Was mistaken about a few things in the last few rants.
1) The semi-finals are spread over 2 days, with 1 match per day. So today it is HopeTorture vs oGsEnsnare. Whoever wins gets to play against a Fruit Dealer on the coming Saturday.
2) I'm still going to have class tomorrow but fortunately, the final match is on Saturday! Great coincidence there. So I won't have to miss the best match ever (for this season anyway).
Today's match determines who the best Terran player is in the world and it's been 2 games so far. In both games HopeTorture surprisingly used the same build although he lost in the first game to Ensnare's early attack. He succeeded in the second game when he was not brutally attacked early and managed to overwhelm Ensnare's siege tank army with Marauders.
...
The third game was won by HopeTorture through superior micro, despite the fact that he used the same early expansion build. It's as if he only knows that single build. I think it just proves that Marauders are currently overpowered.
So on Saturday we will see a Fruit Dealer defeat HopeTorture. I'm pretty damn sure a Fruit Dealer will win, even though the general consensus is that Terran is the strongest race while the Zerg is still the weakest race despite the balance changes made in the last update.
Also, his parents really are fruit dealers. The joke of his nick is obvious now. I might have mentioned this before.
After reading the first few chapters of The Art of Deception, I was kind of disappointed when I realized the author, Kevin Mitnick, was not actually a hacker despite his computer crimes. In fact he was more of a conman dealing with computer-related cons, using social engineering to gain access to various computers and such.
Since he didn't actually hack into anything using software (just found out software has no plural form), I'm not sure if he can be called a hacker.
Anyway the book made me question my actions when I was a receptionist during NS. I distinctly remember a few calls I received that I now feel suspicious about after reading the social engineering tricks described in the book.
Those calls were from a company called Oracle or something, which had a few occasions when they had to call the office numbers of some of the staff to pass a message or invite them to some event. The thing is that their numbers are usually kept secret and people outside will only know the number to the front counter.
Back then I never thought anything about them. They need to pass a verbal message to someone? Not exactly suspicious since no civilian ever calls here and so we have nothing to compare against. The whole place is strange and full of top secret stuff anyway. Heck, I don't even know if that's a civilian company or a cover for something else.
So when they tried to speak to some of the staff (they know the names) and asked me for the extension numbers, I didn't see any reason not to. For those whose numbers I don't have, I asked the warrant officer (we didn't have a RSM). I clearly remember one occasion when he asked me why I needed the number, and I did explain to him. Unfortunately I really can't remember his response. On another occasion, he just gave me the number without asking.
Now I recall something even more suspicious. There was once when I was supposed to call the caller back to pass her the number but when I called, the person who answered my call couldn't find the person I was supposed to call back. I really should have suspected something, right? So why didn't I? Man, we were actually right when we said our jobs rotted our brains. Sitting there staring at walls for the entire day really does kill brain cells.
Right now I suspect that was a group of social engineers trying to get the numbers of the staff members because when I googled "Oracle" and "Oracle Singapore" there is no company that sends invitations or messages in the results. Then again, they knew the names of the people and the number to the front desk, both of which are probably secrets.
That's another reason why when people call, we don't suspect anything.
Notice I've never posted the phone numbers or names of anyone other than those already in Wikipedia? Not sure if they're still secrets, so I'm not going to push my luck that far. For all I know, the ISD may be reading this.
Man, they should make reading books like The Art of Deception compulsory for the MPs and RPs. There are tricks inside that average people won't even suspect in their normal course of life. I know I would definitely fall for some of them if I hadn't read the book.
Thursday 30 September 2010
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Rant 631 / H2SO4
I don't know if this is the first stain but this is going to be a lasting stain on the government's reputation and might have given the lie to the rhetoric that the PAP is giving us a corruption-free government.
This is going to take decades to forget, so hopefully no other big shots get caught within the next 30 years. Nobody is going to be happy if the majority decides to vote for another party.
万厉是什麼? 原來萬歷是個年號﹐而明朝的萬歷是指1573年-1620年。這是明神宗朱翊鈞的年號。
朱翊均是這位明朝皇帝的姓名﹐神宗是他的廟號。
廟號是什麼? 廟號是一個皇帝去世後用的名稱。
年號是什麼?年號是用來紀年的名稱﹐通常每一個皇帝都有自己的年號。
If the above looks like traditional chinese, I have no idea why it switches from simplified after I close my NJStar programme.
How does a Fruit Dealer get so good at using Zerg? Today's the semi-finals of the TG-Intel Open, which has the largest prize pool in Korea, if not the entire history of e-sports. Stopped watching it live directly from GomTV because there are people who subscribed to premium and re-broadcast their streams on www.livestream.com although I don't know if they record their streams.
Anyway he has played 2 superb games so far against LiveForever. In fact, he practically outclassed his opponent because he never seemed to falter when he suffered serious blows. For example, he managed to survive the first game in which LiveForever successfully pulled off a bunker rush which destroyed his early Hatchery expansion followed by an early cloaked Banshee which killed a number of drones. Both attacks would have crippled his economy and most players would have conceded when the bunker rush was complete.
In both games so far, he practically wiped out LiveForever's armies with within seconds when both armies clashed despite all the skillful harassment LiveForever dished out.
In short, nothing LiveForever did truly hurt a Fruit Dealer even though LiveForever did not make a single major mistake in his play. It's insane.
...
The third game was just strange. Basically they both tried to destroy each other's base in early game simultaneously but a Fruit Dealer won by having Mutalisks to kill the flying Command Center that tried to escape while LiveForever was not able to kill the early Hatchery expansion.
Whoever wins the next match will play against a Fruit Dealer tomorrow, the God of Zergs. Kerrigan is nothing compared to him.
So I actually checked to see if it's illegal to possess sulphuric acid in Singapore after that last time I mentioned it because I was wondering why no one has it at home.
Apparently it is listed, together with hydrochloric acid, in the Misuse of Drugs Act under the Third Schedule, Part II. This may be because these acids are useful substances in the production of many things including explosives (at least for sulphuric acid).
So there goes my idea of self defence. But if you have access to a soldering gun and some electronic parts, you can probably make this:
It's intense enough to light cigarettes.
On second though, that's too much work. A brick would be easier to find and handle.
It is also possible to make pepper sprays at home but again, it's illegal to posses such a substance in Singapore. Unless you're willing to bet on the police believing you when you tell them you accidentally spilled chilli water onto their faces, this is an attractively simple idea that just won't work.
Alternatively, big knives are always good weapons. Hunting knives are perfectly legal in Singapore, so this may be the best self defence option available to Singaporeans. Samurai swords are also legal but must be kept at home at all times and must be declared. Should work too. The problem with this option is the possibility of committing manslaughter, unlike the laser burner or pepper spray which can't kill unless you force him to drink entire bottles of the chilli water.
At the very worst, we can just do what the police advise us to do - surrender and remember their appearances. The catch is that nobody is responsible for returning every single cent to you, so if the police can't recover everything they stole, that's it.
This is going to take decades to forget, so hopefully no other big shots get caught within the next 30 years. Nobody is going to be happy if the majority decides to vote for another party.
万厉是什麼? 原來萬歷是個年號﹐而明朝的萬歷是指1573年-1620年。這是明神宗朱翊鈞的年號。
朱翊均是這位明朝皇帝的姓名﹐神宗是他的廟號。
廟號是什麼? 廟號是一個皇帝去世後用的名稱。
年號是什麼?年號是用來紀年的名稱﹐通常每一個皇帝都有自己的年號。
If the above looks like traditional chinese, I have no idea why it switches from simplified after I close my NJStar programme.
How does a Fruit Dealer get so good at using Zerg? Today's the semi-finals of the TG-Intel Open, which has the largest prize pool in Korea, if not the entire history of e-sports. Stopped watching it live directly from GomTV because there are people who subscribed to premium and re-broadcast their streams on www.livestream.com although I don't know if they record their streams.
Anyway he has played 2 superb games so far against LiveForever. In fact, he practically outclassed his opponent because he never seemed to falter when he suffered serious blows. For example, he managed to survive the first game in which LiveForever successfully pulled off a bunker rush which destroyed his early Hatchery expansion followed by an early cloaked Banshee which killed a number of drones. Both attacks would have crippled his economy and most players would have conceded when the bunker rush was complete.
In both games so far, he practically wiped out LiveForever's armies with within seconds when both armies clashed despite all the skillful harassment LiveForever dished out.
In short, nothing LiveForever did truly hurt a Fruit Dealer even though LiveForever did not make a single major mistake in his play. It's insane.
...
The third game was just strange. Basically they both tried to destroy each other's base in early game simultaneously but a Fruit Dealer won by having Mutalisks to kill the flying Command Center that tried to escape while LiveForever was not able to kill the early Hatchery expansion.
Whoever wins the next match will play against a Fruit Dealer tomorrow, the God of Zergs. Kerrigan is nothing compared to him.
So I actually checked to see if it's illegal to possess sulphuric acid in Singapore after that last time I mentioned it because I was wondering why no one has it at home.
Apparently it is listed, together with hydrochloric acid, in the Misuse of Drugs Act under the Third Schedule, Part II. This may be because these acids are useful substances in the production of many things including explosives (at least for sulphuric acid).
So there goes my idea of self defence. But if you have access to a soldering gun and some electronic parts, you can probably make this:
It's intense enough to light cigarettes.
On second though, that's too much work. A brick would be easier to find and handle.
It is also possible to make pepper sprays at home but again, it's illegal to posses such a substance in Singapore. Unless you're willing to bet on the police believing you when you tell them you accidentally spilled chilli water onto their faces, this is an attractively simple idea that just won't work.
Alternatively, big knives are always good weapons. Hunting knives are perfectly legal in Singapore, so this may be the best self defence option available to Singaporeans. Samurai swords are also legal but must be kept at home at all times and must be declared. Should work too. The problem with this option is the possibility of committing manslaughter, unlike the laser burner or pepper spray which can't kill unless you force him to drink entire bottles of the chilli water.
At the very worst, we can just do what the police advise us to do - surrender and remember their appearances. The catch is that nobody is responsible for returning every single cent to you, so if the police can't recover everything they stole, that's it.
Monday 27 September 2010
Rant 630 / If It's All Greek To You, What If You're Greek?
First Choice brand's dental floss sucks. It's so rough even though it's supposed to be waxed! I used to use Oral-B's dental floss, which is thicker and I feel almost nothing when I floss. This First Choice floss makes me feel like I dragging a fckin rope between my teeth and it comes apart quickly.
I only began to floss more frequently in recent years because I'm finding the gaps in my teeth to be large enough to get me concerned.
...
Ok nvm.The second time I used it wasn't so bad. Maybe it's just the thread on the starting end.
Snake in a Room! Nobody is impressed by India's handling of the matter because they've had years to prepare. Actually, I am impressed... by the degree to which they are fucking it up.
So now we have check the IDs properly when someone says they're sent by the government. Or else, it's a good idea to learn some self defence skills, like how to make sulphuric acid and storing it somewhere near the door. Or else, molotov cocktails and lighters are fine too. But sulphuric acid in a glass bottle is easier to handle.
Gold finally hits US$1300/oz, which used to be a funny joke just like oil hitting US$100/barrel. Is this a bubble? If it isn't, lots of people must be feeling really insecure about the world economy.
Front Mission Evolved releasing soon. It's the latest in the Front Mission series which are all mecha-themed turn-based tactical games. The last time I played one was when I was still playing my PS2, and that was Front Mission 4.
But this is yet another action-rpg, which I'm not interested in. Hmm..
So sage is called 鼠尾草 and 琴柱草 in Chinese, the former being the more common name. Pretty rarely used in Chinese cuisine but apparently it's widely used in European dishes since it's native to the Mediterranean region.
Currently using it to make this dish that involves wrapping a piece of chicken breast with a sage leaf (and some pepper and salt) in a slice of parma ham.
Not going well with the first experimental try because I forgot to turn the timer dial all the way, so it turned off some time ago and I have no idea how long it was baked out of the 15mins I waited in my room. Couldn't hear the oven's "ding" either because I had my door closed.
...
Ok it's salty as expected, but the chicken itself didn't absorb all the salt so if I remove some of the parma ham it's actually pretty good. A few of the chicken breasts also had too much sage because I added 3 small leaves when I couldn't find a large one. 2 should have been enough, I guess.
Also, it's not dry at all because the water vapour did not evaporate when I wrapped them in foil before baking.
The dried basil I added didn't make any difference. I might have added too little but it was not part of the recipe anyway.
I think I will do this again. It's actually easy, simple and the results are worth the effort. Except for the sage. Sage cannot be found in my neighbourhood at all. Even fresh basil is available in the bazaar once in a while, but no one ever sells sage here.
I buy it from Cold Storage at Holland V. Costs S$1.95 for 3 stalks.
What I did:
1) Mixed salt, pepper and dried basil in a small bowl. Eyeballed all amounts, should have added very little salt.
2) Placed a slice of parma ham on a piece of aluminium foil.
3) Placed a piece of chicken breast on one end of the ham.
4) Using a metal spoon, sprinkled a little of the seasoning mixture from 1) onto the breast.
5) Placed 1 large sage leaf or 2-3 small ones on top of the seasoning.
6) Wrapped breast in ham
7) After wrapping enough chicken breasts, covered the chicken breasts by folding the foil over them.
8) Baked at 100 degrees Celsius (most recipes asked for 200 Fahrenheit, which is 93 degrees Celsius, but the minimum for my oven is 100) for 25 mins.
9) Cut one piece into halves, checked whether they're thoroughly cooked.
10) Consumed them.
Also realized that those Western food stalls that used to open in my neighbourhood by actual white chefs used sage in their chicken chops. I never knew the taste of sage until now. Anyway all those stalls are closed because their prices were too high and we still haven't got used to their cuisines.
After finishing them, I think I should chop the sage up next time to spread them evenly.
Civ 5 really lags my computer, and not just the game itself. Even now as I type while letting it run in the background, my words are appearing slightly later than usual. I'm only playing a 3v3v3 game.
Quarter-finals in the TG-Intel Open on www.gomtv.com today and a Fruit Dealer played two epic games against oGsInCa.
The first game featured a rare gamble when a Fruit Dealer did a 5-pool, rushed Zergling and won. In the second he went for quick Banelings and basically owned InCa with Zerglings and Banelings at first, then Roaches.
The only Zerg in the semifinals is a Fruit Dealer. This is noteworthy because apparently Zergs are underpowered in the current version of SC2 and has been for a long time.
His games are always interesting. It may be his name, but his style seems to make the games more interesting too.
I only began to floss more frequently in recent years because I'm finding the gaps in my teeth to be large enough to get me concerned.
...
Ok nvm.The second time I used it wasn't so bad. Maybe it's just the thread on the starting end.
Snake in a Room! Nobody is impressed by India's handling of the matter because they've had years to prepare. Actually, I am impressed... by the degree to which they are fucking it up.
So now we have check the IDs properly when someone says they're sent by the government. Or else, it's a good idea to learn some self defence skills, like how to make sulphuric acid and storing it somewhere near the door. Or else, molotov cocktails and lighters are fine too. But sulphuric acid in a glass bottle is easier to handle.
Gold finally hits US$1300/oz, which used to be a funny joke just like oil hitting US$100/barrel. Is this a bubble? If it isn't, lots of people must be feeling really insecure about the world economy.
Front Mission Evolved releasing soon. It's the latest in the Front Mission series which are all mecha-themed turn-based tactical games. The last time I played one was when I was still playing my PS2, and that was Front Mission 4.
But this is yet another action-rpg, which I'm not interested in. Hmm..
So sage is called 鼠尾草 and 琴柱草 in Chinese, the former being the more common name. Pretty rarely used in Chinese cuisine but apparently it's widely used in European dishes since it's native to the Mediterranean region.
Currently using it to make this dish that involves wrapping a piece of chicken breast with a sage leaf (and some pepper and salt) in a slice of parma ham.
Not going well with the first experimental try because I forgot to turn the timer dial all the way, so it turned off some time ago and I have no idea how long it was baked out of the 15mins I waited in my room. Couldn't hear the oven's "ding" either because I had my door closed.
...
Ok it's salty as expected, but the chicken itself didn't absorb all the salt so if I remove some of the parma ham it's actually pretty good. A few of the chicken breasts also had too much sage because I added 3 small leaves when I couldn't find a large one. 2 should have been enough, I guess.
Also, it's not dry at all because the water vapour did not evaporate when I wrapped them in foil before baking.
The dried basil I added didn't make any difference. I might have added too little but it was not part of the recipe anyway.
I think I will do this again. It's actually easy, simple and the results are worth the effort. Except for the sage. Sage cannot be found in my neighbourhood at all. Even fresh basil is available in the bazaar once in a while, but no one ever sells sage here.
I buy it from Cold Storage at Holland V. Costs S$1.95 for 3 stalks.
What I did:
1) Mixed salt, pepper and dried basil in a small bowl. Eyeballed all amounts, should have added very little salt.
2) Placed a slice of parma ham on a piece of aluminium foil.
3) Placed a piece of chicken breast on one end of the ham.
4) Using a metal spoon, sprinkled a little of the seasoning mixture from 1) onto the breast.
5) Placed 1 large sage leaf or 2-3 small ones on top of the seasoning.
6) Wrapped breast in ham
7) After wrapping enough chicken breasts, covered the chicken breasts by folding the foil over them.
8) Baked at 100 degrees Celsius (most recipes asked for 200 Fahrenheit, which is 93 degrees Celsius, but the minimum for my oven is 100) for 25 mins.
9) Cut one piece into halves, checked whether they're thoroughly cooked.
10) Consumed them.
Also realized that those Western food stalls that used to open in my neighbourhood by actual white chefs used sage in their chicken chops. I never knew the taste of sage until now. Anyway all those stalls are closed because their prices were too high and we still haven't got used to their cuisines.
After finishing them, I think I should chop the sage up next time to spread them evenly.
Civ 5 really lags my computer, and not just the game itself. Even now as I type while letting it run in the background, my words are appearing slightly later than usual. I'm only playing a 3v3v3 game.
Quarter-finals in the TG-Intel Open on www.gomtv.com today and a Fruit Dealer played two epic games against oGsInCa.
The first game featured a rare gamble when a Fruit Dealer did a 5-pool, rushed Zergling and won. In the second he went for quick Banelings and basically owned InCa with Zerglings and Banelings at first, then Roaches.
The only Zerg in the semifinals is a Fruit Dealer. This is noteworthy because apparently Zergs are underpowered in the current version of SC2 and has been for a long time.
His games are always interesting. It may be his name, but his style seems to make the games more interesting too.
Sunday 26 September 2010
Rant 629 / Soups
Being a girl must suck. Other than their monthly periods, they also can't just take off their tops when the weather gets hot.
Then again, it's not a bad thing for a woman to be described using masculine terms while the reverse isn't true.
Thought of this when I looked into my bro's room just now. He had his shirt off but she was wearing a top. Since it should be safe to assume she was also wearing underwear, it must get pretty hot for her.
Dead Rising 2 isn't a good PC game. Maybe it would feel like a better game on consoles, but right now I find it painful to play on the PC.
The biggest issue is the controls. When I hit the back key (S) I don't want the character to turn around! It makes my movement really awkward since I'm used to the usual controls that doesn't make my guy do a 180 when all I want is to make him walk backwards.
Another is the sound. Why are all the voices so soft and why is the control for the voice volume not available at all? I turn my PC's sound volume to the max, and I could barely hear the people talking!
Also, I hate deadlines. It's a personal thing, so it's not the game's fault. I have to feed the daughter some meds once a day and I have to find these meds which are apparently not widely available, so I have scavenge for them all the time.
Fourth is the attack. It takes time for him to recover after swinging his weapons. I know it's supposed to help improve the realism but the fact that I can turn 360 degrees mid-swing contradicts this idea.
I think I'll delete the game even though I'm a fan of zombie stories.
Found an interesting thing I never knew about in Windows Vista. Other than the usual Firewalls menu we can find in the Control Panel, there is a more complicated set of options of it that can be found in the Adminstrative Tools in the Control Panel.
Through this menu, you can block specific programmes from accessing the Internet or specific connections from accessing your computer. The exceptions list in the usual Firewall menu doesn't block outgoing connections.
My burger patties were too dry. I made 4 chicken and 4 beef patties, kept half in the freezer and cooked half for dinner.
I might have baked them for too long.
The chicken also had a little too much seasoning, ie pepper and salt.
I added some dried basil but I couldn't tell the difference.
The beef patties of course tasted beefier than those found in the supermarket but it was dry even though I covered the patties in a little oil before baking, which would have made it similar to being fried.
This gives me a rough idea how incredibly fatty those pre-made beef patties must be. They don't drip oil but they don't feel dry even when I over-bake them by 10mins.
Next time I'll just fry them on the pan.
Quitted BTO just now. Found out I've been forgetting to renew contracts of my employees and accidentally lost the only red employee I got a few weeks ago. Like I've said before, there is almost no chance of me getting one, so this is a pretty big deal. Left the game, removed the bookmarks.
This is a strange problem. I have 6 rechargeable batteries - 2 NiMH 2000mAh AA batteries and 4 2450mAh ones. I usually keep the 2000mAh batteries in my camera and the rest in a small bag that was probably designed to hold a handphone.
The trouble is that the 4 batteries keep going flat do quickly. I know they discharge slowly over time, but the last time I went out, they went flat in an hour or two before I had even used them.
I did recharge them for 2-3 hours (10 hours for full recharge for brand new ones), so the two pairs should have enough juice to last at least an hour since I remember they used to last like 3-5 hours when I first bought them.
The 2000mAh ones were close to flat with enough energy for less than 5 minutes.
So I was very surprised when they couldn't squeeze out enough energy to turn on the camera when I put a pair of the 2450mAh ones in. It's like my bag sucked out the stored energy.
This handphone bag I'm using to store them doesn't contain metal except for the zip on top. There's no way both ends of any of the batteries could touch it at the same time, so how did they discharge??
Right now I'm testing them. I charged them for 4 hours and now I'm using 2 of them to power my camera which is just sitting under my monitor and wasting energy. It's been over 30mins and it's still not giving me the low-battery sign. Therefore, the batteries are not dead due to old age yet.
So logically, it must be the bag.
If nylon can even cause them to discharge electricity, I'd have been shocked when I held it and placed it in my bag. And nylon definitely does not conduct electricity since it's a plastic.
Hmm... asked my mum to confirm it's nylon. So yea, it shouldn't be the cause.
Maybe I should dump the other these batteries from my camera into the bag for a while.
...
Nope. Placed them in the bag, flinged it around, shook it, replaced them in the camera and they're still working fine.
I'm confused and a little frustrated. Not totally pissed because I won't have to fork out more money to buy new batteries yet.
Still, why?
That was not the first time I took them out only to find them to be completely flat. The other time I found them flat, I figured it was because I hadn't recharged them for a week.
I think I'll get another bag.
As for now, I'll just wait for all of them to go completely flat to give them a proper recharge.
...
About 3 hours now. This pair finally went flat. The other pair stored in the bag is working fine. So... it's really not the bag?
Maybe it's the charger or the multiplug I plugged it into. But both worked just now.
This may be one of the most stunning facts about Oblivion. I had never seen a single outhouse or bathrooms anywhere in the game, yet there were so many sewer tunnels t explore.
I thought things were calming down in Mexico but apparently it's getting so bad the journalists can't cover anything, hence the absence of news. The local journalists are getting threatened by the drug cartels and the foreign journalists fear for their own lives when they try to find anything there.
It looks like a war zone, the way journalists can't just go in and get stories.
Then again, it's not a bad thing for a woman to be described using masculine terms while the reverse isn't true.
Thought of this when I looked into my bro's room just now. He had his shirt off but she was wearing a top. Since it should be safe to assume she was also wearing underwear, it must get pretty hot for her.
Dead Rising 2 isn't a good PC game. Maybe it would feel like a better game on consoles, but right now I find it painful to play on the PC.
The biggest issue is the controls. When I hit the back key (S) I don't want the character to turn around! It makes my movement really awkward since I'm used to the usual controls that doesn't make my guy do a 180 when all I want is to make him walk backwards.
Another is the sound. Why are all the voices so soft and why is the control for the voice volume not available at all? I turn my PC's sound volume to the max, and I could barely hear the people talking!
Also, I hate deadlines. It's a personal thing, so it's not the game's fault. I have to feed the daughter some meds once a day and I have to find these meds which are apparently not widely available, so I have scavenge for them all the time.
Fourth is the attack. It takes time for him to recover after swinging his weapons. I know it's supposed to help improve the realism but the fact that I can turn 360 degrees mid-swing contradicts this idea.
I think I'll delete the game even though I'm a fan of zombie stories.
Found an interesting thing I never knew about in Windows Vista. Other than the usual Firewalls menu we can find in the Control Panel, there is a more complicated set of options of it that can be found in the Adminstrative Tools in the Control Panel.
Through this menu, you can block specific programmes from accessing the Internet or specific connections from accessing your computer. The exceptions list in the usual Firewall menu doesn't block outgoing connections.
My burger patties were too dry. I made 4 chicken and 4 beef patties, kept half in the freezer and cooked half for dinner.
I might have baked them for too long.
The chicken also had a little too much seasoning, ie pepper and salt.
I added some dried basil but I couldn't tell the difference.
The beef patties of course tasted beefier than those found in the supermarket but it was dry even though I covered the patties in a little oil before baking, which would have made it similar to being fried.
This gives me a rough idea how incredibly fatty those pre-made beef patties must be. They don't drip oil but they don't feel dry even when I over-bake them by 10mins.
Next time I'll just fry them on the pan.
Quitted BTO just now. Found out I've been forgetting to renew contracts of my employees and accidentally lost the only red employee I got a few weeks ago. Like I've said before, there is almost no chance of me getting one, so this is a pretty big deal. Left the game, removed the bookmarks.
This is a strange problem. I have 6 rechargeable batteries - 2 NiMH 2000mAh AA batteries and 4 2450mAh ones. I usually keep the 2000mAh batteries in my camera and the rest in a small bag that was probably designed to hold a handphone.
The trouble is that the 4 batteries keep going flat do quickly. I know they discharge slowly over time, but the last time I went out, they went flat in an hour or two before I had even used them.
I did recharge them for 2-3 hours (10 hours for full recharge for brand new ones), so the two pairs should have enough juice to last at least an hour since I remember they used to last like 3-5 hours when I first bought them.
The 2000mAh ones were close to flat with enough energy for less than 5 minutes.
So I was very surprised when they couldn't squeeze out enough energy to turn on the camera when I put a pair of the 2450mAh ones in. It's like my bag sucked out the stored energy.
This handphone bag I'm using to store them doesn't contain metal except for the zip on top. There's no way both ends of any of the batteries could touch it at the same time, so how did they discharge??
Right now I'm testing them. I charged them for 4 hours and now I'm using 2 of them to power my camera which is just sitting under my monitor and wasting energy. It's been over 30mins and it's still not giving me the low-battery sign. Therefore, the batteries are not dead due to old age yet.
So logically, it must be the bag.
If nylon can even cause them to discharge electricity, I'd have been shocked when I held it and placed it in my bag. And nylon definitely does not conduct electricity since it's a plastic.
Hmm... asked my mum to confirm it's nylon. So yea, it shouldn't be the cause.
Maybe I should dump the other these batteries from my camera into the bag for a while.
...
Nope. Placed them in the bag, flinged it around, shook it, replaced them in the camera and they're still working fine.
I'm confused and a little frustrated. Not totally pissed because I won't have to fork out more money to buy new batteries yet.
Still, why?
That was not the first time I took them out only to find them to be completely flat. The other time I found them flat, I figured it was because I hadn't recharged them for a week.
I think I'll get another bag.
As for now, I'll just wait for all of them to go completely flat to give them a proper recharge.
...
About 3 hours now. This pair finally went flat. The other pair stored in the bag is working fine. So... it's really not the bag?
Maybe it's the charger or the multiplug I plugged it into. But both worked just now.
This may be one of the most stunning facts about Oblivion. I had never seen a single outhouse or bathrooms anywhere in the game, yet there were so many sewer tunnels t explore.
I thought things were calming down in Mexico but apparently it's getting so bad the journalists can't cover anything, hence the absence of news. The local journalists are getting threatened by the drug cartels and the foreign journalists fear for their own lives when they try to find anything there.
It looks like a war zone, the way journalists can't just go in and get stories.
Saturday 25 September 2010
Rant 628 / Anti-Morning
Another person writes on how gamers will survive a global apocalyptic event. I typed a rant on this theme and even did a speech on it in TMC long ago, though I used very different games and ideas. Those mentioned in this article are all casual Flash games or similar stuff.
a Fruit Dealer aka Cool aka Ki Kim Won beat his opponent OgsTOP in the round of 16, making his way to the Round of 8. The last remaining Zerg in the tournament, he's probably the favourite of all the Zerg players who watch this series.
I couldn't catch it live on Friday due to classes, so I had to watch the replay. Discovered that only the first game is free to watch and the rest requires payment, so I had to miss the next two games.
The first game was already mind-blowing. The most stunning blow came when a Fruit Dealer lost his entire army... only for the caster to check his build queue and find FIFTEEN Ultralisks about to be completed. I was like "HOLY SHIT!" Seven were completed first and those seven steamrolled TOP's army like an elephant stampede. When they were finally wiped in TOP's main base, the rest were sent and TOP soon surrendered.
FIFTEEN ULTRALISKS SIMULTANEOUSLY!
Even the casters couldn't do anything but laugh when they were trashing TOP's main. Personally I was laughing in shock too even though I knew I was not watching it live. I totally didn't expect that sort of brute force.
So the final Zerg player in this series is ready for the Round of 8, which is going to happen on the coming Tuesday, the 28th of September. After that will be the Semi-Finals spread over 2 days, followed by the Final match on the coming Saturday, the 2nd of October.
The best thing is that I have no classes next week because the tutor for the only class I'm attending now is going overseas for some important event. Of course I still have assignments but they have no set time slots, only deadlines ending in the coming week.
Civilization 5 is an educational game. You can actually learn a bit of history just by playing. For example, one of the nations I can choose to play as in Civ 5 is Siam (now Thailand), and the leader is King Ram Khamhaeng, who's supposed to be a great leader of Siam.
I picked this guy for my first game for his abilities that I can understand right from the beginning, like his bonus in food and culture production.
The real Ram Khamhaeng the Great ruled in the late 13th century when the country was still called the Sukhothai Kingdom, a land that had broken off from the great Khmer Empire. He's known to have invented the Thai alphabet and the guy who made Buddhism the main religion of that part of the world. Apparently not much else is known about this guy despite being called "the Great".
Another thing about Civ 5 is that now all the rulers speak their native languages. Fortunately there are subtitles too, so we aren't screwed in diplomacy.
I don't know a single Russian word and neither do I know how to type Cyrillic alphabets.
So today I finally went to the Cold Storage at Holland V after such a long time. No parma ham. She told me right away the parma ham hasn't arrived yet for this week and they were out of stock. Frickin hell. Are they having some kind of pig flu in Italy or something?
Fortunately there's still the pre-sliced and packaged ones, so she told me I could get those instead. Of course I got those instead.
This time I also bought minced chicken. They don't sell minced meat at Shop N Save in my neighbourhood other than pork so I have to go to a supermarket further away for minced beef and chicken. 2 packets of minced beef and a packet of minced chicken. Lots of burgers incoming!
The other things that I bought because they are unavailable here are smoked salmon, brie and salami. Only 1 packet of each; I'm not rich.
WHAT!? Anson Wong only got 6 months jail??!
I think this makes sense. He might have gave the Malaysian police this tip in exchange for leniency. I wouldn't be surprised if the guys who were caught were his business rivals, unless he was desperate enough to betray his own people.
Tried to make 10 new FB accounts after reactivating 10 of my 20 other emails I used once before. It seems FB stops users from making too many accounts at a time by making them enter their phone numbers to send them either a text message or an automated call in order to activate the account.
So now I have only 3 new FB accounts which have each other as friends. Need 10 to activate some freebies in BTO.
But wait... TOR!
Testing...
It works!
My fourth account is done! Fifth coming up!
Finally, 10 accounts done.
Civ 5 is really eating my system resources. I'm playing with 9 AIs and it's lagging a little even though most of my video settings are at medium or low.
a Fruit Dealer aka Cool aka Ki Kim Won beat his opponent OgsTOP in the round of 16, making his way to the Round of 8. The last remaining Zerg in the tournament, he's probably the favourite of all the Zerg players who watch this series.
I couldn't catch it live on Friday due to classes, so I had to watch the replay. Discovered that only the first game is free to watch and the rest requires payment, so I had to miss the next two games.
The first game was already mind-blowing. The most stunning blow came when a Fruit Dealer lost his entire army... only for the caster to check his build queue and find FIFTEEN Ultralisks about to be completed. I was like "HOLY SHIT!" Seven were completed first and those seven steamrolled TOP's army like an elephant stampede. When they were finally wiped in TOP's main base, the rest were sent and TOP soon surrendered.
FIFTEEN ULTRALISKS SIMULTANEOUSLY!
Even the casters couldn't do anything but laugh when they were trashing TOP's main. Personally I was laughing in shock too even though I knew I was not watching it live. I totally didn't expect that sort of brute force.
So the final Zerg player in this series is ready for the Round of 8, which is going to happen on the coming Tuesday, the 28th of September. After that will be the Semi-Finals spread over 2 days, followed by the Final match on the coming Saturday, the 2nd of October.
The best thing is that I have no classes next week because the tutor for the only class I'm attending now is going overseas for some important event. Of course I still have assignments but they have no set time slots, only deadlines ending in the coming week.
Civilization 5 is an educational game. You can actually learn a bit of history just by playing. For example, one of the nations I can choose to play as in Civ 5 is Siam (now Thailand), and the leader is King Ram Khamhaeng, who's supposed to be a great leader of Siam.
I picked this guy for my first game for his abilities that I can understand right from the beginning, like his bonus in food and culture production.
The real Ram Khamhaeng the Great ruled in the late 13th century when the country was still called the Sukhothai Kingdom, a land that had broken off from the great Khmer Empire. He's known to have invented the Thai alphabet and the guy who made Buddhism the main religion of that part of the world. Apparently not much else is known about this guy despite being called "the Great".
Another thing about Civ 5 is that now all the rulers speak their native languages. Fortunately there are subtitles too, so we aren't screwed in diplomacy.
I don't know a single Russian word and neither do I know how to type Cyrillic alphabets.So today I finally went to the Cold Storage at Holland V after such a long time. No parma ham. She told me right away the parma ham hasn't arrived yet for this week and they were out of stock. Frickin hell. Are they having some kind of pig flu in Italy or something?
Fortunately there's still the pre-sliced and packaged ones, so she told me I could get those instead. Of course I got those instead.
This time I also bought minced chicken. They don't sell minced meat at Shop N Save in my neighbourhood other than pork so I have to go to a supermarket further away for minced beef and chicken. 2 packets of minced beef and a packet of minced chicken. Lots of burgers incoming!
The other things that I bought because they are unavailable here are smoked salmon, brie and salami. Only 1 packet of each; I'm not rich.
WHAT!? Anson Wong only got 6 months jail??!
I think this makes sense. He might have gave the Malaysian police this tip in exchange for leniency. I wouldn't be surprised if the guys who were caught were his business rivals, unless he was desperate enough to betray his own people.
Tried to make 10 new FB accounts after reactivating 10 of my 20 other emails I used once before. It seems FB stops users from making too many accounts at a time by making them enter their phone numbers to send them either a text message or an automated call in order to activate the account.
So now I have only 3 new FB accounts which have each other as friends. Need 10 to activate some freebies in BTO.
But wait... TOR!
Testing...
It works!
My fourth account is done! Fifth coming up!
Finally, 10 accounts done.
Civ 5 is really eating my system resources. I'm playing with 9 AIs and it's lagging a little even though most of my video settings are at medium or low.
Thursday 23 September 2010
Rant 627 / Six To Seven
We won. My team won. This is one of the most absurd victories I've ever seen. The other team conceded when we pushed the middle lane all the way to their barracks.I highlighted the main reasons why we should have lost. Our highest level was their lowest at 12. They even had a level 20, twice my level!
This is why you should not rage quit or concede until your opponents are hitting the towers next to your shrine.
Oh yea, this screenshot also shows how badly I suck.
Online sarcasm really doesn't work very well. IRL sarcasm frequently depends on a certain tone of voice and, sometimes, a facial expression. The main component is always an absurd statement.
But on the Internet, the first two have to be sacrificed in text messages, which is the most common medium of interaction online. Worse, the absurd can very well be nothing strange because of the different backgrounds of the users, causing the sarcasm to be lost. Furthermore, there are times when the absurd just isn't absurd enough because the person making the sarcastic remark has not encountered anything even more absurd while the listener/reader has.
This makes sarcasm hard to convey online. In the worst case scenario, it can backfire and make you look stupid without you knowing it because they are too polite to give you honest feedback.
Of course with sufficient wit, one can always accomplish that without having to announce that one was being sarcastic in the previous comment. The problem is that most people don't possess that level of expertise in the field of wittiness, hence we get forum comments that end with clauses like "/sarcasm", which IMO is rather inept and awkward.
The problem I often find in players trying to be sarcastic with new players is that that is an extremely poor situation to use sarcasm in.
To appreciate the absurdity of a statement, you need to know what is normal. A new player in a game has no idea what the norm is, therefore any sarcastic remark based on the game will have no meaning to them, especially if you're typing it out.
For example, telling newbies to do exactly what the other newbies are doing wrong in an attempt to use sarcasm to be mean to them is just going to make you look like a moron when they learn that you were full of shit. Some may realize you were just being sarcastic, but don't count on that.
During my first class for the module "Introduction to Chinese Linguistics", I learnt that I know jack shit about 漢語拼音.
First of all, I never knew that you're supposed to write the 拼音 according to the phrase. For example, for "拼音" the correct way of writing its 拼音 is "pinyin" and of course with the proper strokes to denote the tone that I cannot enter here (and too lazy to find the Unicode for).
Second, there are 3 "i"s, namely the usual "i" in "yi" (意), the "-i" in "zhi" (之) and the "-i" in "zi" (子). The second is described as "舌尖後的元音", the third is "舌尖前的元音" because you pronounce the "-i" in 之 from behind the tip of your tongue while you pronounce the "-i" in 子 in front of the tip of your tongue.
In short the three are:
1) i
2) -i (前)
3) -i (後)
Third, in 漢語拼音 there are categories like "韻頭", "韻母", "韻尾" and "聲母". 聲母 = consonants except for "y" and "w", 韻母 = vowels. If I go any further I'll have to type in Chinese.
Aliens are disabling nukes!
In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby.
One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it.
It may be aliens, or it may be that certain wealthy countries are in possession of technologies for disabling ICBMs, and that the countries these witnesses are from (eg US, UK) are aware of this but do not want this information to spread lest the show of force that these nukes provide are rendered obsolete.
After all, if these ICBMs can be disabled just by sending one of those machines to fly over them, they are pretty much useless. And what can the Americans rely on if their trump card is known to be a white elephant?
We don't really want the yuan to appreciate. I know I don't. My family depends on the low yuan for a living. It goes up, the goods we import get expensive, our profits go down because we can't raise the prices as suddenly as the yuan does.
Even China doesn't want the yuan to rise. Only the Americans do. The thing is that the yuan is not an American currency.
The president of Iran is mad. Going to the UN to talk about 9/11 conspiracies is about as useful as going to a mosque and telling them that a lot of people think that the Bible is right.
I have no idea what he is trying to do here. Is there like some kind of competition between him and Kim Jong Il?
My mum's workers are so free, they're actually volunteering to do the heavy work. I was supposed to go on Sat (technically today since it's 12.19am) to help her arrange the new batch of cardboard boxes. In the past, my mum has always told me they would whine whenever they have to lift heavy stuff, so this is pretty amazing.
Anyway they are free only because the business is slowing down, eventually to a halt. Everyone has to retire eventually, including our parents.
I want one of those. With the world economy always fluctuating in recent decades and gold prices going only in one constant direction, this is the modern version of our grandparents' habit of storing their cash in boxes. Instead of cash, we can store gold bars in a biscuit box now.
And we also get a weapon if you stick enough cash into the vending machine. A large brick can easily kill someone and give them a nice gold-plated fatal head wound in the process. Not exactly a bad way to go, but I'd prefer something less violent when my time comes :P
Want a gold-plated bathroom? Just get a few gold bars and a hammer. It's not very hard to make thin slices of gold.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Rant 626 / Civ V! Civ V!
Are Singaporeans really too stressed to care?
I wouldn't know. What I do know is most don't care. I look around and what do I see? Friends filling FB with links to articles about how the poor have shitty lives here in Singapore... and that's where their commitment ends!
They spread the word then don't do shit about it. This is exactly like this following image:
The article also shared how Singapore ranked 91 out of 153 nations in the World Giving Index (WGI) released last week. Singaporeans also averaged $48 in per capita donations last year, while the US hovered around $1,000.
I don't know how much I donate. I did cause a few trees to be planted this year. Wonder how much that costs. However I do find planting trees to be more worthwhile than say, sponsoring food aids to Africans, which I guess is a significant portion of that $1000 per capita from the US.
And that nonsense about sending soccer balls to African children is a ridiculous waste of money from a practical point of view. The Africans are desperately hungry, desperate enough to destroy their own environment against the wishes of their elders to feed their families, and we're sending them balls. Oh, and don't forget the laptops from some years back too.
Genius ideas.
That's like giving free PS3 consoles to the poor people in Singapore. How the heck is it going to help them stop being poor?
Removing poverty requires a great change in the way the economy works. The problem is that most people don't like these changes. For example, in Soviet Russia and post-Revolution China, they would give blue-collar jobs to just about anyone. State-owned factories were everywhere, creating shitty jobs for everyone.
The poor would be happy. They would be able to feed themselves. But everyone else would suffer with them too. If everyone is really that committed to solving the poverty issue, capitalism wouldn't exist.
Like in Singapore, where we all love this idea called "meritocracy". Everyone knows that there will always be people who can't do anything worth shit, hence there will always be unemployed people, ie the poor. They are a natural by-product of a system which supposedly rewards everyone according to the results they can provide.
So, does anyone really want to help the poor?
I don't, and I will say this right here, right now. I want to keep this lifestyle of mine. I want a gaming computer. I want a nice bed. The poor can remain poor until I become much richer than I am now.
Some things, they just stay there at the back of our heads. Nobody wants to say these out loud and sometimes, they delude themselves into thinking the truth is otherwise. But deep down, we all know they are the undeniable facts.
We, and the system that got us to where we are today, are the reasons that the poor are poor.
I'm sorry, but when a person shits, someone has to clean it up, and I'm not going to be the latter if I can help it.
High School of the Dead is a pretty terrible anime. Plot is crap, characters aren't well developed and all the gratuitous sexy scenes got annoying after a while. Also, the panties of the walking dead does not turn on any sane man.
These 12 episodes of anime is a mockery of the current general trend of animes that tend to have lots of unnaturally well-endowed young women who seem to love to show off their assets. Why? Because the zombies in this series are merely an excuse to bring together a bunch of girls who keep getting their clothes wet, their breasts squeezed and their clothes ripped.
In the end, the theme of the entire show isn't zombies but scantily clad (and sometimes unclad) anime chicks who are frequently just a hair away from turning the show into an actual hentai series. If you thought Bleach was bad, you should watch this anime.
The plot. It's bad. The jeep and the guns, all apparently unavailable to anyone in Japan, are together a ridiculous deus ex machina. Common sense says that if anyone has that sort of arsenal, they wouldn't hide them in a flimsy metal cabinet that a crowbar can force open. And the jeep! A customized heavily armoured vehicle just parked behind a metal gate? So she could afford a tank but not a garage or something more secure?
Oh sorry. This is anime. Why am I complaining about deus ex machinas?
The way they killed zombies was also inconsistent. At first they could only kill them by hitting their heads, except that I don't see how a nail gun could kill any zombie. Nails don't spin from a nail gun, do they? So without the centrifugal force, the impact won't create any damage in their heads. Heck, even normal people can survive with a nail in the head, so why would zombies die from it?
That's not the only problem with the zombies. Since they could be killed only by hitting their heads in the first episode, I found it strange that they weren't doing so in the final episode. In fact, the zombies seem to be disabled by a katana slicing through their waists.
Other than the zombies, the humans were another problem. The cult that was started by the teacher could have been better developed. Instead, it felt like they wanted to include this sub-plot at first only to realize later that they couldn't go anywhere with it and so they just killed them off in the end.
I hope the World War Z film won't turn out to be such shit.
I r sad.
I just learnt about the optic fibre installation... and I'm pretty sure I missed my free installation deadline.
My mum first found the letter OpenNet sent and she passed it to my bro for translation. He didn't know what the fck it was about, told her it was rubbish and to show it to me for further clarifications.
I never knew about the letter until today.
It's been about a month now.
So now we're going to have to fork out $220 to get it installed.
I thought I was going to be angry. I was, for a couple of seconds. Now I'm just sad.
For the first time she gave a letter to my bro for translation instead of me, and I get this kind of bullshit result.
He's supposed to be smarter. He's in NUS, one of the top universities in the world.
Why does he disappoint me like this?
I r sad.
$220 vanishing for no good reason.
And I'm the one who's supposed to be disappointing my mother. Who does he think he is to try to take my place?
For all the vaunted achievements of modern humans, we're still just a plague of stupid on a planet already filled with retarded lifeforms.
I don't even have the User ID to log in to request for installation via the website. It's supposed to be printed in the letter. It's also 10.30pm, long after office hours.
We're so stupid, we don't even know we're stupid.
My bro was the one who suggested to me the Max Infinity plans from Starhub, just an hour ago.
Irony is fine and cool in fiction but it's a bitch to deal with in real life.
Like they often say in movies, "If you want things to be done right, you've got to do it yourself."
I wouldn't know. What I do know is most don't care. I look around and what do I see? Friends filling FB with links to articles about how the poor have shitty lives here in Singapore... and that's where their commitment ends!
They spread the word then don't do shit about it. This is exactly like this following image:
The article also shared how Singapore ranked 91 out of 153 nations in the World Giving Index (WGI) released last week. Singaporeans also averaged $48 in per capita donations last year, while the US hovered around $1,000.
I don't know how much I donate. I did cause a few trees to be planted this year. Wonder how much that costs. However I do find planting trees to be more worthwhile than say, sponsoring food aids to Africans, which I guess is a significant portion of that $1000 per capita from the US.
And that nonsense about sending soccer balls to African children is a ridiculous waste of money from a practical point of view. The Africans are desperately hungry, desperate enough to destroy their own environment against the wishes of their elders to feed their families, and we're sending them balls. Oh, and don't forget the laptops from some years back too.
Genius ideas.
That's like giving free PS3 consoles to the poor people in Singapore. How the heck is it going to help them stop being poor?
Removing poverty requires a great change in the way the economy works. The problem is that most people don't like these changes. For example, in Soviet Russia and post-Revolution China, they would give blue-collar jobs to just about anyone. State-owned factories were everywhere, creating shitty jobs for everyone.
The poor would be happy. They would be able to feed themselves. But everyone else would suffer with them too. If everyone is really that committed to solving the poverty issue, capitalism wouldn't exist.
Like in Singapore, where we all love this idea called "meritocracy". Everyone knows that there will always be people who can't do anything worth shit, hence there will always be unemployed people, ie the poor. They are a natural by-product of a system which supposedly rewards everyone according to the results they can provide.
So, does anyone really want to help the poor?
I don't, and I will say this right here, right now. I want to keep this lifestyle of mine. I want a gaming computer. I want a nice bed. The poor can remain poor until I become much richer than I am now.
Some things, they just stay there at the back of our heads. Nobody wants to say these out loud and sometimes, they delude themselves into thinking the truth is otherwise. But deep down, we all know they are the undeniable facts.
We, and the system that got us to where we are today, are the reasons that the poor are poor.
I'm sorry, but when a person shits, someone has to clean it up, and I'm not going to be the latter if I can help it.
High School of the Dead is a pretty terrible anime. Plot is crap, characters aren't well developed and all the gratuitous sexy scenes got annoying after a while. Also, the panties of the walking dead does not turn on any sane man.
These 12 episodes of anime is a mockery of the current general trend of animes that tend to have lots of unnaturally well-endowed young women who seem to love to show off their assets. Why? Because the zombies in this series are merely an excuse to bring together a bunch of girls who keep getting their clothes wet, their breasts squeezed and their clothes ripped.
In the end, the theme of the entire show isn't zombies but scantily clad (and sometimes unclad) anime chicks who are frequently just a hair away from turning the show into an actual hentai series. If you thought Bleach was bad, you should watch this anime.
The plot. It's bad. The jeep and the guns, all apparently unavailable to anyone in Japan, are together a ridiculous deus ex machina. Common sense says that if anyone has that sort of arsenal, they wouldn't hide them in a flimsy metal cabinet that a crowbar can force open. And the jeep! A customized heavily armoured vehicle just parked behind a metal gate? So she could afford a tank but not a garage or something more secure?
Oh sorry. This is anime. Why am I complaining about deus ex machinas?
The way they killed zombies was also inconsistent. At first they could only kill them by hitting their heads, except that I don't see how a nail gun could kill any zombie. Nails don't spin from a nail gun, do they? So without the centrifugal force, the impact won't create any damage in their heads. Heck, even normal people can survive with a nail in the head, so why would zombies die from it?
That's not the only problem with the zombies. Since they could be killed only by hitting their heads in the first episode, I found it strange that they weren't doing so in the final episode. In fact, the zombies seem to be disabled by a katana slicing through their waists.
Other than the zombies, the humans were another problem. The cult that was started by the teacher could have been better developed. Instead, it felt like they wanted to include this sub-plot at first only to realize later that they couldn't go anywhere with it and so they just killed them off in the end.
I hope the World War Z film won't turn out to be such shit.
I r sad.
I just learnt about the optic fibre installation... and I'm pretty sure I missed my free installation deadline.
My mum first found the letter OpenNet sent and she passed it to my bro for translation. He didn't know what the fck it was about, told her it was rubbish and to show it to me for further clarifications.
I never knew about the letter until today.
It's been about a month now.
So now we're going to have to fork out $220 to get it installed.
I thought I was going to be angry. I was, for a couple of seconds. Now I'm just sad.
For the first time she gave a letter to my bro for translation instead of me, and I get this kind of bullshit result.
He's supposed to be smarter. He's in NUS, one of the top universities in the world.
Why does he disappoint me like this?
I r sad.
$220 vanishing for no good reason.
And I'm the one who's supposed to be disappointing my mother. Who does he think he is to try to take my place?
For all the vaunted achievements of modern humans, we're still just a plague of stupid on a planet already filled with retarded lifeforms.
I don't even have the User ID to log in to request for installation via the website. It's supposed to be printed in the letter. It's also 10.30pm, long after office hours.
We're so stupid, we don't even know we're stupid.
My bro was the one who suggested to me the Max Infinity plans from Starhub, just an hour ago.
Irony is fine and cool in fiction but it's a bitch to deal with in real life.
Like they often say in movies, "If you want things to be done right, you've got to do it yourself."
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Rant 625 / Half The Rant 是中文!
All those complaints about how the YOG was screwed up in Singapore are nothing compared to what's happening in India over the Commonwealth Games. It's so bad, athletes are pulling out after hearing the reports. Such reports are usually phrased gently for diplomatic reasons, so when the residential towers are described as "filthy" and "uninhabitable" it has to be unbelievably bad.
Complaints about cleanliness, plumbing and electrics were also made by other countries that have sent advance parties to the Indian capital, including Scotland which described the village as "unsafe and unfit for human habitation".
Those are some pretty harsh words. I'm intrigued. Why and how did the Indian government fuck up so horribly?
I also find the line below ridiculous.
"Everyone has different standards about cleanliness. The westerners have different standards, we have different standards."
If you can't meet everyone's standards, maybe you shouldn't have bid for it in the first place. Or...
我知这不是新歌。
Complaints about cleanliness, plumbing and electrics were also made by other countries that have sent advance parties to the Indian capital, including Scotland which described the village as "unsafe and unfit for human habitation".
Those are some pretty harsh words. I'm intrigued. Why and how did the Indian government fuck up so horribly?
I also find the line below ridiculous.
"Everyone has different standards about cleanliness. The westerners have different standards, we have different standards."
If you can't meet everyone's standards, maybe you shouldn't have bid for it in the first place. Or...
"They're filthy. You can't occupy them. They need a deep clean. There's builders' dust and rubble in doorways, shower doors the wrong way round, toilets that don't work," he said just two days before athletes begin arriving.
There was also "excrement in places it shouldn't be", he said -- referring to problems thought to be the result of thousands of labourers using the toilets in the "certainly uninhabitable" residential complex.
... maybe in Delhi, "excrement in places it shouldn't be" in the eyes of the "westerners" are actually the norm for the Indians. I'm not even trying to be sarcastic here.
我知这不是新歌。
Rant 624 / Unseen, Unheard.
So I found this wiki on Starcraft 2 by Team Liquid. Team Liquid is probably the best known Brood War clan (and now SC2) in the Western world whose website is the biggest in the Starcraft community.
This wiki is very useful for reading up on the strategies and build orders often mentioned by the casters in the tournaments. As a noob at this game, this is helping me understand much better what Artosis and Tasteless are talking about during the TG-Intel Open games.
And they thought increasing maternity and paternity leave was going to raise birth rates.
Watching High School of the Dead, an anime about zombies. As usual, it revolves around high school student because of this pan-Japanese fetish for unrealistically proportioned teenage girls.
Set in some random town in Japan, some kid skipped lesson and witnessed a guy banging on the locked school gates. Some teachers went to handle the matter, got bitten and turned into zombies themselves. This is followed by panic and finally everyone became zombies except for a few survivors.
There are two main features in this anime - zombies and panties. No I don't mean sexy zombies in lacy panties. This anime seems to be banking on gratuitous shots of female undies to attract an audience in case the zombie theme doesn't draw enough attention.
In the first episode, I'm looking at some girl's underwear every ten seconds. If I wanted to get horny I'd look at actual hentai. This weird mixture of sexiness and gory violence is similar to turning a light switch on and off repeatedly, unless you get turned on by blood and heads getting bashed in. It's confusing.
Today I found something that really surprised me. While trying to find a way to change my fonts on this blog, I stumbled upon the Stats tab. I've never noticed it because I've never looked at that area of the screen when I'm on this page ever since I found out how useless the Monetize tab is for me.
Apparently I'm getting a whole lot more views than I thought. Here are the stats, which include my own page views.
In the above screenshot, you can see that I'm getting over 50 page views per day, 5-10 of which may be mine.
You see, I've always had this preconception that only some of my friends read my blog and that should only amount to 5-10 views per day at the very most. Over 50 views? If my estimations are correct more than half the views here are by people I don't know at all. Although lots of people may have stumbled over this blog as they googled for images and stuff, I'm not sure if every single one of these strangers arrived here for this reason.
The majority of the traffic came from the above sources. How much? That I don't know.
Interestingly, most of the readers probably heed my advice and use Firefox when viewing this blog. Also, since 14th Sep there were 12 views from Singapore, of which almost all must be mine and leaving 1-2 for others.
The overwhelming majority of my visitors are from the US, which is unexpected because no American I know is aware of this blog. Like I've said before, I do not mention my blog in conversations. I'm guessing they were mostly searching for 4chan stuff, like my WTF images.
And the next screenshot explains quite a bit.
So most people come here to find out about Zalgo and my comics I made long ago. The only post I typed this year that made it to the top 10 is the one about Mass Effect 2.
So the post on Zalgo is still relatively popular today even though the fad has long since died AFAIK. As for Rant 167, I'm really not sure why it's popular. The Fucking sign isn't really that special IMO.
Even right now people from 4 countries are visiting my blog as I type.
This really changes my idea of how interconnected the world is via the Internet. Even when the blog is silent, there are still people here.
More interestingly,
The 1 count on Rant 622 is mine because I was testing something. Apparently, of the 6 pageviews in the previous screenshot, only 2 were looking at specific rants by going directly to those rants' pages. The other 4 were not. Images or front page, I cannot tell.
Also, the numbering is different because I just found a minor numbering error.
This wiki is very useful for reading up on the strategies and build orders often mentioned by the casters in the tournaments. As a noob at this game, this is helping me understand much better what Artosis and Tasteless are talking about during the TG-Intel Open games.
And they thought increasing maternity and paternity leave was going to raise birth rates.
Watching High School of the Dead, an anime about zombies. As usual, it revolves around high school student because of this pan-Japanese fetish for unrealistically proportioned teenage girls.
Set in some random town in Japan, some kid skipped lesson and witnessed a guy banging on the locked school gates. Some teachers went to handle the matter, got bitten and turned into zombies themselves. This is followed by panic and finally everyone became zombies except for a few survivors.
There are two main features in this anime - zombies and panties. No I don't mean sexy zombies in lacy panties. This anime seems to be banking on gratuitous shots of female undies to attract an audience in case the zombie theme doesn't draw enough attention.
In the first episode, I'm looking at some girl's underwear every ten seconds. If I wanted to get horny I'd look at actual hentai. This weird mixture of sexiness and gory violence is similar to turning a light switch on and off repeatedly, unless you get turned on by blood and heads getting bashed in. It's confusing.
Today I found something that really surprised me. While trying to find a way to change my fonts on this blog, I stumbled upon the Stats tab. I've never noticed it because I've never looked at that area of the screen when I'm on this page ever since I found out how useless the Monetize tab is for me.
Apparently I'm getting a whole lot more views than I thought. Here are the stats, which include my own page views.
In the above screenshot, you can see that I'm getting over 50 page views per day, 5-10 of which may be mine.
You see, I've always had this preconception that only some of my friends read my blog and that should only amount to 5-10 views per day at the very most. Over 50 views? If my estimations are correct more than half the views here are by people I don't know at all. Although lots of people may have stumbled over this blog as they googled for images and stuff, I'm not sure if every single one of these strangers arrived here for this reason.
The majority of the traffic came from the above sources. How much? That I don't know.
Interestingly, most of the readers probably heed my advice and use Firefox when viewing this blog. Also, since 14th Sep there were 12 views from Singapore, of which almost all must be mine and leaving 1-2 for others.The overwhelming majority of my visitors are from the US, which is unexpected because no American I know is aware of this blog. Like I've said before, I do not mention my blog in conversations. I'm guessing they were mostly searching for 4chan stuff, like my WTF images.
And the next screenshot explains quite a bit.
So most people come here to find out about Zalgo and my comics I made long ago. The only post I typed this year that made it to the top 10 is the one about Mass Effect 2.
So the post on Zalgo is still relatively popular today even though the fad has long since died AFAIK. As for Rant 167, I'm really not sure why it's popular. The Fucking sign isn't really that special IMO.
Even right now people from 4 countries are visiting my blog as I type.
This really changes my idea of how interconnected the world is via the Internet. Even when the blog is silent, there are still people here.
More interestingly,
The 1 count on Rant 622 is mine because I was testing something. Apparently, of the 6 pageviews in the previous screenshot, only 2 were looking at specific rants by going directly to those rants' pages. The other 4 were not. Images or front page, I cannot tell.Also, the numbering is different because I just found a minor numbering error.
Monday 20 September 2010
Rant 623 / No More Ants
The boombox is not a toy.
I like this Julian guy but when I listened to his most viewed video, the 11th Dimension or something like that, he did not perform very well. I thought his singing there felt dead, emotionless. His voice was much more suitable for singing in the style he used in this Boombox song.
Today's schedule on GOM TV includes the only other white guy in the Round of 32, TheLittleOne aka TLO. He's a German player who's won quite a few tournaments outside of Korea and was invited to the TG-Intel Open for his performance in the last TL tournament where he, as the only Random race player in the whole event, won the first prize of... US$300 (because SC2 was still in Beta then).
Anyway for this current tournament, the top prize is at US$85k. This is the list of the rest of the prizes.
EDIT: The most interesting games are the first two games in the match between TLO and oGsHyperdub. TLO's tactical use of tactical nukes was something nobody has ever seen before. Also, the comebacks in those 2 games were very unexpected.
The lead designer of Relic Entertainment, the developer of the Warhammer 40k PC games, died recently in a car accident in which he sacrificed himself to save his family. No big loss there. Warhammer 40k sucked anyway. But it's interesting how it was caused by some girl driving the other car and was taking her sweater off while her front seat passenger was holding the wheel and subsequently lost control of the car.
So the game developer, Brian Wood, and the two back seat passengers in the moronic girl's car died and she's now facing three counts of homicide and one of assault. No idea about the girl who was holding the wheel for her.
I did not know there are people who are crazy enough to do things like that. Some things should just be kept within movies and other fictional works. And drivers like that need to be locked up for life at the very least.
I think I can understand the half-open eyes on the Buddha's face now.
World War Z is about to become a movie! And Brad Pitt is confirmed as lead. I expect the film to be vastly different from the book since the book does not have a single protagonist.
The book is about the world being overwhelmed by zombies which first began in the developing countries. In the book, the infection and invasion has already been subdued and people were recovering from the major disaster. The narrator was writing a report on the entire event for the new American government by interviewing various survivors around the world, but most of his work was rejected because they were not objective enough.
Hence he decided to try to get it published, and this book is the collection of all the interviews he had done.
All the stories were realistic in that everyone reacted exactly the way we would expect ourselves to do in such a situation, ranging from a major cover-up in China over the initial spread to the pointless mass immigration as people gave all they had to bring their infected families to the West in hopes of finding a cure, even though there was none to be found.
There were heroes and there were new evils. Some tried to save everyone, some tried to survive in isolation and others came up with unexpected ways to make money off this pandemic. Most didn't matter in the end because it was too widespread for them to affect the bigger picture.
However, civilization was saved by quick action in Israel and for the rest of the world, one genius who came up with a ruthlessly pragmatic plan (which may be rather obvious to many). Can't go any further or I'll be telling spoilers here without my gigantic spoiler warning, and there isn't much that I can spoil anyway. The plots in zombie stories are always simple but the important thing in this book is how it was fleshed out.
Last day of the sale at OpenTrolley but I have no books I really want to buy. Chaosbound isn't out till December, A Dance with Dragons still isn't finished yet and the latest book Terry Goodkind is writing, The Omen Machine, doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page.
The final book of The Wheel of Time series is still far from done and has been split into multiple books. I'm not exactly waiting for them eagerly but it would be nice to see it published eventually.
So Hustler is producing a pornographic parody of Avatar. Btw it's also in 3D, both in the anaglyph version ie in red and cyan and the "3D TV" version. I'm really not interested mainly because of their noses. I'm not sure why they aren't satisfied with just painting everyone blue. After all, despite the budget it's just a porno film, not an artistic masterpiece.
Rant 622 / IT'S FOR MY TEETH!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
More ants! This time, they came from another point of entry!
Again, I found them busy gargling on my Listerine on my basin. I then traced them to the back of my cistern next to it. I got angry and sprayed everything with water first, then Baygon. Then I looked around and found more on my toilet bowl. So I sprayed that area too. Finally I found some running towards a tiny hole between the wall tiles and a wire cover near the ceiling.
I believe that's the new entrance after I covered the previous one with copious amounts of Baygon. They must have entered from there, went down to the pipes, followed them to the cistern and from there to the basin.
Of course I can't spray the wire cover with my shower head; I'm attempting pesticide, not suicide. But I went crazy with Baygon, holding it about 30cm away from the spot for about 3s before going downwards slowly following the path the ants took.
When I was done, the bathroom was slightly misty and everything felt a little oily. But I was not finished yet. I absolutely cannot risk ants entering my room if I can help it, not after experiencing what it is like to have ants on my bed at night.
After searching around my home for more pesticide because I recall seeing my mum buy those tiny packets of poison pellets designed specially for ants, I couldn't find them and settled for insect repellent. I still have one bottle from the last trip to Malaysia, so I sprayed it generously around my cistern, on the wire cover and the what used to be the ants' path down, around my bathroom door and again around the first hole where it all began earlier in the day.
All that spraying was probably going to cause an overdose of some sort in me, so I decided to leave instead of checking some more. My eyes were beginning to sting a tiny bit too, which helped me come to that decision quickly.
So now my room, despite closing the door, is filled with the smell of the insect repellent. It doesn't stink and gives my room a sort of somewhat nice smell that reminds me of the jungle. Better that than the smell of Baygon. I will have to clean my toothbrush thoroughly tomorrow, or maybe even get a new one. Good thing I also keep my mug upside down after brushing my teeth so that water doesn't collect at the bottom, so I don't have to worry about it now.
Still, if they come in one more time to steal my Listerine, I think I will freak out. IT'S FOR MY TEETH! MINE!!
More ants! This time, they came from another point of entry!
Again, I found them busy gargling on my Listerine on my basin. I then traced them to the back of my cistern next to it. I got angry and sprayed everything with water first, then Baygon. Then I looked around and found more on my toilet bowl. So I sprayed that area too. Finally I found some running towards a tiny hole between the wall tiles and a wire cover near the ceiling.
I believe that's the new entrance after I covered the previous one with copious amounts of Baygon. They must have entered from there, went down to the pipes, followed them to the cistern and from there to the basin.
Of course I can't spray the wire cover with my shower head; I'm attempting pesticide, not suicide. But I went crazy with Baygon, holding it about 30cm away from the spot for about 3s before going downwards slowly following the path the ants took.
When I was done, the bathroom was slightly misty and everything felt a little oily. But I was not finished yet. I absolutely cannot risk ants entering my room if I can help it, not after experiencing what it is like to have ants on my bed at night.
After searching around my home for more pesticide because I recall seeing my mum buy those tiny packets of poison pellets designed specially for ants, I couldn't find them and settled for insect repellent. I still have one bottle from the last trip to Malaysia, so I sprayed it generously around my cistern, on the wire cover and the what used to be the ants' path down, around my bathroom door and again around the first hole where it all began earlier in the day.
All that spraying was probably going to cause an overdose of some sort in me, so I decided to leave instead of checking some more. My eyes were beginning to sting a tiny bit too, which helped me come to that decision quickly.
So now my room, despite closing the door, is filled with the smell of the insect repellent. It doesn't stink and gives my room a sort of somewhat nice smell that reminds me of the jungle. Better that than the smell of Baygon. I will have to clean my toothbrush thoroughly tomorrow, or maybe even get a new one. Good thing I also keep my mug upside down after brushing my teeth so that water doesn't collect at the bottom, so I don't have to worry about it now.
Still, if they come in one more time to steal my Listerine, I think I will freak out. IT'S FOR MY TEETH! MINE!!
Sunday 19 September 2010
Rant 621 / Invasion Of The Ants
I was wrong. Heroes of Newerth on Garena is completely free to play after beta. Only for SEA players on Garena is this game free of charge.
$30 fee was for the international version which we can no longer play due to IP bans. People from SEA who have paid that amount are now compensated with a few months of Garena Gold membership.
Join me and suck at it now! My id is senor_hybrido and I'm usually not on because I only play 1-2 games a day :P. I go in, get pwned, deflate ego, learn humility, exit game and then play something else. Once or twice per day. It's a healthy habit in a way.
Frickin hell! Ants invading my bathroom again! This time, things are different.
I first noticed them going around my basin. These ants are twice the size of those that I used to see in my room long ago, which made them a little more alarming. Ants in my room! I haven't seen that in months!
I keep my room clean mostly by keeping an eye out constantly for ants, a bottle of insecticide in my room and scrubbing my feet on the rag-mat outside my door every time I enter the room. These have kept my room ant-free so far, until today.
These ants came from a hole through my bathroom wall where the air-conditioners' drainage pipes go through. The water from them has to go somewhere, and in my home it is piped to my bathroom's drain.
These ants were coming out of the hole, up to and around my basin to my bottle of mouthwash. This is not the first time I've seen ants attracted to my Listerine mouthwash, but an entire trail of them trying to improve their oral hygiene at my expense? Never.
First came the insecticide. I didn't care if a little got sprayed onto my toothbrush and toothpaste. Extra spraying for the hole. I think I held the button down in front of the hole for like 2 seconds. All ants must go.
Second, I placed the bottle under the running tap as the cavity-free ants with a great refreshing breath tried evacuate from under the bottle cap. They didn't get into the bottle, but obviously a little of the mouthwash must have ended up around the rim. All ants must go.
Third was the rinsing. I turned off the tap, turned on the shower and sprayed everything with the shower head. Didn't try to rinse the hole since that's a special zone. Soap for the toothbrush to remove any oily feel on it. Dead and dying ants were washed down to the floor and swept to the drain. I even bent down to inspect the floor under the basin and the path of water flow to the drain. All ants must go.
Fourth was the complaint to the rest of the family that I'm getting an ant invasion in case they could come up with something I didn't think of. My mum told me I could get a straw to spray insecticide deeper into the hole. That reminded me of the tiny plastic tube that came with some insecticides, but I couldn't find any. But all ants must go.
Fifth was the spraying with the straw. Made sure the straw was on the hole of the sprayer and its other end was inside the hole in the wall. Must have held it there for 3 seconds or so, shifting it around so that the entire wall around hole could receive the wholesome goodness of Baygon. All ants must go.
Noticed the straw felt cold as the spray of insecticide blew through it. Didn't expect that although I should have.
I'm worried a few may have entered my room. So I'm repacking all food that aren't packaged properly, like a bar of chocolate that I haven't finished. I merely re-wrapped it with the excess foil it was already wrapped in.
Yarrrr! Today is the International Talk like a Pirate Day, a Pastafarian holiday. Shiver me timbers!
So now there's a new kind of spam email. I've receiving those spam comments on my blog which are promptly deleted by the posters probably, since I never find them when I check on the rants those comments were posted on. However, these comments trigger emails to my inbox which includes the entire messages posted (and deleted).
They're always posted anonymously. Now I'm considering unchecking the email notification option.
$30 fee was for the international version which we can no longer play due to IP bans. People from SEA who have paid that amount are now compensated with a few months of Garena Gold membership.
Join me and suck at it now! My id is senor_hybrido and I'm usually not on because I only play 1-2 games a day :P. I go in, get pwned, deflate ego, learn humility, exit game and then play something else. Once or twice per day. It's a healthy habit in a way.
Frickin hell! Ants invading my bathroom again! This time, things are different.
I first noticed them going around my basin. These ants are twice the size of those that I used to see in my room long ago, which made them a little more alarming. Ants in my room! I haven't seen that in months!
I keep my room clean mostly by keeping an eye out constantly for ants, a bottle of insecticide in my room and scrubbing my feet on the rag-mat outside my door every time I enter the room. These have kept my room ant-free so far, until today.
These ants came from a hole through my bathroom wall where the air-conditioners' drainage pipes go through. The water from them has to go somewhere, and in my home it is piped to my bathroom's drain.
These ants were coming out of the hole, up to and around my basin to my bottle of mouthwash. This is not the first time I've seen ants attracted to my Listerine mouthwash, but an entire trail of them trying to improve their oral hygiene at my expense? Never.
First came the insecticide. I didn't care if a little got sprayed onto my toothbrush and toothpaste. Extra spraying for the hole. I think I held the button down in front of the hole for like 2 seconds. All ants must go.
Second, I placed the bottle under the running tap as the cavity-free ants with a great refreshing breath tried evacuate from under the bottle cap. They didn't get into the bottle, but obviously a little of the mouthwash must have ended up around the rim. All ants must go.
Third was the rinsing. I turned off the tap, turned on the shower and sprayed everything with the shower head. Didn't try to rinse the hole since that's a special zone. Soap for the toothbrush to remove any oily feel on it. Dead and dying ants were washed down to the floor and swept to the drain. I even bent down to inspect the floor under the basin and the path of water flow to the drain. All ants must go.
Fourth was the complaint to the rest of the family that I'm getting an ant invasion in case they could come up with something I didn't think of. My mum told me I could get a straw to spray insecticide deeper into the hole. That reminded me of the tiny plastic tube that came with some insecticides, but I couldn't find any. But all ants must go.
Fifth was the spraying with the straw. Made sure the straw was on the hole of the sprayer and its other end was inside the hole in the wall. Must have held it there for 3 seconds or so, shifting it around so that the entire wall around hole could receive the wholesome goodness of Baygon. All ants must go.
Noticed the straw felt cold as the spray of insecticide blew through it. Didn't expect that although I should have.
I'm worried a few may have entered my room. So I'm repacking all food that aren't packaged properly, like a bar of chocolate that I haven't finished. I merely re-wrapped it with the excess foil it was already wrapped in.
Yarrrr! Today is the International Talk like a Pirate Day, a Pastafarian holiday. Shiver me timbers!
So now there's a new kind of spam email. I've receiving those spam comments on my blog which are promptly deleted by the posters probably, since I never find them when I check on the rants those comments were posted on. However, these comments trigger emails to my inbox which includes the entire messages posted (and deleted).
They're always posted anonymously. Now I'm considering unchecking the email notification option.
Saturday 18 September 2010
Rant 620 / Gold?
Holy fuck! Didn't I just said that the next bubble may be gold the last time its price struck record high? DIDN'T I?!?!?
Now George Soros, an imminent figure in the financial world and also known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England", is warning that gold may be the "ultimate bubble"!
Am I psychic? Or am I just proof that if you spout enough nonsense, some may turn out to be true? Or was this just obvious from the start?
Still, if only I'm this lucky at spotting topics for exams :\
Yet another guess came true: sex robots. Roxxxy, the prototype, is the same as the dolls I discussed recently (and just as customizable) plus it can talk and "feel". It's not using the pressure-sensitive skin featured in another recent news article but has touch sensors.
How long before we see guys marrying these "girls" and divorcing their DS?
Now people cannot deny that sex is one of the most common factors that are driving the advancement of technologies (think cosmetic surgeries and the Internet), and this is probably the safest sort of sex that involves 2 partners, as long as they are both cleaned after regularly. Wouldn't want this to happen:
I mean, this can happen literally! And you really don't want them on your dick. I may not have any experience but I'm still pretty sure about it. Call it another of my guesses. They seem to come true often enough these days :P
Anyway if some guy records a video of him having sex with such a doll, is it heterosexual porn or is it gay porn? The former because it looks like a guy doing it with a girl; the latter because technically it's male masturbation.
So I watched the latest Resident Evil movie in 3D today at the Golden Village cinema at Jurong Point.
1) Glasses are too small. Doesn't fit my head so the glasses slips down to rest on the tip of my nose. Whenever it did, I could smell it. It stank of dried sweat. Then I pushed it back up. Then it slips down slowly again. The alternative is to lie back and rest my head on the chair, which means I have to look down my nose to see the screen. But if I do that, it stops slipping. Shit sucks.
2) Screen isn't large enough to have sufficient immersion. The borders of the screen are in view and really kill the illusion of realism. This is the first and biggest problem I noticed.
3) The movie didn't make use of the 3D effect enough. I believe it's because 3D film-making is still in its infancy, which reminds me of old black and white films when people just began to make movies and they felt pretty awkward. For example, they didn't use music to build up atmosphere back then and there was only silence when things were about to explode.
4) The director seems to love to combine bullet-time with 3D, which is great, but he kept using it throughout the film and it got old after a while.
Mainly due to the second reason, I'm not going to watch 3D films anymore.
Now George Soros, an imminent figure in the financial world and also known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England", is warning that gold may be the "ultimate bubble"!
Am I psychic? Or am I just proof that if you spout enough nonsense, some may turn out to be true? Or was this just obvious from the start?
Still, if only I'm this lucky at spotting topics for exams :\
Yet another guess came true: sex robots. Roxxxy, the prototype, is the same as the dolls I discussed recently (and just as customizable) plus it can talk and "feel". It's not using the pressure-sensitive skin featured in another recent news article but has touch sensors.
How long before we see guys marrying these "girls" and divorcing their DS?
Now people cannot deny that sex is one of the most common factors that are driving the advancement of technologies (think cosmetic surgeries and the Internet), and this is probably the safest sort of sex that involves 2 partners, as long as they are both cleaned after regularly. Wouldn't want this to happen:
I mean, this can happen literally! And you really don't want them on your dick. I may not have any experience but I'm still pretty sure about it. Call it another of my guesses. They seem to come true often enough these days :P
Anyway if some guy records a video of him having sex with such a doll, is it heterosexual porn or is it gay porn? The former because it looks like a guy doing it with a girl; the latter because technically it's male masturbation.
So I watched the latest Resident Evil movie in 3D today at the Golden Village cinema at Jurong Point.
1) Glasses are too small. Doesn't fit my head so the glasses slips down to rest on the tip of my nose. Whenever it did, I could smell it. It stank of dried sweat. Then I pushed it back up. Then it slips down slowly again. The alternative is to lie back and rest my head on the chair, which means I have to look down my nose to see the screen. But if I do that, it stops slipping. Shit sucks.
2) Screen isn't large enough to have sufficient immersion. The borders of the screen are in view and really kill the illusion of realism. This is the first and biggest problem I noticed.
3) The movie didn't make use of the 3D effect enough. I believe it's because 3D film-making is still in its infancy, which reminds me of old black and white films when people just began to make movies and they felt pretty awkward. For example, they didn't use music to build up atmosphere back then and there was only silence when things were about to explode.
4) The director seems to love to combine bullet-time with 3D, which is great, but he kept using it throughout the film and it got old after a while.
Mainly due to the second reason, I'm not going to watch 3D films anymore.
Friday 17 September 2010
Rant 619 / Gravitation
So US Internet users stay online all the time. Brings to mind something I once said about hiveminds. The Internet is probably the precursor to one. Since we already have glasses that connect us to the web to superimpose data on our surroundings, it is not too far-fetched to think that eventually we're going to be even more immersed into the Internet all the time, perhaps via contact lenses and earphones.
If we're constantly online in Messenger wherever we go via these glasses and use voice chat instead of text, it really isn't too different from a hive mind other than that we can hide our personal thoughts to some degree.
If we have an entire generation of people who were cared for by their grandparents instead of their parents, what happens when these parents become grandparents themselves?
This isn't a new song but I've never seen the video till now.
The most sincere romantic gift of all. Only 3 simple steps. Probably the funniest of their discography.
If we're constantly online in Messenger wherever we go via these glasses and use voice chat instead of text, it really isn't too different from a hive mind other than that we can hide our personal thoughts to some degree.
If we have an entire generation of people who were cared for by their grandparents instead of their parents, what happens when these parents become grandparents themselves?
This isn't a new song but I've never seen the video till now.
The most sincere romantic gift of all. Only 3 simple steps. Probably the funniest of their discography.
Thursday 16 September 2010
Rant 618 / It's A Fruit Dealer!
Since I seem to be always discussing about what annoys me, it may be healthier for me to talk about what I like.
I like nothingness. I like a blank calender. I like the absence of alarms.
In short, I like it when there is no deadline for today, tomorrow, next week and next month.
It is hard to be insanely bored when you have the Internet, unlike in the past when you have nothing to do, you really have nothing to do.
One thing that can bring me closer to this dream is the grocery delivery service provided by some stores like Cold Storage. It is actually worth the $7 charged for delivery because it costs only about $2 less if I walk there and travel back by cab from the Holland V branch(which is the only choice when you're carrying 2-4 large bags of stuff).
The only reason I don't order online is because of the limited choices available. The most important thing that's missing from their online menu is parma ham. No parma ham, no talk.
If they had everything, I'd even consider setting a standing order for a fortnightly delivery. I pick fortnight instead of daily because I have to hit $60 to get the lower $7 delivery charge, or else it's $12.
When shit happens too often, sometimes it can mean that there is a reason behind it. Shit doesn't happen everyday or even every week. If it does, something may be horribly wrong somewhere.
Heroes of Newerth is 100X better than DotA because of the various asshole-proof mechanisms it employs. For example, in DotA there are occasional assholes who leave when the countdown begins after the host starts the game. In HoN, the timer stops when anyone disconnects.
Second, if anyone disconnects during the game, they can rejoin if they return within a few minutes (about 5, but I'm not sure).
Third, all players have some kind of skill rating. Newbies begin with 1500 and drops or rises according to each win/loss they accumulate. The lower their ratings, the less points they lose per loss and the more points they gain per victory. Working together with this rating is the autobalance function. When the host clicks on autobalance (aka "ab"), the game automatically shuffles the players so that both sides have approximately the same total ratings.
However, the host can also lock players so that they won't be shuffled when the game autobalances the teams.
Fourth, you cannot rage quit without consequences. When someone quits during a game, the game would announce "RAGE QUIT" and everyone would see who left. If I'm not wrong rage quits are recorded in the quitter's stats and may affect his rating. In addition, hosts can activate a "No Leavers" option for his game so that people who rage quit a lot cannot join it.
However, I still suck at the game. Several of the heroes feel pretty new to me, like Balphagore. This guy's abilities are all about slowing movement, which are kind of hard to master to me.
The film industry hires professionals to DDoS pirate sites. Wow.
So the difference between the usual Internet hackers and these guys is that they have the backing of wealthy guys. DDoS is a crime in many countries btw, not just in Australia. Therefore you can't say they have the law on their side.
Basically a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack is a major spam of certain data packets from multiple computers to overwhelm the websites' servers, causing them to crash. A DoS attack is the same except there is only 1 computer/server doing the spamming.
Unfortunately the average computer expert usually cannot find out the source(s) of a DoS attack, as far as I can tell. In fact, if you have the money it is actually possible to obtain a zombie botnet or part of one to DDoS for you. That is one reason why writing malicious softwares (aka viruses) is actually an established industry in certain Eastern European countries.
Reminds me of how our servers in Empires keep getting DDoSed because some guy wanted the players to go to his server to play with him. Yes he crashed all servers that have players to have people to play with.
According to the "experts" from our servers, the last DDoS attack peaked at 4Mbps on the largest server just before it crashed. The attack was formed by having more than 400 unique IPs sending 150 packets of 53kb each per second, with all IPs spoofed to make them untraceable by us non-professionals. Not even the server owners who rented them to the us have the expertise to do it.
We're currently helpless against this. There is no way at the moment to stop this asshole until the mod developers include an IP ban to remove that guy's server from the list permanently in the next version of the mod. Also, he is able to quickly get his server back up when a few of our players tried to DDoS it.
Actually, we're not even sure if this is a DDoS or a DoS because a single computer can have sufficient bandwidth and there are certainly tools available online to help him accomplish the attacks.
This looks like some kind of cyber gang wars, doesn't it?
For all the talk about how meritocracy reigns in Singapore, I think the only reason it's that way is because the government, which appears to support and promote this idea, is the most powerful entity here. If it wasn't, meritocracy would be just talk.
I don't know why, but this article about how the CWS isn't proactive enough just triggered this thought in my mind.
Everything we have in Singapore today depends on the power that the government wields. This power, I believe, is derived from its wealth and its control of ours. This, in turn, is due to its link to Temasek and GIC.
Most Singaporeans are aware of who the top people are in Temasek and probably GIC.
Therefore, I believe that PAP and the Lee family must stay in power if Singapore is to remain stable and wealthy. If anyone else controls the government while the top management of Temasek and GIC remain the same, the government and its sources of wealth will become controlled by separate factions.
From this point of view, we really have no choice in the elections.
Obviously when the above happens, Temasek and GIC will, together, wield the most power. After all, nobody with a sound mind can deny that money is power.
So what happens if commercial entities become more powerful than the local government? See: USA.
Am I talking nonsense? I probably am.
There's a Korean professional Starcraft II player called "a Fruit Dealer". Yes, a Fruit Dealer playing SC II. Haha. Big news. He's pretty good from what I've seen in today's match against NEXTaeja. Yes, this guy got beaten by a fruit dealer in SC II.
I like his style. Can tell that he thinks ahead all the time. For example, he plants Banelings in his retreat routes to kill land units that chase his attacking forces when they retreat. According to the casters they work the same way as Spider Mines from Terran Vultures, except they can be manually detonated to explode in the midst of the enemy forces.
It's also funny how the announcer uses his real name "Won Ki Kim" instead of saying "a Fruit Dealer!!" I wonder why :P
Another notable player who played today was MaruPrime, with "Prime" being his clan tag. He's a 13-year-old player who won his way into the Round of 32!
Too bad he lost at that point. Would have been interesting to see a little boy in the later stages.
Also my first time seeing a Photon Cannon rush, done by oGsInCa in the 2nd round of his match today. It was a little funny to see InCa's opponent so obviously panicking when he didn't know what to hit and just focused his fire on a not-very-useful Pylon instead of trying to go down to hit the Cannons that were warping in. There was no point in attacking the Pylons because there were 3 more nearby, 2 of which were blocking the ramp exit.
As for the stream, it has been surprisingly smooth. Not a single instance of choppy streaming or pauses at all. I see why they limit the number of connections now. Excellent work there.
Again according to casters, there are people from over 87 countries logging in to watch these games. How many countries are there with SC II players??
Watching these games may not be the best form of entertainment, but there are only so many episodes of House and CSI.
So I booked the tickets for RE 3D. I did not have any idea how fast tickets go for a 3D film, so I decided to watch the slots of various times for RE 3D for these few days. Missed the last two days but today at about 5-6pm I managed to catch the one at around 7pm, which I expect to be the more popular time because it's just after office hours. The back half of the room actually filled up quickly and suddenly by 6pm.
In addition, I didn't want to go there more than an hour before the show starts just to get the better seats, hence the online booking. Also threw in another $10.50 for the ice cream/popcorn combo. We're not going for a buffet after, so there's no harm getting something to eat before the dinner.
I like nothingness. I like a blank calender. I like the absence of alarms.
In short, I like it when there is no deadline for today, tomorrow, next week and next month.
It is hard to be insanely bored when you have the Internet, unlike in the past when you have nothing to do, you really have nothing to do.
One thing that can bring me closer to this dream is the grocery delivery service provided by some stores like Cold Storage. It is actually worth the $7 charged for delivery because it costs only about $2 less if I walk there and travel back by cab from the Holland V branch(which is the only choice when you're carrying 2-4 large bags of stuff).
The only reason I don't order online is because of the limited choices available. The most important thing that's missing from their online menu is parma ham. No parma ham, no talk.
If they had everything, I'd even consider setting a standing order for a fortnightly delivery. I pick fortnight instead of daily because I have to hit $60 to get the lower $7 delivery charge, or else it's $12.
When shit happens too often, sometimes it can mean that there is a reason behind it. Shit doesn't happen everyday or even every week. If it does, something may be horribly wrong somewhere.
Heroes of Newerth is 100X better than DotA because of the various asshole-proof mechanisms it employs. For example, in DotA there are occasional assholes who leave when the countdown begins after the host starts the game. In HoN, the timer stops when anyone disconnects.
Second, if anyone disconnects during the game, they can rejoin if they return within a few minutes (about 5, but I'm not sure).
Third, all players have some kind of skill rating. Newbies begin with 1500 and drops or rises according to each win/loss they accumulate. The lower their ratings, the less points they lose per loss and the more points they gain per victory. Working together with this rating is the autobalance function. When the host clicks on autobalance (aka "ab"), the game automatically shuffles the players so that both sides have approximately the same total ratings.
However, the host can also lock players so that they won't be shuffled when the game autobalances the teams.
Fourth, you cannot rage quit without consequences. When someone quits during a game, the game would announce "RAGE QUIT" and everyone would see who left. If I'm not wrong rage quits are recorded in the quitter's stats and may affect his rating. In addition, hosts can activate a "No Leavers" option for his game so that people who rage quit a lot cannot join it.
However, I still suck at the game. Several of the heroes feel pretty new to me, like Balphagore. This guy's abilities are all about slowing movement, which are kind of hard to master to me.
The film industry hires professionals to DDoS pirate sites. Wow.
So the difference between the usual Internet hackers and these guys is that they have the backing of wealthy guys. DDoS is a crime in many countries btw, not just in Australia. Therefore you can't say they have the law on their side.
Basically a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack is a major spam of certain data packets from multiple computers to overwhelm the websites' servers, causing them to crash. A DoS attack is the same except there is only 1 computer/server doing the spamming.
Unfortunately the average computer expert usually cannot find out the source(s) of a DoS attack, as far as I can tell. In fact, if you have the money it is actually possible to obtain a zombie botnet or part of one to DDoS for you. That is one reason why writing malicious softwares (aka viruses) is actually an established industry in certain Eastern European countries.
Reminds me of how our servers in Empires keep getting DDoSed because some guy wanted the players to go to his server to play with him. Yes he crashed all servers that have players to have people to play with.
According to the "experts" from our servers, the last DDoS attack peaked at 4Mbps on the largest server just before it crashed. The attack was formed by having more than 400 unique IPs sending 150 packets of 53kb each per second, with all IPs spoofed to make them untraceable by us non-professionals. Not even the server owners who rented them to the us have the expertise to do it.
We're currently helpless against this. There is no way at the moment to stop this asshole until the mod developers include an IP ban to remove that guy's server from the list permanently in the next version of the mod. Also, he is able to quickly get his server back up when a few of our players tried to DDoS it.
Actually, we're not even sure if this is a DDoS or a DoS because a single computer can have sufficient bandwidth and there are certainly tools available online to help him accomplish the attacks.
This looks like some kind of cyber gang wars, doesn't it?
For all the talk about how meritocracy reigns in Singapore, I think the only reason it's that way is because the government, which appears to support and promote this idea, is the most powerful entity here. If it wasn't, meritocracy would be just talk.
I don't know why, but this article about how the CWS isn't proactive enough just triggered this thought in my mind.
Everything we have in Singapore today depends on the power that the government wields. This power, I believe, is derived from its wealth and its control of ours. This, in turn, is due to its link to Temasek and GIC.
Most Singaporeans are aware of who the top people are in Temasek and probably GIC.
Therefore, I believe that PAP and the Lee family must stay in power if Singapore is to remain stable and wealthy. If anyone else controls the government while the top management of Temasek and GIC remain the same, the government and its sources of wealth will become controlled by separate factions.
From this point of view, we really have no choice in the elections.
Obviously when the above happens, Temasek and GIC will, together, wield the most power. After all, nobody with a sound mind can deny that money is power.
So what happens if commercial entities become more powerful than the local government? See: USA.
Am I talking nonsense? I probably am.
There's a Korean professional Starcraft II player called "a Fruit Dealer". Yes, a Fruit Dealer playing SC II. Haha. Big news. He's pretty good from what I've seen in today's match against NEXTaeja. Yes, this guy got beaten by a fruit dealer in SC II.
I like his style. Can tell that he thinks ahead all the time. For example, he plants Banelings in his retreat routes to kill land units that chase his attacking forces when they retreat. According to the casters they work the same way as Spider Mines from Terran Vultures, except they can be manually detonated to explode in the midst of the enemy forces.
It's also funny how the announcer uses his real name "Won Ki Kim" instead of saying "a Fruit Dealer!!" I wonder why :P
Another notable player who played today was MaruPrime, with "Prime" being his clan tag. He's a 13-year-old player who won his way into the Round of 32!
Too bad he lost at that point. Would have been interesting to see a little boy in the later stages.
Also my first time seeing a Photon Cannon rush, done by oGsInCa in the 2nd round of his match today. It was a little funny to see InCa's opponent so obviously panicking when he didn't know what to hit and just focused his fire on a not-very-useful Pylon instead of trying to go down to hit the Cannons that were warping in. There was no point in attacking the Pylons because there were 3 more nearby, 2 of which were blocking the ramp exit.
As for the stream, it has been surprisingly smooth. Not a single instance of choppy streaming or pauses at all. I see why they limit the number of connections now. Excellent work there.
Again according to casters, there are people from over 87 countries logging in to watch these games. How many countries are there with SC II players??
Watching these games may not be the best form of entertainment, but there are only so many episodes of House and CSI.
So I booked the tickets for RE 3D. I did not have any idea how fast tickets go for a 3D film, so I decided to watch the slots of various times for RE 3D for these few days. Missed the last two days but today at about 5-6pm I managed to catch the one at around 7pm, which I expect to be the more popular time because it's just after office hours. The back half of the room actually filled up quickly and suddenly by 6pm.
In addition, I didn't want to go there more than an hour before the show starts just to get the better seats, hence the online booking. Also threw in another $10.50 for the ice cream/popcorn combo. We're not going for a buffet after, so there's no harm getting something to eat before the dinner.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Rant 617 / What To Do With The Extra Lemons?
That's fast! It's been barely a month since the US pulled out of Iraq and they're dumping their arsenal into the hands of Saudi Arabia already. US$60 billion worth of weaponry and other military equipment.
Taking marching to a whole new level. I'm stunned by the collective precision of the students' paces.
Superbug that sounds like it's more dangerous than SARS is threatening the world. We all knew such a bacteria was going to appear sooner or later, especially when we have people who believe that it's better not to finish their prescribed courses of medicines because their bodies might get resistant to it.
So I wonder how lethal it actually is. Being contagious is one thing, being lethal is another.
Should Asia's economy stop depending on the West? So it's that bad that people are seriously considering this. Ever since 1997 I don't think I've heard any news of economic booms, but there's always news of crises and slow recovery. What do?
So if I spend 1 dollar more to book tickets online, I get to buy this Ben & Jerry combo which includes 1 Ben & Jerry ice cream (probably 1 pint), 1 large Coke and 1 large popcorn for an extra $10.50.
Which means I'll be getting this combo for $11.50.
The problem is that I have no idea what the prices are like at the popcorn vendors at the GV cinema.
If it's worth it, I'd book it. If it's not, there is no need to book online because tickets don't seem to be running out anytime soon.
But if not for the extra $1 online booking fee, I'd definitely book online with my debit card since it has this 0.3% rebate, which cash lacks.
This is going to be interesting. Today's matchup for the first day of the Round of 32 on GOM TV includes IdrA on the first match. IdrA is probably the best white guy in the SC scene, which means he can probably beat the average Koreans, but definitely not the best like Flash.
Since it starts at 5pm, I'll start to try to log in at about 4pm, which is 10mins from now. :D
Kiasu, I know.
Taking marching to a whole new level. I'm stunned by the collective precision of the students' paces.
Superbug that sounds like it's more dangerous than SARS is threatening the world. We all knew such a bacteria was going to appear sooner or later, especially when we have people who believe that it's better not to finish their prescribed courses of medicines because their bodies might get resistant to it.
So I wonder how lethal it actually is. Being contagious is one thing, being lethal is another.
Should Asia's economy stop depending on the West? So it's that bad that people are seriously considering this. Ever since 1997 I don't think I've heard any news of economic booms, but there's always news of crises and slow recovery. What do?
So if I spend 1 dollar more to book tickets online, I get to buy this Ben & Jerry combo which includes 1 Ben & Jerry ice cream (probably 1 pint), 1 large Coke and 1 large popcorn for an extra $10.50.
Which means I'll be getting this combo for $11.50.
The problem is that I have no idea what the prices are like at the popcorn vendors at the GV cinema.
If it's worth it, I'd book it. If it's not, there is no need to book online because tickets don't seem to be running out anytime soon.
But if not for the extra $1 online booking fee, I'd definitely book online with my debit card since it has this 0.3% rebate, which cash lacks.
This is going to be interesting. Today's matchup for the first day of the Round of 32 on GOM TV includes IdrA on the first match. IdrA is probably the best white guy in the SC scene, which means he can probably beat the average Koreans, but definitely not the best like Flash.
Since it starts at 5pm, I'll start to try to log in at about 4pm, which is 10mins from now. :D
Kiasu, I know.
Monday 13 September 2010
Rant 616 / Artificial Pressure-Sensitive Skin!
The lobster may be a delicacy today, but once upon a time it used to be eaten only by the poorest in North America. It had such a stigma that servants had to sign an agreement to limit the number of times they can eat lobsters each year. It was actually quite different in Europe where in France and Netherlands the lobsters have always been eaten exclusively by the wealthy. Then again, the French would eat anything just like us Chinese.
:O
From this twitter page:
"See, you think I give a shit. Wrong. In fact, while you talk, I'm thinking; How can I give less of shit? That's why I look interested."
You know, I have a really crazy idea today. My allergy to the local climate has always got me to think about how I can keep air conditioner on without spending billions on electricity. In fact I think about that whenever I have to open my window to ventilate my room, which is almost everyday. Sometimes it gets rainy and cloudy the entire day so I don't have to open anything.
Anyway just now I suddenly recalled those booths the Starcraft players stay in when they're playing in the tournaments. If you haven't seen one, I suggest you watch a game or two. There are plenty of videos on Youtube.
Basically it's just a tiny booth just for the guy and his computer. What if I have a slightly enlarged version in my room and instead of my air conditioner I buy one of those smaller ones that stand on the floor?
Disregarding the space issue, how can I construct such a booth?
It is definitely doable. I just need to look around to see if there's any junk at home I can dismantle to build the frame. Then I need to find a way to make sure the cold air does not seep out too much at the bottom. Next I have make sure the warmed air from the back of the computer casing gets out of the booth either by sticking the back of the casing outside or by piping it.
Above all, it needs to be lightweight and non-permanent so that it can be lifted when the floor needs to be cleaned.
Hmm...
Barely 2 months since the release of Starcraft II, TG-Intel Starcraft II Open Season 1 begins! However, the live stream has limited number of connections available, so one has to open it early to watch any of the games. I tried it just now for half an hour, going back to click on it every now and then, and I could not get in at all.
On the other hand, I'm sure someone was streaming it on www.livestream.com although I didn't bother to go to that site because I was too preoccupied with other things. It is common for such hot games to be re-streamed live by someone who is watching it at the same time directly from the website.
Can't blame us for watching the games somewhere else and causing a loss in hit counts on the GomTV website if they can't handle the traffic.
Just found out about www.mturk.com where people can work for money which they can spend on www.amazon.com. The work available is mostly about writing essays which pay like US$1-2 each and the word limits are 100-500 each. Don't really dare to try the sampling tasks which require me to register for trial memberships even though they pay more than most and claim that we can cancel them easily. I just don't feel comfortable giving away my debit card number for such things.
So right after I ranted about sex dolls, I find news about artificial skin that can detect pressure. Interesting development, eh?
:O
From this twitter page:
"See, you think I give a shit. Wrong. In fact, while you talk, I'm thinking; How can I give less of shit? That's why I look interested."
You know, I have a really crazy idea today. My allergy to the local climate has always got me to think about how I can keep air conditioner on without spending billions on electricity. In fact I think about that whenever I have to open my window to ventilate my room, which is almost everyday. Sometimes it gets rainy and cloudy the entire day so I don't have to open anything.
Anyway just now I suddenly recalled those booths the Starcraft players stay in when they're playing in the tournaments. If you haven't seen one, I suggest you watch a game or two. There are plenty of videos on Youtube.
Basically it's just a tiny booth just for the guy and his computer. What if I have a slightly enlarged version in my room and instead of my air conditioner I buy one of those smaller ones that stand on the floor?
Disregarding the space issue, how can I construct such a booth?
It is definitely doable. I just need to look around to see if there's any junk at home I can dismantle to build the frame. Then I need to find a way to make sure the cold air does not seep out too much at the bottom. Next I have make sure the warmed air from the back of the computer casing gets out of the booth either by sticking the back of the casing outside or by piping it.
Above all, it needs to be lightweight and non-permanent so that it can be lifted when the floor needs to be cleaned.
Hmm...
Barely 2 months since the release of Starcraft II, TG-Intel Starcraft II Open Season 1 begins! However, the live stream has limited number of connections available, so one has to open it early to watch any of the games. I tried it just now for half an hour, going back to click on it every now and then, and I could not get in at all.
On the other hand, I'm sure someone was streaming it on www.livestream.com although I didn't bother to go to that site because I was too preoccupied with other things. It is common for such hot games to be re-streamed live by someone who is watching it at the same time directly from the website.
Can't blame us for watching the games somewhere else and causing a loss in hit counts on the GomTV website if they can't handle the traffic.
Just found out about www.mturk.com where people can work for money which they can spend on www.amazon.com. The work available is mostly about writing essays which pay like US$1-2 each and the word limits are 100-500 each. Don't really dare to try the sampling tasks which require me to register for trial memberships even though they pay more than most and claim that we can cancel them easily. I just don't feel comfortable giving away my debit card number for such things.
So right after I ranted about sex dolls, I find news about artificial skin that can detect pressure. Interesting development, eh?
Sunday 12 September 2010
Rant 615 / Let's Burn The Kama Sutra!
Today must be my lucky day. First some guy in my guild in BTO sends me an expensive vehicle for no reason, then I won a red employee from a routine daily attempt at a gambling game in BTO.
First the expensive vehicle is much better than the one I have, and the chance of me getting it is negligible because I don't spend money on it, which that guy does. He's one of those who has such vehicles to spare, though I have no idea why he would send me one since I haven't done anything significant in the game. In addition, it is better than the best vehicle available to people who don't spend money on the game.
FYI vehicles in BTO make us earn money faster. The better the vehicle, the faster it gets.
Second the red employee is an extremely rare class of employee. Employees in the game raise the revenue of the store they work in, and there are 5 colour classes of them. Red is the second highest level, which is kind of common only for people who spend thousands of USD on the game. In other words, the chance of me getting such employees is also negligible since I haven't spend a single cent on it.
Even though it kind of drained my hard-earned ingame money to retrain her to suit my industry, it is definitely cheaper than the cost of time and money needed to train one of my crappier employees to that level.
Just found out about the Rugged laptops from Panasonic during a conversation in BTO in which one of the guys mentioned that he worked in some mining company and he was given a semi-rugged laptop.
Those things are amazing. First of all, they're completely sealed! According to him, those computers don't need ventilation because they only use heatsinks. That's some pretty extraordinary heatsinks, or maybe I'm just outdated.
Secondly, his friend who has a fully Rugged laptop demonstrated its shock absorption by dropping it at about 6 feet above ground. It was totally fine. His friend then dropped his semi-Rugged laptop. It broke a little but it merely took some screwing to fix it.
(6 feet = 1.8m)
Those computers use Intel i5 and i3 processors, so they don't suck in terms of performance either.
Toughbooks aren't new, but I haven't heard of them probably because I don't look at laptops much anymore. Most people don't need them, but for that guy working in a mining company, it's obvious why his company picked them.
Is it just me or have the McGriddles shrunk recently?
The history of copyright laws is actually surprisingly different from what I expected. It actually originated back when printing presses first proliferated in England and the English government came up with the copyright law to help censor certain materials from being printed.
It was never designed to protect the artists and still isn't. That's what the part of the essay in the above link is saying. Copyright saving the livelihoods of the artists is a merely a side-effect... when it works.
Yet we still have to take into account the livelihoods of the other people who help to produce the works, so the copyright laws still do have a sort of purpose.
However I still believe that it needs to adapt. With the Internet, we can practically have any movies, games and music for free with no fear of consequences. I like the analogy used in one of the comments. Imagine an episode of Naruto as a can of Coke. Now the Internet in this scenario is a magical machine that can instantly clone the can of Coke perfectly at no cost, and there are people around the globe just using this machine to clone the cans for free.
It practically defies common sense to believe that people would resist taking them! There's a reason why saints are so rare - it's against human nature to be saintly.
Therefore, the present business models used by distributors need to be changed, and it is already in some cases.
For example, the recent revival in computer games due to online gaming is one way to adapt to the new technology. DLCs and updates, as much as I dislike their implication that what we bought is incomplete, is another.
Here's another article authored by an actual musician. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I'm pretty sure I have thought about it long ago. If artists really need copyrights to make a living, how did they survive before the introduction of these laws? The same is described in the article:
Humans have walked this earth for about 195,000 years. We don’t know exactly when music emerged, but it was certainly a very long time ago, long before recorded history. There is evidence that music may have been integral to the evolution of the human brain, that music and language developed in tandem. The first recording device was invented just 129 years ago. The first mass-produced record appeared just 110 years ago. The idea that selling permission to listen to recorded music is the foundation of the possibility of earning one’s livelihood from music is at most 50 years old, and it is a myth. The fact that most musicians today believe in this myth is an ideological triumph for corporate power of breathtaking proportions.
A fact as described by another paragraph in the same article is that today, an artist can perform a piece of music just once in his/her entire lifetime and have it enjoyed by others forever. Combine this with the fact that people who attend concerts have proven to be unable to tell when the performer lip-synchs and we have a rather interesting concept here.
Gah! I can't think anymore. It's been over 30 hours since I last went to sleep, or 22 hours since I woke up. It's 6.41pm now. But you can mull on this question if you want. :)
Oh btw HoN is like DotA but better. Just tried a few games today. I still suck at it. You can play it on Garena.
First the expensive vehicle is much better than the one I have, and the chance of me getting it is negligible because I don't spend money on it, which that guy does. He's one of those who has such vehicles to spare, though I have no idea why he would send me one since I haven't done anything significant in the game. In addition, it is better than the best vehicle available to people who don't spend money on the game.
FYI vehicles in BTO make us earn money faster. The better the vehicle, the faster it gets.
Second the red employee is an extremely rare class of employee. Employees in the game raise the revenue of the store they work in, and there are 5 colour classes of them. Red is the second highest level, which is kind of common only for people who spend thousands of USD on the game. In other words, the chance of me getting such employees is also negligible since I haven't spend a single cent on it.
Even though it kind of drained my hard-earned ingame money to retrain her to suit my industry, it is definitely cheaper than the cost of time and money needed to train one of my crappier employees to that level.
Just found out about the Rugged laptops from Panasonic during a conversation in BTO in which one of the guys mentioned that he worked in some mining company and he was given a semi-rugged laptop.
Those things are amazing. First of all, they're completely sealed! According to him, those computers don't need ventilation because they only use heatsinks. That's some pretty extraordinary heatsinks, or maybe I'm just outdated.
Secondly, his friend who has a fully Rugged laptop demonstrated its shock absorption by dropping it at about 6 feet above ground. It was totally fine. His friend then dropped his semi-Rugged laptop. It broke a little but it merely took some screwing to fix it.
(6 feet = 1.8m)
Those computers use Intel i5 and i3 processors, so they don't suck in terms of performance either.
Toughbooks aren't new, but I haven't heard of them probably because I don't look at laptops much anymore. Most people don't need them, but for that guy working in a mining company, it's obvious why his company picked them.
Is it just me or have the McGriddles shrunk recently?
The history of copyright laws is actually surprisingly different from what I expected. It actually originated back when printing presses first proliferated in England and the English government came up with the copyright law to help censor certain materials from being printed.
It was never designed to protect the artists and still isn't. That's what the part of the essay in the above link is saying. Copyright saving the livelihoods of the artists is a merely a side-effect... when it works.
Yet we still have to take into account the livelihoods of the other people who help to produce the works, so the copyright laws still do have a sort of purpose.
However I still believe that it needs to adapt. With the Internet, we can practically have any movies, games and music for free with no fear of consequences. I like the analogy used in one of the comments. Imagine an episode of Naruto as a can of Coke. Now the Internet in this scenario is a magical machine that can instantly clone the can of Coke perfectly at no cost, and there are people around the globe just using this machine to clone the cans for free.
It practically defies common sense to believe that people would resist taking them! There's a reason why saints are so rare - it's against human nature to be saintly.
Therefore, the present business models used by distributors need to be changed, and it is already in some cases.
For example, the recent revival in computer games due to online gaming is one way to adapt to the new technology. DLCs and updates, as much as I dislike their implication that what we bought is incomplete, is another.
Here's another article authored by an actual musician. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I'm pretty sure I have thought about it long ago. If artists really need copyrights to make a living, how did they survive before the introduction of these laws? The same is described in the article:
Humans have walked this earth for about 195,000 years. We don’t know exactly when music emerged, but it was certainly a very long time ago, long before recorded history. There is evidence that music may have been integral to the evolution of the human brain, that music and language developed in tandem. The first recording device was invented just 129 years ago. The first mass-produced record appeared just 110 years ago. The idea that selling permission to listen to recorded music is the foundation of the possibility of earning one’s livelihood from music is at most 50 years old, and it is a myth. The fact that most musicians today believe in this myth is an ideological triumph for corporate power of breathtaking proportions.
A fact as described by another paragraph in the same article is that today, an artist can perform a piece of music just once in his/her entire lifetime and have it enjoyed by others forever. Combine this with the fact that people who attend concerts have proven to be unable to tell when the performer lip-synchs and we have a rather interesting concept here.
Gah! I can't think anymore. It's been over 30 hours since I last went to sleep, or 22 hours since I woke up. It's 6.41pm now. But you can mull on this question if you want. :)
Oh btw HoN is like DotA but better. Just tried a few games today. I still suck at it. You can play it on Garena.
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剛剛下栽了南極星﹐ 忘 了要換成簡體字。。。
好﹐ 換 了。
許要用南極星做華文功課。我平時用的 http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html 也可以﹐ 但是會很麻煩。這南極星還可以打正個詞﹐ 不需要慢慢一個字一個字打。
希望這南極星可以用在MSWord里﹐不會出問題。
現在式式看。。。
沒事﹐應該不會有問題。