT I NEED AN SHE GAVE ME MY GREATEST LOVE IN LIFE WHICH IS MY BABY GIRL "Elena" Do any of you guys have this same problem or is it just me being too into my car?
Dear Billy,
This is your "wife" writing. Please note I am using this term loosely, because at the end of this letter, this will no longer be the case.
First of all, why are you putting our business on the internet? I have asked you and told you repeatedly that what happens to us is BETWEEN us. Clearly, your little plan to gain support backfired. Most of the people who commented on this thread AGREED WITH ME. The funny thing, is that they haven't even heard my side of the story.
So, since you insist on insulting me, I must insist on defending myself. Let's get a few things clear. When you are good, you are the greatest man I know. But ever since our child has been born, you have been nothing but a selfish idiot.
You are not the father of the year, so stop giving people the impression that you take care of her because I do all the work. She is 8 months old and I have been taking care of her ever since she was born. True, there was a month that you helped out because I called you a deadbeat dad, and you did take care of her after she was born because I had a C Section, but beyond that, the only time you take care of her is when you absolutely have to. Otherwise, you would rather pay for a sitter to do the job so you can spend your day online or working on your stupid car.
Which, incidentally, is under my name. Don't forget that.
Furthermore, the problem we have is not about the car. It is about your order of importance. Every time you have to take the car in for maintenance, I don't object. When you need to buy things that the car NEEDS, I don't object. But when you want to waste your money on frivolous items when you know we need to spend money on other things, LIKE YOUR CITIZENSHIP SO YOU CAN GET A DAMN JOB! then I have a problem. I think your peers would agree with me.
I love you more than any person I have ever loved in my life, but you are impossible to live with. I am working over 50 hours a week, I am taking 18 credits in school, and I am raising our daughter when I am not doing one or the other. All you do is work as a bouncer 3 nights a week. Dude, get real.
Why is it wrong that I want you to spend time with me, with us? When did I become a bitch because I want you in our life? Being in a relationship means sacrifice. Contrary to what you wrote, the "$13K worth of sh*t" that is in my closet was acquired BEFORE YOU CAME INTO THE PICTURE. I got that on my own. There is a reason why I don't have any new designer handbags, I have something much more valuable to me: MY DAUGHTER!!!
And, FYI, you are obligated to tell me what you are doing with your time and your money. I have a right to know where you are in case of emergency. Your "movements" as you call them are not what matters. What matters is that I know that you are safe and plan on coming home, because believe it or not I care about what happens to you. At least, I did.
In the end, I am sorry it came to this. I am sorry you felt that you had to talk to complete strangers about our problems instead of me. I am also sorry that this isn't going to work anymore, because I really do love you.
Perhaps next time you shouldn't leave your AcuraZine account logged on for me to view it. I have already opened up my own AcuraZine account, so if you delete this post, I will simply repost it under my own.
Hopefully with the next girl, you will have learned your lesson because I am tired of trying to raising you into being a man.
"And I'm on to the next one...."
Good Luck, Rachel
P.S. Thank you to all that offered support. These last few months have been very challenging to me and it very endearing to see that I have the support of strangers. For those of you that have met us, I apologize that you had to see this. This kind of behavior is not appropriate. We are not legally married, and he has been given the option many times to leave if he is so unhappy.
I look forward to seeing the replys on this!!! FYI, if you do catch me on AcuraZine in the future (as I prefer to spend my free time with my daughter and not the internet), you will find me under MDX. Have to upgrade to a bigger car for the baby and dogs!
And don't worry about me. I will be fine. It isn't the first time the man I relied on showed me that he was unreliable.
This is just a bit of the thread. The rest of it consist of him pwning himself with his own immatured logic. For example, when he posted that
all you guys keep talking shit but like i said my kid has everything plus more and there is nothing i wouldnt do for her............
someone replied with
.....except the following:
- Become a citizen - Pursue a career that will support a family - Obtain your own car loan - Work things out with the mother of your child - Accept any personal responsibility for anything on this list
So true. He works only 3 nights a week while she works the normal hours plus study in uni plus take care of their baby. That he even bothers to justify his actions just amazes me. How the heck did he grow up?? Oh wait, did he?
BUT HE DID TRY TO DEFEND HIMSELF! Here's more of his responses (post #332)
What was so wrong with what I wrote? I said its not always bad and that my daughter was the greatest gift she ever gave me. Not my fucking TL. How was I disrespectful? She was disrespectful to me by posting that response. And I know you guys know how females are and all they do is talk shit.
I can't believe they were ever married.
(Post #411)
Maybe i should had put my words differently when i originally posted this but i must said i am a lucky guy my girl is one of a kind.......i made be an asshole but i would do anything for my familyAND THERE ISNT GOING TO BE NO FUCKING PARTING OUT OF MY CAR TO ALL YOU HATERS He still thinks he did all he could for his family.
Anyway he went on with more responses but he never succeeded in redeeming himself in the eyes of everyone else. In fact this thread got so popular it was spread on 4chan too. At around post #1555, mentions of 4chan became common.
He didn't know what he was getting himself into when he went to 4chan to challenge the denizens of /b/. Anons there are known to be creative in digging out info about people. Apparently they managed to find out his phone number and the bar he worked at. According to later posts he changed his phone number.
Btw his Facebook account was found long before that. Nevertheless he tried to act tough.
(post #1720)
First of all i am not no e-thug----online gangster------or whatever else you want to call me -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------the only real gangsters that i know are iethere dead, lock up, wheel chair, or looking behind their backs and i dont have any of those problems...........but keeep it coming couse i am loving it and i found out how i can make money of this stupid ass thread so pls keep coming couse you are making me money..................................all i got to do is just sit on my tool of a ass
ps fuckyou again astro i ask you to close this shit but you didnt so pls get a bigger server couse i am too big for this shit and i want to make at least 10k by tonight
this has being brought to you by billz1109 the originator of this fucking thread full of bitches
He's still an international asshole. He says he's making money from this yet swears at the admin for not closing the thread. Yep, he likes the attention.
Finally at #2217 he gave up with
i swear i am tire of talking shit you guys are just as stupid as i am........me and my boys had a blast with this thread tand this forum now its TIME TO MOVE ON TO THE NEXT ONE
I AM OFFICIALLY RETIRING FROM THIS GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL.......I ENJOYED ALL THE PICS OF ME AND YOUR CREATIVITY.......ASTRO KEEP MAKING YOUR MONEY AND IF YOU CAN I WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY I MADE THIS WEBSITE PLS SEND ME A PRIVATE MESSAGE WITH THE #
THAT ALL FOLKS
Yea. They were just as stupid he was. Mostly. Some were witty though.
Would you like to buy a vowel?
Found a FB link that would always go to your FB page.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?=743264506
It looks like it goes to someone's page but it only goes to yours. Useful for tricking others.
Sydney Shark! This is the sequel to Miami Shark. If you thought the first game contained insane exaggeration, you MUST play Sydney Shark and near the end, pull down the flying Chinese object. Now THAT is insane exaggeration. Link to the prequel, Miami Shark, is included in the main menu of this game.
Bad Translator! Using Google Translate 54 times, it can turn anything into anything else.
"Señor Hybrido"
54 translations later...
"Age data"
"Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity"
54 translations later...
"Physics"
Wait.. WHAT? A FULL FACE TRANSPLANT? WHO THE FUCK DONATED HIS FACE?
Ok serious now. The new face includes, in addition to the skin, the muscles, lips, teeth and "other facial features".
My face after I watched the video. Really. That surgeon has to be freakin talented! It's not just about pasting the skin onto the head, but also reconnecting all the nerves (includes muscles, remember? Those muscles need nerves or they'll just atrophy) and replacing the teeth and nose.
The Sun, now in HD format.
Internet addiction? Why call the need to constantly have the ability to communicate with anyone an addiction? The example they gave about the Korean parents is terrible. Gaming is not what hooked people to the Internet, instant communication is. Facebook, Messenger and emails are what is making people need the Internet. Porn too, but that's not for everyone.
Adding to what I've said in past rants about the Internet, this is just evidence that people are instinctively working towards a group mind.
Just encountered this website full of quotes by highly conservative Christians. SO MUCH TROLLBAIT!!! I'm not kidding here. The next time you want to piss someone off, just go to that website and copy and paste the stuff they have there. Here's an example:
Quote# 72237
Hear we go again. I'm Christian. To those who doubt, take this.
Fact atheism is a religion, it is something one practices.
Fact atheist have faith, faith in science.
Fact atheist have a god, it is whatever is the center of their life.
Fact atheist claim to be all-knowing, ironic isn't it.
HAHAHA! Some atheists would get, at the very least, annoyed when they are told that "atheism is a religion". And it's true! Atheists have faith in science! There are so many things in science that the average atheist cannot understand and yet think that they're true. If that's not faith then nothing is.
Quote# 72059
It will be harder and harder as your profess your faith in Christ to live in this world. In some Islamic nations Christians are being put to death for their faith in the Lord Jesus. Middle East terrorists are killing in the name of their god Allah. Jews and Christians to them are infidels and of no worth.
China, the world’s largest nation has become a "killing field" for Christians. The government seems to be determined to bring Christianity to the ash heap. Government authorities interrupt their church services often in China. They are arrested, tortured, and can be killed for having church. The Jews of course have been persecuted for years.
The Bible says, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." You might say, preacher, I am not being persecuted. Then according to Jesus, you are not living as godly as you should in your daily life.
Any Christians reading this? You getting persecuted enough recently? You'd better find some way to get punished for being a believer then, quickly!
Quote# 72033
"Adults recognize there are crazies on both sides." - Anonymous [a concern troll]
No. Our 'Side' is rational conservatism. That automatically excludes crazies of any stripe. The Left is by definition, crazy.
Insanity; def: doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome each time. Marxist, redistributionist, thugocracies have been tried many times down though history.
They always fail for the same basic reasons. Modern Leftists keep trying to make it work again and again. Fail. QED: crazy. Therefore, not 'us'.
Bomb throwing, killing, etc. is not a rational conservative response to a political issue. Therefore, not 'us' even if they call themselves Christians, etc.
So, there are NOT crazies on 'both sides'.
chuck in st paul, Moonbattery65 Comments [4/6/2010 10:21:26 AM] Fundie Index: 58Submitted By: DevilsChaplain
If you don't agree, you're not a Christian. Admit the truth now because lying is a sin.
Quote# 71998
(Question: When will libs be wise enough to see that ignorance is not bad...?)
it is actually good to be "ignorant" and not be indocritnated into the teachings of this word...for example,the lie of darwin has sent many to hell!it is starting to get exposed by what it is by people you call "creationists".also,the lie of gore aka global warming just also got exposed !in fact it won't be long before the lies of einstein and newton ,and the lie of keynes are exposed for what they are as well !!!
following Jesus word, Yahoo! Answers66 Comments [4/6/2010 3:59:10 AM]Fundie Index: 83Submitted By: Son Goku on the Flying Nimbus
I don't know about this but... really? It's "Christian" to believe that global warming is a scam?
Another website is Conservapedia. The following was found on the front page.
It's hilarious that they are taking things so seriously they make it look like they're fighting some kind of war.
This may be subtly phrased, but its meaning is obvious.
If some issues could be resolved, they would have been long ago. People have had thousands of years to do that. If they couldn't, I don't see how it's worth my effort to try. Be and let be.
A wise man once said," Why so serious?" I hope Singaporean Christians will never be this extreme but to quote a song," Que sera sera". It's life - anything can happen. I just hope nobody ever comes up to me and try to tell me that I'm a frickin Satanist and Robert Jordan is the Anti-Christ just because I'm a fan of the Wheel of Time. All those characters who could use the One Power and the ability to create life with it, that's got to be witchcraft/occult-like.
Disclaimer: I am not deliberately picking on this particular religion. It's just so easy to find such websites about it compared to those about believers of other major religions.
That nonsense about all problems in life being trials to make people stronger, that's bull. This is said only because all those who have learnt otherwise after failing the trial isn't heard by anyone. Who listens to a loser anyway?
That dog is smart enough to come up with the idea of interspecies anal sex? Well, that's assuming homosexuality and interspecies sex are CHOICES. But it may be instinctive, just like how some men are strongly attracted to large breasts on women and some are even attracted to animal costumes. In that case it wouldn't need to be intelligent enough to think of sodomising a human, it'd just want to stick it in the boy's pooper.
Anyway they took DNA samples from it but the purpose was not explained. Were they trying to see if the dog has human genes? As if it was some human/canine hybrid from a bitch and its very desperate male owner? XD
Most importantly, "The dog ran out of the house with the boy still attached." That is truly the greatest of dogs. A pit bull it may be, but a hero it is for all sexually confused mammals.
Here's a naked monkey. Feeling horny yet? It's only 3% different from a normal human, right? Obviously your ancestors weren't as picky as you are.
Ah Youtube, it's so full of shit.
A game that has no objective doesn't make it pointless. Same with life. Just because something does not have an inherent purpose does not make it completely useless. A rock next to the pavement may seem to be completely without meaning in its existence, but look underneath and see the worm that has made it its home. In other words, anything can be given a purpose, it only depends on whether you can figure out how to use them. Think MacGuyver. Useless isn't useless till one has given up on thinking of a way to use it.
See? Real hackers don't do things that don't make money. A successful hacking attempt to access the Google passwords would have allowed, in the very least, access to Gmail accounts. Email accounts may not be directly profitable, but they're a treasure trove of data including passwords to other things.
I'm not sure how this is supposed to be useful. The governments may allow them to fly but the ash cloud isn't directed by them. Ash blocking the pilots' view and clogging jet engines will still be there whether or not the EU is allowing flights. All the tests and analysis aren't proving much, not when lives are at risk here.
People will have to be quite desperate to want to fly despite the news of a new ash cloud.
In Soviet Russia, Moscow sings you!
Dschinghis Khan was a German band best known for this song, Moskau.
This was probably their last performance, which was around 10-15 years ago according to the comments. I'm pretty sure they were really singing because it sounded like someone was slightly out of tune and the bass was too loud (if you had noticed, the two male singers sang the parts with low pitch in the previous performances). Nowadays everyone lip-synchs or have to change the songs a little during the actual performances because digital editing is common in albums.
Songs in the past are different from those we hear today. They required patience since they took some time to build up. This song, Rasputin, took 1 minute to get good.
The things people sell on eBay. There's even Heinz ketchup and belachan available. Belachan I can understand, but ketchup?
I should probably get another fan or two. The main problem with my home is ventilation. We have two large windows facing east and north but they're rarely opened because we don't want to worry about closing them when it suddenly rains or when we go out.
There are also two rooms with large windows facing east but now that my bro has made one of it his own room and forced my mum to take the others as hers, both of them have taken my habit of closing their doors. To make things worse, since my mum doesn't stay in her room much she never opens her windows (she always switches on her aircon at night). My bro doesn't seem to open his window much, maybe a slit in one section, and he generally keeps his door shut.
Hence I have to keep my bathroom door open in addition to my window in hope that the air from my window would flow through my room into my bathroom and out through the tiny window there. A ventilator in my bathroom window would really help but that costs quite a bit of money. I could also install it on my own except I have no experience with this sort of thing.
Almost all the Empires servers are being DDOSed by some guy who has too much time and money. So while the servers lag to death I'm installing Baldur's Gate 2 again. This time (all my previous saves are probably in my laptop) I'm playing as a Fighter, with Kensai as the subclass. The Kensai can do a lot of damage with swords but he cannot wear any armour. However he comes with an increased (or decreased in the old system BGII used) armour to offset the complete absence of protective gear.
The ash cloud from Iceland is affecting things in Asia too. Passengers of the cancelled flights of Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific are getting free accommodation in local hotels. Just think of all the logistics that requires. It's not only about booking rooms and making deals with hotels, but they also have to keep their budget in mind.
Then there's the problem with administration. Think of all the names they have to shift from the "transfer" list to whatever the list is now for these people who are forced to stay in this city till the cloud dissipates enough and all the tickets they have to provide for them so that they can board a flight in the future. Some would have definitely tried to cancel or even argue with the airlines, causing things to get even messier than it already was. So much room for errors here, especially with the short amount of time they have to work with (less than 24 hours probably).
There is also the question of which hotels to choose from. It's not like airlines have much contact with hotels since it's usually the travel agencies that combine the two for the tour packages for travellers.
Finally, think of all the airline meals going to waste!!!
Things have to be worse over in Western Europe since they can't even get incoming flights unlike Asia. Must be an administrative nightmare there.
Salami tastes so good. Why does it have to be so expensive? T.T
One can tell how profitable scamming WoW accounts must be simply by reading the scam emails. Here are 2 of the most legitimate looking emails I have received in my spam mailbox within the last couple weeks:
If I don't describe the discrepancies between these and actual emails from Blizzard, one might have thought that these went to Spam by mistake! Seriously, the first time I got these email I really did think that. The only thing that made me think twice about them was that I haven't touched WoW for years.
So I googled these and discovered that they are all fakes. The second screenshot already has the link highlighted. The one typed into the text of the email is perfectly legit, the one it's really linked to as shown at the bottom of the screen is not, even though to a noob it may seem perfectly fine.
The first is a little less obvious. Other than the wrong amount of spaces between words in a few spots, there really isn't much to make it look false. Even the links go to exactly where they say they're linked to.
The problem is that you're supposed to check your password at us.battle.net/support/login. In the real Blizzard websites, "battle" and "net" should be in one word, "battlenet". Really close there.
If I were still playing WoW, I might have believed them but not go to the website. What I would have done is email Blizzard Support directly and ask them what the heck is happening and when it happened because most likely I would have logged on to check all my virtual belongings and found nothing amiss.
Truth to be told, I don't know what I might have done since it isn't happening and "would" is not "will". Still I am pretty sceptical whenever I'm asked to enter highly sensitive info like IC number and passwords. Call it paranoia, but when you see how incredibly realistic some scams are you'd know that some degree of caution mixed with fear is necessary on the Internet.
Even things like Paypal and stuff aren't really that secured. It's just that no one is making a big deal out of the scams and frauds they have been victims of over the years. All the secured network nonsense they use today over Internet transactions are merely "secured" enough to be not worth the risks, ie if a professional hacker wants to steal your credit card info he can. It's just that hackers today don't do things that don't make enough money to cover the risks, except for newbie hackers aka script kiddies.
This is already proven by past cases of hackers stealing data from banks and companies that have appeared on the news. That is how much of a risk the hackers get if they try to do that - the entire world gets alerted by their success. The other banks, in turn, may increase their security. Hence we don't see them do it often. If I were a hacker I'd have to be making at least a million USD in such a hacking operation to convince me to do it.
One of the better ways to save electricity is to switch off your aircon before you are done sleeping. The trick is in estimating how long it takes for your room to become warm enough to wake you up, and make it coincide with the time you're supposed to get out of bed at.
For my room, it usually takes an hour to warm up enough when there is sunlight, two hours on a cloudy morning, 3 hours between 2-6am or 4 hours on a normal morning up till 8am if I have my fan on. This is also due to the fact that my window faces the east and I do not have curtains. If I hang a large towel to cover my window, I can slow down the heating process by about 30mins, but I always have trouble getting out of bed in the morning if the sun isn't shining at full blast into my room.
Therefore I usually set the Off timer of my aircon to at least an hour before my estimated waking time. After all, the cool air that remains when I leave my room is always wasted. Now I'm experimenting with the combo of fan and aircon to see how long it takes to become uncomfortably warm.
Don't jump to conclusions. My usual settings on my aircon when I switch it on at night is 27 degrees and at the minimum 1 out of 5 fan speed. My fan is left at minimum speed because even at these settings it gets very cold (the human body's tolerance for the cold is very much reduced when it is asleep). If I could have it switch on automatically right after my aircon switches off, I would. Too bad I can't, so here's my only option.
I estimate that if I have my fan on, I could have my aircon switch off itself at 5am and wake up at 8. The time between 7-8am is when my room heats up very quickly due to the sun rising from the east. 5-6am is when I get a nice cool breeze as the sun warms up the air in that direction, hence switching off the aircon before 5am when I plan to wake up at around 6-7am is a feasible idea.
The only way I can come up with to stretch it more is to cover my window, but sunlight is important.
Jagged Alliance is really hard on the second of three difficulties! I can barely keep all my mercenaries alive through every battle and if I rest for too long, the loyalty of the towns decrease and drag my income down with it.
Now I have to let go of my weakest mercenary. Even though he's the weakest, he is an excellent medic. I have a second medic (comes free with the storyline) but she is only half as good as he is. I'm now considering a new run.
Empires v2.25 is finally out, after over a year of development from v2.24d. Comes with all new special particle effects that make nukes explode in mushroom clouds and artilleries blow up dirt clouds when they hit.
I only wish they had also added fake craters in addition to the dirt clouds for added visual impact. Nevertheless, Empires looks much better now.
Procrastination is a sweet habit. The acceptance of the fact that you do not have to do something now and will not encounter any consequences for postponing it brings a sort of exhilaration, a great sense of relief, even if it's only for a few days.
I'll type the rest tomorrow.
Don Quixote is the first book of its kind that I've read. It's in the comedy genre but its humour is more of the slapstick sort, the form that is more popular decades ago when Charlie Chaplin slipping on a banana skin was widely considered hilarious.
Or maybe I just don't get the jokes, I don't know. Well slapstick humour is still popular today but back then it wasn't coarse. Fecal matter and regurgitated food became funny only in the 90s.
I've only gone through less than a fifth of the book ( part 1 chapter 15) and I understand that the entire book is about this farmer who read so much fiction about chivalrous knights saving damsels in distress that one day he decided to become a knight errant. So he put on some old armour used by his ancestors ages ago, saddled his farmhorse and named a girl in a nearby village as his lady love without her knowledge.
Then he travelled on his horse with his squire he recruited early in his journey, using the morals as described by various novels (including the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) to handle problems he met on the road, only to land themselves in trouble more often than not. Somehow everyone managed to see him as a crazy man except for Sancho, who actually believed he was a knight.
Anyways this is definitely not the sort of book that keeps me turning the pages, but it serves well enough as a filler while I search for other books. Good books in the fantasy and sci-fi genre aren't limitless after all, not when Terry Goodkind is done writing the Sword of Truth books, Robert Jordan is dead, George R. R. Martin is taking forever to write the next Song of Ice and Fire novel, Isaac Asimov is long dead and Terry Goodkind is using the same old formula for all of his trilogies.
One would have thought that with 6 billion people in the world we could have written more quality books than this. Well the truth sucks.
Unrelated but here's some Brokeback Potter.
"You fraternised with the enemy!" "Oh no, I didn't enter."
Some people are obviously twisting facts to suit theories.
A study shows that spanking children could make them more aggressive. I don't agree. Not all children understand logic and the necessity for good behaviour even when you try to explain it to them. I remember the times when I did the things I did even after repeated warnings/scoldings simply because I had no idea why I should not do it and the explanations given to me didn't seem to make sense till I was much older.
I also like this comment from that page:
yes..very true. I and my friends…go spanking at home school etc and we all turned out to be bullies and now we bully our neighbors, colleagues etc. Surprisingly they are still loves us very much and very close to us. ANd that too … we ended up being successful in our careers. I just cant figure that out. Those who didn’t get whooped, are so good now that they smoke the earth friendly green stuffs, make friends with everyone and have “friendly” fights and issues.. Yet for some reason..people don’t like them. And they are not into becoming successful.. and that way helping us bullies be there. Research is very right.. no spanking guys.
Yo Bro -”Frederik Joelving” Its nice to post some article picked from a trash can to get some attention.. Now research on the “drinking cow urine” to fight cancer..(No kidding.. there is another one of those scientist who claims that.) That maybe maybe your next big Article! Idle mind devils den.
Bleach, atm, sucks
Just remembered about Bleach (the anime) and checked my records (I have a TXT file with the filename as "Next is XXX" where "XXX" refers to the number of the next episode I should watch) and found that I'm only at episode 238 next for Bleach and 127 for Naruto Shippudden. Since I've long given up on Naruto, I ignored that and went to check the DB website and to my surprise, Bleach is already at episode 266.
That's a 27-episode marathon coming up! Then as I clicked on the links I found the torrent for episode 252 to be dead. I was unable to find any replacement links for this particular episode either. To make things worse, all the episodes are still fillers. In fact all the coming episodes are fillers until somewhere in June, and even that is unconfirmed.
Playing with Fallout 3 and Oblivion on third-person view (go to console and type "tfc") made me think of how movies can be made this way.
Right now, moving pictures are events shown on 2D screens and a few on 3D but that's not what we really want, just what people can make.
What people want is more than just this peek of voyeurism. They want to see the events unfold. Films today, made with all sorts of camera techniques, merely help the audience see the important parts to offset the limits of a single camera.
Then here is my suggestion: Imagine if someone has programmed the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 to move on his own, to complete the entire story automatically. Now the player controls a camera that can move freely in all directions, so he can move the camera with the protagonist or to anywhere else.
A movie that is viewable from every single angle. The audience is given control of the point of view, enabling them to see things in first, second or third-person views. They become ghosts that float around and can watch the protagonist as he goes on to save the world, or watch the other characters in their sub-plots.
Of course, a "default" camera is provided to give the audience the experience that one would expect to get from the films we have now. This would be involve instructions from a director to make it a "real" film.
One can also see this as a role-playing game in which the player merely watches. He may be able to control the time but he cannot affect the world in any other way.
Too bad I'm neither a programmer nor a drama student.
Of course, money and religion shouldn't even be intertwined at all, but things are the way they are and I'm in no position to do anything about that. The thing is, if the believers allow their places of worship to be taken away without doing everything they can, what are they believing in in the first place? Are they just going to worship at another place that isn't sold yet?
Temples and churches are sacred buildings, they aren't supposed to be built and taken down on a whim. In a sense, they are symbols of the strength of the followers' belief. If the community is okay with their church being sold and none of them are broke, then what they're saying is that their families/personal lives are more important than their religion.
There is the possibility that the people who use those churches wouldn't be able to save them even if they had pooled their resources. This would prove that money is necessary to sustain a religion, a very unfortunate phenomenon. In terms of natural selection, this is evidence that religions with wealthier believers have better chances of survival.
This news reminds me of the Papal States and how the power of the Catholic Church is still waning today. At first it was Napoleon who took a bite out of their lands, then when Italy was unified they took the rest, leaving that tiny bit that is now called the Vatican City. By the way if you come across any Vatican Euros it's a good idea to keep it due to their rarity. At the rate it's going they may get even rarer.
Oh wow this is surprising. In World War I, the British recruited hundreds of Nagas to fight for them in France. Apparently the German Minotaurs were strong enough to defeat the French Harpies regiment. They should have just upgraded them to Harpy Hags to get the No Retaliation bonus because it's cheap and makes the Harpies much more powerful. Nagas are expensive though they are worth the gold. Even today India still has a Naga Regiment in their Army.
Jokes aside, the British really did get Nagas to help at the French front from Nagaland, north-east India. The Naga Regiment in the Indian Army is also real and last fought in the 1999 against Pakistan.
This month's issue of National Geographic is all about water. Less than 1% of the Earth's water is fresh and liquid, and in many places in the world people are getting too much or not enough of it.
What really caught my eyes was this map showing the price of tap water around the world. Apparently Singapore's tariff of US$0.61 per 100 gallons (S$0.85 per 379 litres) is pretty low for a developed country, but very high compared to the rest of South-east Asia. To the North of us, the only country that has more expensive water is Japan. To the South, Australia and New Zealand.
In fact in the entire Asian continent, the price of water in Singapore is only lower than those in Japan and Dubai. Compared to the rest of the world, it is still cheaper than almost all of those in Western Europe, North America and Oceania. I can probably say that we have the most expensive water in our region but the cheapest in the First World.
Traditionally 13 of the 14 Dalai Lamas have been born in Tibet, with only one exception who's from Mongolia. Since Tibet might as well be part of China now and Tenzin hasn't said where he will be reborn, we may see lots of Tibetan monks travelling on planes in the future.
It is entirely possible that the next Dalai Lama may turn out to be a Israeli Jew and the following image is an artist's impression of the face of the Jewish God when this happens.
FFXIV is going to come out in the near future! I'm quite interested to see if SquareEnix has learnt anything from FFXI in the last few years. If they do succeed, I am seriously considering trying it out. But first I'll have to wait for reviews months after its release.
This is really a bad time to be an Arab. If the average non-Arab person gets caught smoking in the plane's restroom, he most definitely would not be wrestled to the ground and cause the pilot to call for help. Fighter jets would also not be called to aid in the situation and create headlines.
But if you're Arab and have a Muslim name, even one sniff of smoke coming from the cubicle you're in can cause White House aides to rush to the US President to inform him of a possible terrorist.
Paranoia? No, it's just caution... right?
Just found this little gem of a game called Jagged Alliance 2. I've only tried a bit of it but it looks good so far. Played for a few hours but trying to figure out the controls is giving me quite a bit of frustration. Googling for forums that discuss this gave me little, but the manual turned out to be easier to find than I thought.
Jagged Alliance 2 is a tactical RPG in which you control hired mercenaries to fight for you. You have to pay them everyday, but they also offer long-term contracts that last up to a fortnight. Each merc has his or her specialty (Fox was an ex-nurse so she had pretty good medical skills), but some are more like jack-of-all trades that are slightly better at some things.
I estimate at least 20 mercenaries on the list, but I could only hire so many. I'm currently trying to play with 4 cheap mercenaries, all with 1-week contracts. Just those 4 almost bankrupt me, reducing my starting capital of $35k to $3.5k. I'll have to find some income soon, the how of which I am currently trying to find out.
As far as I can tell, I get revenue by controlling the mines in the resource-rich country the game is set in. I can also control the towns and train people but I have no idea how yet. Neither do I know how to control a mine.
I'm on my second attempt already, the first was horrible and I didn't know how to advance. It took the second try for me to find out by chance that I was supposed to give a letter written for a rebel leader to this civilian woman in the starting map. I thought she was there just for flavour, as decoration. It's not like she was unique or anything, because I met lots of other NPCs like her later.
It's either getting warm at night or the lack of exercise does affect my perception of temperature. I remember the time before I went for RT when I had to switch on my air-con every night, a habit I almost got rid of by the time my RT was finished. Now I'm getting close to switching it on every night again.
Or is it just getting warmer at night now? That's possible too. Since my RT began in Dec when it's the coolest part of the year, it makes sense too.
I wish there's some way to generate electricity. My household spends over $170 a month on the electricity bills and the tariff was recently raised at the beginning of this month by 0.69cents to 23.56cents per kWh, so I'll probably see a $4-6 rise in my bills. Not a lot, true, but it's the little things like this that make my household electricity bill reach $160-180 with only 3 person living here.
On the other hand, with 771kWh used last month, there aren't many things I can that can make a dent in that number short of covering all my windows with solar panels. That's like an average of 1.07kW.
I've never really considered why people become vegetarians or vegans (vegans avoid dairy products and eggs, vegetarians don't) until I read this article. I just assume that people stop eating meat either because their parents have always been on that sort of diet or that they are in need of the health benefits of such foods.
It's interesting to know that some avoid meat for ethical reasons. I don't mean the view that killing animals for food is wrong because that reason is complete nonsense. However I do understand how it feels wrong to cage animals for their entire lives only to end it with a quick death. To make things worse, we dump a lot of it into the trash.
Seriously, the animals led meaningless lives that were given a purpose only in death. Wasting meat is therefore very wrong, almost monstrous. Not only is that a waste of resources, but is also an insult to the lives that were given for no reason other than to be our food.
So if you think wasting rice is bad, think about wasting meat, fish and eggs too. In fact eggs are even worse if you think about it because those are animals that never even knew life. Every egg wasted is similar to an abortion, a potentially perfectly healthy lifeform thrown away for the sake of convenience.
Anyway the article does make a good point about why vegetarians should not avoid oysters. If it's true that oyster farms do little damage to the environment, then it is no more ethical to stay away from it than to eat vegetables. In fact most if not all shellfish can be consumed by vegetarians if the methods of farming them are environmentally friendly.
As for me, I'm a carnivore who hates oyster, rather like the opposite of the writer of that article.
Where lies the limit that separates men from women? If a man has to look like a woman to look good, is Man a man no more?
What, then, is the difference between a good-looking man and a transvestite?
If Mr Christ ever existed, he was one heck of a chameleon. A fact people have to remember is that according to the stories, he was born in the Middle East. Take into account how large the world was in those days, especially with the main form of public transport being animal-powered wooden boxes (most likely without government subsidies and student discounts), the probability of having a mixed racial heritage was highly unlikely.
Due to the constant movement of Earth's tectonic plates, it's also uncertain where the Middle East was over two millennia ago. Hence, we have a significant amount of confusion as to which racial group Jesus belonged to.
First we have our most popular candidate. The majority of Christians are white, the Pope is white, hence Jesus was white, maybe even Nordic according to the Nazis (Viking Jesus?).
Since the Middle East is full of Arabs, Jesus was more likely to be one of them. Jesus being an Arab could have been true. After all, there are quite a few Arab Christians in the Middle East today.
Or he could have been this sort of Middle Eastern: less tanned and slightly more Jewish-looking.
Then again, he could have been of African descent. I mean, Egypt is just next to the Middle East. Who can say his "dad" didn't have a liking for "black booty"? Or it could have been that Hollywood was actually right in hiring Morgan Freeman to portray the Christian God accurately?
Or maybe Mary was Chinese. With it being a virgin birth, it didn't matter what race the father was. The Chinese have been known to travel to many parts of the world, especially for trade. The Romans themselves had been great fans of Chinese silk, so it's not an impossibility if some Chinese had settled in Bethlehem and whoever/whatever impregnated her turned out to have some sort of Asian fetish, if he wasn't Chinese himself in the first place.
Therefore, Jesus could have been Chinese. Not to mention that the continents have been moving quite a bit over time, so who knows?
It's as if other countries have any say in that. Anyway I voted no. Rape simulation games are part of the Japanese culture, albeit a small bit of it. It's not like they're even trying hard to spread the love of such games outside Japan.
Don't get me wrong, I avoid that stuff like the plague. But if there are people who like this sort of thing, why stop them? It's not like they are actually raping women on the trains. The Japanese economy sucks, their young men are mostly suicidal and their women are generally fugly. To deprive them of 3D virtual interactive sex would be pure evil.
It is true that they have access to all kinds of kinky sex toys already, but there is a big difference between sticking the phallus into lubricated foam (onacup) and doing the same thing while staring at a voluptuous woman with perfect, oiled skin.
I say let them do whatever they want, as long as real people aren't involved in the actual act. Or else, what's the point of buying fantastic high-end video cards? Gaming? LOL!
Oh wait, I do that...
I don't know about everyone else, but IMO as long as something isn't real, you can have as much of it as you want. When the day comes that people can no longer differentiate between 3D sex from the actual thing, there will be peace. After all, sex is a major motivation for most humans in many things, including the struggle for success. Where there is competition, there is conflict.
This brings us to the question of whether the virtual world in the Matrix was really wrong. Really, is it? If all five of your senses tell you that it's real, why insist that it is fake? Lots of people have settled for much, much less! In such a world, every person can live like kings and none will ever know the difference. Or they can just remain in a dreamless sleep permanently, but there's nothing to discuss in that situation.
What I have in mind is a cross between the Matrix and the pods used by Dr Stanislaus Braun in Fallout 3. In the game, Dr Braun and a few families assigned to his command were basically immortalised by living in a virtual simulation in which he had complete control of his surroundings. Theoretically speaking, if humans can have a surplus of everything, there would be no conflict.
If every single soul is happy and no one is fighting, is it really that bad? What if, say, all participants are given the choice of leaving the simulations upon reaching adulthood (babies are grown in pods like in the movie)?
Fact is, most people are willing to trade freedom for peace, as Law has proven. If everyone is given the choice to renounce all ties with reality for perfect peace in a completely realistic simulation where there is no hunger, war or disease, I'd say it would be a tough choice for most. Don't forget, billions of people around the globe are working their entire lives to enter a world exactly like that in the afterlife. An alternative like that would be as good as a shortcut to an inferior version of Heaven.
The original video for Benny Benasi's Satisfaction
Looks weird. I'll have to agree with the 12 million views that the following song suits the video much better. I get the meaning behind the whole concept but the idea of the slowly changing faces and posture just feels fundamentally incompatible with the tone of the music.
Music is Holy Ghost by 009 Sound System. If they could remove all those words associated with the original Satisfaction and extend the video to suit the length of Holy Ghost it would be even better. Too bad they can't. Original music below.
If not for my phone's inability to produce bass beats, I'd use Holy Ghost as my ringtone.
(How to pronounce Machiavelli: mech - ee - uh - valley)
Re-reading Machiavelli's The Prince (Il Prince in Italian), I find it a very honest book because of the introduction, where the degree of desperation the author had in trying to suck up to Lorenzo de' Medici is shown. Imagine, a high level diplomat and politician being exiled to a rural village for the rest of his life. Makes perfect sense that he would do anything just to get into Lorenzo's good books.
To me, Machiavelli was condensing everything he had into that little book in his attempt to regain some sort of dignity and power. Not only that, but he also repeatedly discredited the previous head of state whom Lorenzo had overthrown, the very same guy Machiavelli worked for in the previous 18 years.
Here's a short summary of the politics in Florentine, the then-city-state where he lived:
1494: Niccolo Machiavelli began working for the Florentine government as a clerk and ambassador. Later in the same year, the ruling Medici family was expelled and the Republic of Florence was formed, headed by Piero Soderini.
1509: The home-grown militia army raised by Machiavelli successfully conquers Pisa.
1512: The Medici returns with the help of the Pope and Spanish mercenaries, defeating the Florentine army. Soderini was exiled to Dalmatia while Machiavelli was tortured before also getting exiled to a village in the middle of nowhere.
I think it is obvious how badly he would want to return to some form of glory he used to have. The introduction might have been normal in those days between a commoner and a member of royalty (the Medici family were as good as royalty), but it also feels like it's brimming with ass-kissing.
Instead of making a joke, her popularity became the joke. "... I mean like internet bullies shouldn't do something like that because it's not professional at all."
I shed tears because it's Miss Singapore.
Point 1:
I think she meant to say "matured" instead of "professional".
Point 2:
Internet bullies can neither be matured nor professional. If they are matured, they wouldn't be bullies in the first place. If they're professional... whoever has heard of a professional bully?
Point 3:
Singapore internet bullies are MILD. Spamming insults and opening a Facebook group to piss her off can cause her to be "badly affected"? What if someone decides to find out her address before spamming it on Facebook/Twitter with fake accounts? Someone has already tried to molest her, so a stalker is really quite possible. It just depends on how internet-savvy that pervert is.
The mean thing by doing that isn't that it makes her address known to the public, but what can done with this bit of data.
I'm not familiar with the local gossip news but from the comments I can tell that this isn't the first of her failed attempts at gaining some positive attention. I'm not going to say that she should give up on regaining her fame, but her notoriety makes it necessary for her to rethink her strategy and next move. I believe it is apparent that she needs to be much more matured from now on if she is to remain in public view.
What do you get if you have an easily moddable game, and combine it with a playerbase of mainly young men?
Easy, you get a virtual porn studio.
This is what is happening with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Despite the incredibly disgusting skin textures and character models provided by the original creators of the game, it now has enough mods to turn your characters into beautiful goddesses or kawaii catgirls. To make it even more amazing, there are nude mods that work with many of these.
These looks NOTHING like the original!!
Topping it all are the sex mods which makes the characters commit very indecent acts of lust. These mods can be used together with pose mods which direct the characters to make certain poses. Softcore and hardcore.
Yes, I am surprised. No other PC game has been twisted to such an extent that anyone can make virtual porn with just a few clicks. Not even Fallout 3. Well Fallout 3 does have sex mods but the characters lack the large number of texture/model mods that Oblivion modders have created.
The screenshot below is from my version of Oblivion. When I saw the screenshots on 4chan of course I got curious as to what these mods can do. Due to my laziness I did not bother to browse through all of them. At the moment I'm using only a handful of mods including HGEC, Kunoichi Armour Set and Montana's Sexy Companion mod. It should be obvious to any Oblivion player how incredible the difference is compared to the vanilla (aka un-modded) version.
If not for the user interface (aka UI, which is the collective term for the HP/MP/Stam bars, compass and etc at the bottom) , it would have been easy for you to believe that this is from yet another Japanese hentai game. It might still have been photoshopped, but you'll have to take my word for it when I say it isn't.
They could have taken it towards another direction, eg make all sorts of movies (aka machinima) but no, they had to make a veritable sex game out of it. By the way there is only 1 website that I know of that has all possible mods for this game and it has a Fallout 3 counterpart too. Interestingly, TES Nexus is so full of adult-oriented mods they have a Top 100 list just for them, in addition to the original Top 100 mods list.
I'm not exactly unhappy about the way it has turned out (all heterosexual men must like what are in the screenshots), but I am somewhat disappointed. Bethesda has given us what might as well be a virtual Hollywood with enormous potential. If the armour set above can be made, then think of what sort of characters can be formed. It can be even more fantastic than those in the Final Fantasy games.
The truth is that reality is never as nice as that. This is what the modding community decided to make of it. I guess this just proves that men, especially younger men, think with their little heads more frequently than the one located between the shoulders.
In case anyone is interested, here is a list of console commands (enter console by hitting ~ which is next to your 1 and ! key) and a tutorial for them. These are necessary to go into 3rd-person view, activate god mode and teleport to anywhere. Teleportation is important because some mods can screw up your game's scripts, causing your characters to get stuck in some parts of the game including the beginning where you're waiting for the guards to open the cell gate.
Answer to the riddle at the end of the previous rant is "language".
The iPad was hacked within 3 days in such a way that it gives the hacker root access to the operating system (OS). Root access = root admin = complete control of the entire device, including the ability to install anything (as long as it can work on the iPad) and tweak the system.
3 days. What will Apple do next?
ROFL! The Americans killed their own reporters in Iraq too! Reuters is NOT happy about this and has the article with the photo on the front page with a nice "Come on, let us shoot" quote as the headline. The report includes a comment from the editor-in-chief saying that "if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong".
The article, though somewhat mildly phrased, is actually slightly biased as usual (I think a lot of journalists are good at that, making subtle changes to the way everything is portrayed by adding a little more details here and taking away some details there), in that they did not mention who the others were in the group their ex-colleagues were with.
They also did not explicitly state that the rest of the group were armed, except at the end where they said the military spokesman said they had released documents showing "weapons on the scene". Notice that there is no mention of whether these belonged to the group? A subtle omission there to make that statement weigh less.
In addition, they only stated that their own journalist was identified, albeit mistakenly, with a RPG launcher which was in fact his camera. To add fuel to the flame, they included the immaturely-phrased request from one of the soldiers in the helicopter, "Come on, let us shoot."
Finally to firm up the opinion in the readers that the soldiers are really just children with guns, they have their editor-in-chief say something really direct, just in case some readers were still unsure about what to think.
"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said. The fliers in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents, he said."
When people hear about the dangers of war journalism, they think of the poor guy who got beheaded with a blunt knife on TV. This is probably something new to think about.
"Yeah, right through the windshield!"
2 children were at the front seat.
"... I don't know how the children were hurt."
"Serves them right for bringing children to the battle."
"This is absolutely unacceptable," Pope Benedict said. "It seems a weakening of faith in God has prevented our priests from exercising moderation when sexually abusing helpless minors."
"And let me remind our clergy of the holy vows they all took when they entered the priesthood," he continued. "They should know that they're only allowed one small child every other month."
The pope said he was deeply disappointed to learn that the number of children sexually abused by priests was almost 10 times beyond the allowable limit clearly outlined in church doctrine.
Okay, I guess that works too. Moderation in everything, right? Or is it "No Child Left Behind"?
yes..very true. I and my friends…go spanking at home school etc and we all turned out to be bullies and now we bully our neighbors, colleagues etc.
Surprisingly they are still loves us very much and very close to us. ANd that too … we ended up being successful in our careers. I just cant figure that out.
Those who didn’t get whooped, are so good now that they smoke the earth friendly green stuffs, make friends with everyone and have “friendly” fights and issues.. Yet for some reason..people don’t like them. And they are not into becoming successful.. and that way helping us bullies be there.
Research is very right.. no spanking guys.
Yo Bro -”Frederik Joelving” Its nice to post some article picked from a trash can to get some attention.. Now research on the “drinking cow urine” to fight cancer..(No kidding.. there is another one of those scientist who claims that.)
That maybe maybe your next big Article!
Idle mind devils den.