Tuesday 31 May 2011
Rant 787 / If I Leave The Title Space Blank, Would It Matter?
Johnson is the name of the skull and a slang for the male genital.
This is so funny, at one point I was beginning to get worried I might suffocate from laughing so hard.
(Queef = vaginal flatulence)
I survived for 25 days! Died last night from DEHYDRATION instead of a zombie attack.
325 points. If I had been killed by zombies while hiding, I'd have survived for 26 days and raised my score further, but I wasn't aware of this till after I died. I'm not sure if it was possible anyway. Would the system handle my Dehydrated status first or the zombie attack?
The 3 nights outside taught me a lot.
First, the staff does work. The icon for it looked like a tiny stick so I'd never expected it to kill anything, but it did... twice.
Second, since we can only search those special zones once per day, I should follow the others as they clear the way to these tiles to take advantage of their work and to make sure it's depleted before the path gets infested again the next day.
Third, having "decent" chances of survival is actually very good. However, the fact that the best we can get is 90%, it still means that if we stay outside, it better be worth the 1-in-10 probability of death.
While I was eating this loaf of bread (the big oval-shaped sort, not the sliced kind) I noticed it cost $0.60. Generally speaking I don't look at prices when I buy plain and obviously cheap stuff like this.
So it occured to me that this bread is cheaper than cooked rice. Obviously it's not the same as comparing with raw rice since I'd have to compare raw rice with flour, salt and yeast.
But anyway, for $0.60 I'd definitely not get rice of the same volume. Maybe they may hit the same weight (therefore making them equal) but when it comes to eating by itself, I prefer bread to rice. I don't know. Both are fragrant in their own ways but I'm able to appreciate the flavour of the bread more than that of rice.
Which brings me to the actual story. I noticed that it wasn't made using yeast, yet it was cheap. This didn't seem right because yeast can be reused, ie with a mother dough. It's something I'd once considered making but never bothered because I didn't bake often enough.
A mother dough is basically a piece of dough that's already filled with active yeast. A baker could tear a part of it or just dump the whole thing (depending on volume) into his dough instead of adding new yeast, and later he could just tear out a piece of this new dough to keep as a mother dough. This way, a baker could theoretically have a perpetual source of yeast and permanently save on the cost of that ingredient.
If so, shouldn't bread made with yeast be cheaper than those made with baking soda? These are the only 2 things I'm aware of that can make those bubbles in dough, and baking soda does not reproduce itself.
At this low price, obviously the baker wanted to keep the budget to the minimal. Therefore shouldn't he have used yeast instead?
After some googling, I learnt that bakers today do not use mother dough. Instead, they now add new yeast or soda directly into their dough to make bread. My guess is this allows them to better control the quality and quantity of the yeast in the mass-produced bread, if they use yeast at all. Moreoever, who knows what evolution and natural genetic mutations might do to the yeast in the long run?
This makes sense. Yeast, despite its ability to reproduce, is more expensive than baking soda for some reason.
But it sucks. Bread made with yeast has a nice aroma while bread made with baking soda is almost completely devoid of smell and taste.
If you don't know what yeast smells or tastes like, buy a packet and open it. The smell should be familiar to you immediately. At least it was for me.
Hence plain bread made with yeast aren't really "plain", but yeast-flavoured.
Witcher 2. Sex scenes and cleavage everywhere. Hopefully the trend doesn't spread, or it would be like the sexualization of Japanese animes in recent decades.
I don't recognize too many side characters. I should have played Witcher 1 again but the game wasn't good enough for me to endure another run of it. Fortunately recogizing those people wasn't important for my understanding of the plot, so it's not important.
Very nice game. Love the level designs.
Main thing that bugs me is the length of time it takes for the menu to open after I hit Esc. I do it often in order to save and quicksaving isn't useful because it overwrites itself. Very annoying sometimes when it takes like 30s to open.
Sunday 29 May 2011
Rant 786 / Inclined To Get A Netbook Instead Of A Tablet
I did not die last night in Die2Nite.
However, I do not have water. In addition, every night I remain outside lowers my chances of survival. It's one of the factors.
Yesterday it said my chances were "decent". Today, "largely satisfactory".
My fast food restaurant is now a tiny oasis in the sea of zombies. Here, check this out:
So it's not the most infested of all, but I'm the only guy in this quadrant. Most of the others are up at the northwest, where signs of civilization are plainly visible on the map.
I'm pretty sure the other guys hoarded a bit more water than I did since I was one of the last to log on yesterday, so I don't believe I'll be surviving the longest.
Encountered a few bugs in Witcher 2. Nothing that would ruin my day but bugs nevertheless.
Crashed twice. Good thing they were quick and I saved often. Sometimes when games crash, they take forever to return to Windows.
Another bug was at the part in Chapter 1 where I went with a certain elf (trying to avoid spoilers here) to meet the kingslayer. At the point where I was supposed to meet the elf, Roche was somehow there too, and openly hostile to the elf.
The problem was that the elf was immune to his blade, probably due to the nature of the bug. Hence he was dancing around us with his sword while we walked together. It was strangely funny. Roche wasn't even supposed to appear there!
A more annoying bug would be the lootable objects that somehow couldn't be looted because they were bugged.
Finally, this game is kinda like a hentai dating sim. Say the right things, get sex. Right here in Chapter One I have already found 3 sex scenes.
Worse is the fact that they were unnecessary to the plot. They were just gratituous nude/sex scenes that probably were meant to improve sales.
Today I saw that the latest bags of pants were labelled "克色". I thought maybe it was short for "巧克力色", but then I opened one bag and found black pants inside.
"克" and "黑" have exactly the same Cantonese pronunciation.
It kinda amused me.
I have no idea why I'm blogging about this.
Oh shit. So heavy cellphone usage can damage our brains.
But why do I have such a bad memory even without using the phone often?
Do I give that little of a fuck to everything?
Whatever.
Witcher 2 kept me up all night. The Kayran boss fight was HARD. Not to mention the game wasn't very clear on where I'm supposed to go once it begins using its 1337 aimbot to lob boulders at me.
Was kinda annoyed but fortunately I could hit Esc, then Alt-Tab to use my google-fu.
5am now. Was surprised when I saw that it was 4am, then forgot about it.
I was going to sleep but it was already 4.50am, so I thought I'd stay up for 20mins or so to see what happens after tonight's attack on Die2Nite.
So the new minister in charge of public housing is going to make a change. Instead of building to order (BTO), as in construction begins only when 70% of the orders are fulfilled, they're going to build it before that happens.
Whatever he's saying, I'm very sure it's not just because of the spreading frustration among potential homeowners.
The main reason, IMHO, is because it's so obvious there is great demand for those flats and due to the rate of economic growth currently and in the foreseeable future, this demand is going to be sustained for a long time.
I am curious about two things though.
First, why didn't the previous guy do it in the first place? Was he that averse to risks? Or did he hold a different opinion as to why the prices are rising (eg foreign speculators)?
Second, if the BTO policy was that efficient, why did buyers of new flats have to go through the balloting process, which clearly implies a backlog (of potential buyers who couldn't get a flat)?
I mean, when 70% of the flats have been confirmed sold, the construction would begin. If there was a backlog, wouldn't the people who couldn't get their flats before immediately fill up the other 30%? If there was NO backlog, why would they need to pick people randomly via balloting?
I'm missing something here.
Nothing special happened in Die2Nite. I'm not likely to die (my chances are "largely satisfactory") but I'm thirsty. Only one thing can save me now - finding water from the Fast Food Restaurant tomorrow. Highly unlikely but theoretically possible. I can only explore it once per day and I only found another piece of food today, so tomorrow is my last chance.
I used to think that it's alright to install Windows on different PCs if only one PC is being used at a time. Like in my case, my previous PC can no longer be used due to a ruined processor, hence I'd installed Windows Vista on the new PC using the same disc.
Apparently, this isn't the case. I wonder why it didn't notify me sooner about it.
...
Oh I get it! It's the hard disk it was installed on! I'd only changed the hard disk like half a month ago but didn't really start to use it till a few days back. It didn't matter if the rest of the computer was different or if the hard drive was split up into different drives.
Therefore, Microsoft identifies our PCs by our hard drives.
Played another 2 LoL games on the desktop finally. Lost both.
Now I have to consider the logic that says that I suck at it.
I probably do.
I also recognize the fact that I've been playing differently since I noticed my initial winning streak. For example, I no longer camp in the bushes to regenerate HP during the early game and, instead, spend all my time hitting minions and waiting for the enemies to come close enough.
This, I must admit, does not work when I'm fighting against ranged heroes.
Seriously, don't move when the barber is working on your hair.
I have to agree with this comment:
:(
This trailer was too sad, mainly because it involves a little girl dying.
Holy crap! I didn't know that!
However, I do not have water. In addition, every night I remain outside lowers my chances of survival. It's one of the factors.
Yesterday it said my chances were "decent". Today, "largely satisfactory".
My fast food restaurant is now a tiny oasis in the sea of zombies. Here, check this out:
So it's not the most infested of all, but I'm the only guy in this quadrant. Most of the others are up at the northwest, where signs of civilization are plainly visible on the map.
I'm pretty sure the other guys hoarded a bit more water than I did since I was one of the last to log on yesterday, so I don't believe I'll be surviving the longest.
Encountered a few bugs in Witcher 2. Nothing that would ruin my day but bugs nevertheless.
Crashed twice. Good thing they were quick and I saved often. Sometimes when games crash, they take forever to return to Windows.
Another bug was at the part in Chapter 1 where I went with a certain elf (trying to avoid spoilers here) to meet the kingslayer. At the point where I was supposed to meet the elf, Roche was somehow there too, and openly hostile to the elf.
The problem was that the elf was immune to his blade, probably due to the nature of the bug. Hence he was dancing around us with his sword while we walked together. It was strangely funny. Roche wasn't even supposed to appear there!
A more annoying bug would be the lootable objects that somehow couldn't be looted because they were bugged.
Finally, this game is kinda like a hentai dating sim. Say the right things, get sex. Right here in Chapter One I have already found 3 sex scenes.
Worse is the fact that they were unnecessary to the plot. They were just gratituous nude/sex scenes that probably were meant to improve sales.
Today I saw that the latest bags of pants were labelled "克色". I thought maybe it was short for "巧克力色", but then I opened one bag and found black pants inside.
"克" and "黑" have exactly the same Cantonese pronunciation.
It kinda amused me.
I have no idea why I'm blogging about this.
Oh shit. So heavy cellphone usage can damage our brains.
The researchers observed that 50 minutes' worth of cellphone use causes a 7-percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cellphone antenna.
But why do I have such a bad memory even without using the phone often?
Do I give that little of a fuck to everything?
Whatever.
Witcher 2 kept me up all night. The Kayran boss fight was HARD. Not to mention the game wasn't very clear on where I'm supposed to go once it begins using its 1337 aimbot to lob boulders at me.
Was kinda annoyed but fortunately I could hit Esc, then Alt-Tab to use my google-fu.
5am now. Was surprised when I saw that it was 4am, then forgot about it.
I was going to sleep but it was already 4.50am, so I thought I'd stay up for 20mins or so to see what happens after tonight's attack on Die2Nite.
So the new minister in charge of public housing is going to make a change. Instead of building to order (BTO), as in construction begins only when 70% of the orders are fulfilled, they're going to build it before that happens.
Whatever he's saying, I'm very sure it's not just because of the spreading frustration among potential homeowners.
The main reason, IMHO, is because it's so obvious there is great demand for those flats and due to the rate of economic growth currently and in the foreseeable future, this demand is going to be sustained for a long time.
I am curious about two things though.
First, why didn't the previous guy do it in the first place? Was he that averse to risks? Or did he hold a different opinion as to why the prices are rising (eg foreign speculators)?
Second, if the BTO policy was that efficient, why did buyers of new flats have to go through the balloting process, which clearly implies a backlog (of potential buyers who couldn't get a flat)?
I mean, when 70% of the flats have been confirmed sold, the construction would begin. If there was a backlog, wouldn't the people who couldn't get their flats before immediately fill up the other 30%? If there was NO backlog, why would they need to pick people randomly via balloting?
I'm missing something here.
Nothing special happened in Die2Nite. I'm not likely to die (my chances are "largely satisfactory") but I'm thirsty. Only one thing can save me now - finding water from the Fast Food Restaurant tomorrow. Highly unlikely but theoretically possible. I can only explore it once per day and I only found another piece of food today, so tomorrow is my last chance.
I used to think that it's alright to install Windows on different PCs if only one PC is being used at a time. Like in my case, my previous PC can no longer be used due to a ruined processor, hence I'd installed Windows Vista on the new PC using the same disc.
Apparently, this isn't the case. I wonder why it didn't notify me sooner about it.
...
Oh I get it! It's the hard disk it was installed on! I'd only changed the hard disk like half a month ago but didn't really start to use it till a few days back. It didn't matter if the rest of the computer was different or if the hard drive was split up into different drives.
Therefore, Microsoft identifies our PCs by our hard drives.
Played another 2 LoL games on the desktop finally. Lost both.
Now I have to consider the logic that says that I suck at it.
I probably do.
I also recognize the fact that I've been playing differently since I noticed my initial winning streak. For example, I no longer camp in the bushes to regenerate HP during the early game and, instead, spend all my time hitting minions and waiting for the enemies to come close enough.
This, I must admit, does not work when I'm fighting against ranged heroes.
Seriously, don't move when the barber is working on your hair.
I have to agree with this comment:
:(
This trailer was too sad, mainly because it involves a little girl dying.
Holy crap! I didn't know that!
Friday 27 May 2011
Rant 785 / It's Strange How Croissants Don't Get Mouldy As Quickly As Bread Loaves.
Wed
9 of us died last night. 6 zombies attacked me and were unable to overrun my 6 points' worth of defenses. That was pure luck! If there was just a single zombie more, I'd be dead. Seriously, 2-3 of the other guys died despite having over 10 points of Home Defense.
Tonight will be easy but tomorrow is the end. Tomorrow's estimate is up to 3850 zombies. We have used up all our matches we've been saving up since we arrived to this town for last night's attack and temporary defense structures, as I've said before, won't be giving us the 800 points that we will need.
So this town is ending on the 23rd day. I'll have survived 23 days.
Not enough to beat the top score. According to another guy's calculations, we have to hit day 25 just to be 3 points short, and that's assuming all 35 of us had survived.
Oh well, at least we hit day 23. I've never even gone past day 5 before, as I've said when I first joined this mega-coalition.
...
Yep. It's official. We're screwed tomorrow. Even the core members of the mega-coalition have given up. Our final stand shall not be made in town, but scattered all over the desert.
We will spread out and hide outside after tonight's attack. This way, some of us will survive yet another day to raise the score further.
So the problem with my desktop was my motherboard. Apparently there was some problem with the first batch of Sandy Bridge and they gave it to me. Or maybe I picked it. I don't know. I wasn't aware of this problem. I heard some news mentioning the name but I didn't read them. Bad move. Great hindsight.
It was something about the absence of "P3 Stepping" and that this caused problems with SATA drives.
So they replaced it and now I'm reinstalling everything. Happy happy joy joy.
This is how my day is going to be like:
Install programmes.
I know. Trust me, I've been there... like 3 times in the past few weeks.
So the other guy whom I spoke to yesterday was wrong. It was only the motherboard that was changed.
Installation (after Windows) began at 1.45pm.
...
5.31pm Finally! No more Windows Updates! And the Firefox Sync worked!
Starhub is about to offer free R-rated movies.
Starhub is offering selected participants one whole month (July, to be more specific) of free trial of R21 Video-on-Demand.
I'm guessing they're trying to test the effectiveness of their safety measures that prevent underaged viewers from accessing it, so if you're signing up, I believe you'll get a better chance if you check "Yes" for the question, " Do you have family members under the age of 21?"
Contrary to what I think you'd believe, I'm not signing up for this trial. The only TV in my home is in the living room.
Thu
The end is nigh in Die2Nite. What we expect to happen to us is exactly what the game's name says.
Die2Nite.
It's now every man for himself. I've looted one food and one water (out of the final 2) regardless of water schedule since the rules no longer apply, a machete (the second best weapon in the game AFAIK), a water pistol with 3 shots (good for 3 zombies) and, best of all, I've been holding the Trestle I found yesterday.
We didn't need the extra defense anyway.
Now I do. The trestle improves my chances of survival while camping.
I'm at [5,-6], at the furthest known zombie-free structure on the map, cleared yesterday by us scavengers.
I wasn't planning on using the water today but 11 steps out of town gave me the "Thirsty" status and I needed a few more APs to prepare the site. I had to come here because of the building, a Fast Food Restaurant, which improves my chances of survival (level 3 out of 6, aka "decent"). What's the point of having one water for the chance of surviving a third day (if the zombies that arrive on this tile don't ruin my chances first) if my chances for tonight are low?
Also spent the 2 APs for improving my camoflage and "finding a tomb".
This is as good as I can get it to be. Alone, with another piece of food I found on the way here, holding a machete and a filled water pistol (only had to kill 2 zombies on the way here with the machete), site improved by the trestle and the building and my actions.
I'll most likely survive tonight, but definitely not tomorrow due to thirst.
Tried Witcher 2, currently at Chapter 1, but I'll talk about that later.
Now, Brink.
Coming from Bethesda, I had expected something similar to Fallout 3.
It wasn't.
The elongated faces and and huge noses give it a somewhat cartoonish look despite the textures.
As for the gameplay, I've only played the first mission. The game comes in missions, not one continous stretch.
Immediately I thought of Bad Company 2. It's basically the same system. You have maps with missions and you have 4 classes to choose from. Shoot enemies and complete the missions.
The difference between Campaign and multiplayer is only that in Campaign you play the maps in chronological order.
In short, it's just another ripoff in the genre that's set in the future. Should be fun but I had expected something else because I didn't actually know anything about the game beforehand.
As for Witcher 2, L.A. Noire spoilt me. It raised my standards for animations of the humans. After watching L.A. Noire, Witcher 2's obviously great animations and graphics were just... inferior, sadly.
But only in terms of facial expressions. All other graphics in the game are just plain awesome.
Moreover, it's got lots of nudity, which L.A. Noire didn't.
In fact, I have no idea what the developers of Witcher 2 were aiming for when they decided to add so much more foul language and nudity into this game than its prequel. Seriously, it's as if everyone in Temeria are now sailors or rappers or both.
Oh, and the whores. One hour into the game and I'm at an inn whose basement is a brothel.
As for nudity in general in the game, I can see why everyone is coming to my blog looking for "Witcher 2 sex". Every female in the game seems like to show off whatever cleavage they have constantly (even the elf criminal who was about to be hung), and the graphics (especially if you play on High settings like I do) really improves the appeal.
Best of all, ten minutes into the game and we got to see a close up view of Triss Merigold naked.
Combat. Combat's more interesting now. In the first game, it's all about timing. You just stare at the sword and click at the right time. Now, there are other things to do, like dodging and parrying. Lots of parrying or dodging is necessary in the game, or at least on Normal difficulty. Can't just keep slashing like there's no tomorrow.
Traps, bombs, throwing knives, spells and potions also add to the variety of ways you can fight enemies.
Apparently in China they're using prison labour for farming in MMORPGs.
I guess this is another way society is adapting to the computer era.
If this could be somehow legalized, it would make a great part-time job. Unfortunately if this is ever legalized, the profit to time and effort ratio would be drastically reduced, probably to the level of those jobs on Mturk.
Oh wow I love this Internet Download Manager!
Ever considered the fact that your bandwidth is far too large to be downloading your crap so slowly?
I used to use Flashget, but IDM is better, from what I've seen so far.
The best feature is probably how it automatically makes Firefox download stuff with it. No longer do I need to copy and paste links; all I do is click on the links and IDM will pop up with all options and stuff.
As for downloading stuff from websites like Rapidshare, I'm still using JDownloader.
Do not go to JDownloader.com. It's a fake website and the file is a virus.
So some guy started a thread in EDMW with a piece of fake news saying an F-16 crashed in Singapore earlier today.
He was arrested.
That's a lot of preparation. Probably had to make sure they had done enough to cover their asses incase something goes wrong.
I wanted to link that thread here but it was deleted. No surprise there.
EDIT: WHY ARE THE LINKS IN THIS POST GREEN?!?
9 of us died last night. 6 zombies attacked me and were unable to overrun my 6 points' worth of defenses. That was pure luck! If there was just a single zombie more, I'd be dead. Seriously, 2-3 of the other guys died despite having over 10 points of Home Defense.
Tonight will be easy but tomorrow is the end. Tomorrow's estimate is up to 3850 zombies. We have used up all our matches we've been saving up since we arrived to this town for last night's attack and temporary defense structures, as I've said before, won't be giving us the 800 points that we will need.
So this town is ending on the 23rd day. I'll have survived 23 days.
Not enough to beat the top score. According to another guy's calculations, we have to hit day 25 just to be 3 points short, and that's assuming all 35 of us had survived.
Oh well, at least we hit day 23. I've never even gone past day 5 before, as I've said when I first joined this mega-coalition.
...
Yep. It's official. We're screwed tomorrow. Even the core members of the mega-coalition have given up. Our final stand shall not be made in town, but scattered all over the desert.
We will spread out and hide outside after tonight's attack. This way, some of us will survive yet another day to raise the score further.
So the problem with my desktop was my motherboard. Apparently there was some problem with the first batch of Sandy Bridge and they gave it to me. Or maybe I picked it. I don't know. I wasn't aware of this problem. I heard some news mentioning the name but I didn't read them. Bad move. Great hindsight.
It was something about the absence of "P3 Stepping" and that this caused problems with SATA drives.
So they replaced it and now I'm reinstalling everything. Happy happy joy joy.
This is how my day is going to be like:
Install programmes.
I know. Trust me, I've been there... like 3 times in the past few weeks.
So the other guy whom I spoke to yesterday was wrong. It was only the motherboard that was changed.
Installation (after Windows) began at 1.45pm.
...
5.31pm Finally! No more Windows Updates! And the Firefox Sync worked!
Starhub is about to offer free R-rated movies.
I AM DEFINITELY NOT KIDDING HERE!!
Starhub is offering selected participants one whole month (July, to be more specific) of free trial of R21 Video-on-Demand.
I'm guessing they're trying to test the effectiveness of their safety measures that prevent underaged viewers from accessing it, so if you're signing up, I believe you'll get a better chance if you check "Yes" for the question, " Do you have family members under the age of 21?"
Contrary to what I think you'd believe, I'm not signing up for this trial. The only TV in my home is in the living room.
Thu
The end is nigh in Die2Nite. What we expect to happen to us is exactly what the game's name says.
Die2Nite.
It's now every man for himself. I've looted one food and one water (out of the final 2) regardless of water schedule since the rules no longer apply, a machete (the second best weapon in the game AFAIK), a water pistol with 3 shots (good for 3 zombies) and, best of all, I've been holding the Trestle I found yesterday.
We didn't need the extra defense anyway.
Now I do. The trestle improves my chances of survival while camping.
I'm at [5,-6], at the furthest known zombie-free structure on the map, cleared yesterday by us scavengers.
I wasn't planning on using the water today but 11 steps out of town gave me the "Thirsty" status and I needed a few more APs to prepare the site. I had to come here because of the building, a Fast Food Restaurant, which improves my chances of survival (level 3 out of 6, aka "decent"). What's the point of having one water for the chance of surviving a third day (if the zombies that arrive on this tile don't ruin my chances first) if my chances for tonight are low?
Also spent the 2 APs for improving my camoflage and "finding a tomb".
This is as good as I can get it to be. Alone, with another piece of food I found on the way here, holding a machete and a filled water pistol (only had to kill 2 zombies on the way here with the machete), site improved by the trestle and the building and my actions.
I'll most likely survive tonight, but definitely not tomorrow due to thirst.
Tried Witcher 2, currently at Chapter 1, but I'll talk about that later.
Now, Brink.
Coming from Bethesda, I had expected something similar to Fallout 3.
It wasn't.
The elongated faces and and huge noses give it a somewhat cartoonish look despite the textures.
As for the gameplay, I've only played the first mission. The game comes in missions, not one continous stretch.
Immediately I thought of Bad Company 2. It's basically the same system. You have maps with missions and you have 4 classes to choose from. Shoot enemies and complete the missions.
The difference between Campaign and multiplayer is only that in Campaign you play the maps in chronological order.
In short, it's just another ripoff in the genre that's set in the future. Should be fun but I had expected something else because I didn't actually know anything about the game beforehand.
As for Witcher 2, L.A. Noire spoilt me. It raised my standards for animations of the humans. After watching L.A. Noire, Witcher 2's obviously great animations and graphics were just... inferior, sadly.
But only in terms of facial expressions. All other graphics in the game are just plain awesome.
Moreover, it's got lots of nudity, which L.A. Noire didn't.
In fact, I have no idea what the developers of Witcher 2 were aiming for when they decided to add so much more foul language and nudity into this game than its prequel. Seriously, it's as if everyone in Temeria are now sailors or rappers or both.
Oh, and the whores. One hour into the game and I'm at an inn whose basement is a brothel.
As for nudity in general in the game, I can see why everyone is coming to my blog looking for "Witcher 2 sex". Every female in the game seems like to show off whatever cleavage they have constantly (even the elf criminal who was about to be hung), and the graphics (especially if you play on High settings like I do) really improves the appeal.
Best of all, ten minutes into the game and we got to see a close up view of Triss Merigold naked.
Combat. Combat's more interesting now. In the first game, it's all about timing. You just stare at the sword and click at the right time. Now, there are other things to do, like dodging and parrying. Lots of parrying or dodging is necessary in the game, or at least on Normal difficulty. Can't just keep slashing like there's no tomorrow.
Traps, bombs, throwing knives, spells and potions also add to the variety of ways you can fight enemies.
Apparently in China they're using prison labour for farming in MMORPGs.
"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."
I guess this is another way society is adapting to the computer era.
If this could be somehow legalized, it would make a great part-time job. Unfortunately if this is ever legalized, the profit to time and effort ratio would be drastically reduced, probably to the level of those jobs on Mturk.
Oh wow I love this Internet Download Manager!
Ever considered the fact that your bandwidth is far too large to be downloading your crap so slowly?
I used to use Flashget, but IDM is better, from what I've seen so far.
The best feature is probably how it automatically makes Firefox download stuff with it. No longer do I need to copy and paste links; all I do is click on the links and IDM will pop up with all options and stuff.
As for downloading stuff from websites like Rapidshare, I'm still using JDownloader.
Do not go to JDownloader.com. It's a fake website and the file is a virus.
So some guy started a thread in EDMW with a piece of fake news saying an F-16 crashed in Singapore earlier today.
He was arrested.
A netizen reported the incident to the police at 12.20pm.
After confirming that the message was a hoax, the police conducted an investigation and arrested the suspect at about 8pm at his home at Bedok Reservoir Road.
That's a lot of preparation. Probably had to make sure they had done enough to cover their asses incase something goes wrong.
Central Police Division commander Tan Hung Hooi said the police take a serious view of such irresponsible Internet postings that could cause public alarm and will spare no effort to track the perpetrators and take them to task.
I wanted to link that thread here but it was deleted. No surprise there.
EDIT: WHY ARE THE LINKS IN THIS POST GREEN?!?
Wednesday 25 May 2011
Rant 784 / Zombie Physiology
Toys these days...
Great. Just called Bell and they told me I can collect my PC tomorrow. I have no idea why they couldn't inform me earlier so that I could collect before tomorrow, like today!
Still, if they have really fixed it, I'm not going to complain much.
Moreover, I think it's free of charge. Well, it should. The computer is only 4 months old, except for the hard drive which is only a week old, and they already had to replace the motherboard and hard drive.
Yoot Tower is easier than I thought. The moment I got hotels, I could actually beat the game already! Offices somehow don't work so well because they tend to avoid high traffic areas which are inevitable when you need an express elevator and multiple supplementary elevators.
Hotels, on the other hand, aren't that hard to organize. The catch is the occasional pest infestation that pops up quite randomly.
I could easily just create one giant tower spanning the entire width of the map and fill it with hotel rooms, front desks and cleaners' rooms. Oh and security too.
And that's it! I can easily just let it run all by itself while I do other stuff, only returning once in a while to check for pests, click "OK" on popup messages and add more rooms.
It would be boring though.
If only someone would make a more complicated version.
As expected, they built most of the temporary defenses up while we scavengers went out to work. It's easier to list things that aren't built, so here goes:
- Piston Lock
- Water Turret
- Primitive Catapult
- Guerilla Tactics
- Lure
- Barricades
Yes we're desperate enough to even spend 20 of our final water rations on Waterminefield for the 75 defense points. 17 water rations left. Though we now only have 32 people remaining due to accidents, having only slightly more than a day's worth of water rations is a cause for alarm.
This means we're going to need to vote for Water Pump tomorrow. Fortunately it's only at lvl 1 out of 5, so water is not a real emergency.
We are so desperate for defenses, the above are unbuilt only because we lack the materials for them, mainly Nuts and Bolts.
Heck, we've even been told to upgrade our homes to House now. This will probably be the highest level of upgrade we'll be allowed to get because the next upgrade will require an Old Door, which isn't worth it. An Old Door in the Bank gives us 8 defense points currently, but the upgrade will only give the town a single additional defense point.
Of course there are further upgrade levels that will eventually give the town 20 defense points but we don't have enough concrete for those.
If we survive today's major spike, it's going to be easy tomorrow because the estimate is between 2275 and 2500.
2922 points, 2972 to 3219 zombies. Things aren't looking good.
Hopefully it won't hit 3200 zombies tonight. I'm guessing we'll end up with only about 2950 defense points, so at 3200 there will be 250 zombies entering the town. With 32 of us, that's an average of 8 zombies each.
Unfortunately the number of zombies attacking each of us is going to be random, so 8 will only be the median number. At that point, the Home Defense points will work their magic. At the moment I have 6 points, so there is more than 50% chance that they will overcome my defenses and kill me.
If we have 3100 zombies coming tonight, that's 150 coming in, or about 5 per person. I have a slightly higher chance of surviving then.
Things to do tomorrow:
- Bring back my PC.
- Reinstall everything.
Yep, that's going to occupy me for one whole day.
Fortunately Firefox 4 has this Sync function which I believe will allow me to transfer all the bookmarks to the desktop. This set of bookmarks is actually an older version of the one in the older desktop which was transferred to the new desktop, so it's like a skeleton of it, plus I added some more in the last few days.
THEN BRINK AND WITCHER 2!!! RAWR!!
Monday 23 May 2011
Rant 783 / The General Consensus Among The People I've Asked Is That I Don't Look Like A Local
After we were done with the Big Rebuild, apparently we no longer have anything more to build except upgrade our homes to Shacks. Other things we can do are to scavenge for Defensive Objects and convert logs and scrap metals.
Which means things are about to get really interesting.
We currently have 2356 defense points. Tonight's estimate is between 2298 and 2461. Though we're 105 points short, we'll get an additional 49 points from the 4th level Upgradeable Wall that we will get tonight plus a bit more from the residents' newly built Shacks. At worst, they could also get some temporary defenses up.
Tomorrow is going to be very tricky. The estimate is between 2950 and 3225. In other words, we'll be needing an additional 750 points or so. The next and final upgrade on the Upgradeable Wall will only provide us with an additional 61 points.
All the temporary defenses will only add an extra 210 points.
If we build all the other structures that aren't worth their materials, including those that require water (Water Turrets and Water Minefield), it will only add 175 points on top of the above.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
Best scene begins at 0:45.
I have seen blind people before, both in real life and on various media, but I've never had to interact with one.
Which was why it got kinda awkward when I encountered this blind receptionist at this office where I had to drop off some documents.
When I got to the lobby, I just told her which department the papers were for, placed it on top of the counter and waited for her to slide it to herself. When she placed her hand in the receiving pose (like how you shape your hand when someone is handing papers or money to you) and didn't move, I looked at her and waited.
I was puzzled about why she just sat there looking down and waited for me to put it into her hand. Was she that busy with just her right hand?
It took me about two seconds to realize that the reason she wasn't looking at me was not because her small eyes were looking downward, but because she was blind and had her eyes closed.
Immediately my knee-jerk reaction was to say, "Oh," before I could stifle it, and I quickly placed the papers between her finger and thumb.
Then for reasons I still do not comprehend, she apologized.
Does being blind offend people or something? That would be so sad.
Anyway I wonder what the other receptionist was thinking and whether she was looking at us the whole time. I wasn't looking at her and she appeared busy when I entered.
Good. The pageviews are dropping. I was getting uncomfortable with the sudden attention. Who knows what is bringing all the traffic?
Down to 429 yesterday. I expect it to go below 350 today, then eventually back to 100-150.
Oh hey, there's an Indian restaurant that's offering delivery service to my area!
Khansama. I've never tried it before but it looks interesting. Free delivery for orders above S$50. Not very hard judging from the inflated prices on the menu.
Then again, it might be worth the price.
I don't know. I don't recall the prices from the Indian restaurants opposite of Beauty World. The other one I've tried recently is the one at the basement of Sim Lim Square where the briyani goes for $5.
The rice at the latter was much inferior to the former.
But for Khansama, just the plain briyani rice alone goes for $5.50 and the chicken briyani is priced at $9.50.
The most interesting thing about this brand is that they're offering weekday buffet lunch at $9.90 at the outlets near my home.
But it's only for weekdays :(
...
According to some people who have tried the buffet before, it has a very tiny selection. Basically it's just rice, naan, a few vegetable dishes and one or two meats. My guess is it's just something to get people to order from the ala carte menu.
The ala carte menu apparently is pretty good, eg the butter chicken. One of them also tried the Sikandari Raan which is "whole leg of lamb marinated in yogurt , spices and fresh lime juice and baked in charcoal oven for two hours" and said it was good, but it had to be pre-ordered.
Not playing LoL till I get my desktop back and they haven't called back yet. I'll call them after my last paper tomorrow.
Which means things are about to get really interesting.
We currently have 2356 defense points. Tonight's estimate is between 2298 and 2461. Though we're 105 points short, we'll get an additional 49 points from the 4th level Upgradeable Wall that we will get tonight plus a bit more from the residents' newly built Shacks. At worst, they could also get some temporary defenses up.
Tomorrow is going to be very tricky. The estimate is between 2950 and 3225. In other words, we'll be needing an additional 750 points or so. The next and final upgrade on the Upgradeable Wall will only provide us with an additional 61 points.
All the temporary defenses will only add an extra 210 points.
If we build all the other structures that aren't worth their materials, including those that require water (Water Turrets and Water Minefield), it will only add 175 points on top of the above.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
Best scene begins at 0:45.
I have seen blind people before, both in real life and on various media, but I've never had to interact with one.
Which was why it got kinda awkward when I encountered this blind receptionist at this office where I had to drop off some documents.
When I got to the lobby, I just told her which department the papers were for, placed it on top of the counter and waited for her to slide it to herself. When she placed her hand in the receiving pose (like how you shape your hand when someone is handing papers or money to you) and didn't move, I looked at her and waited.
I was puzzled about why she just sat there looking down and waited for me to put it into her hand. Was she that busy with just her right hand?
It took me about two seconds to realize that the reason she wasn't looking at me was not because her small eyes were looking downward, but because she was blind and had her eyes closed.
Immediately my knee-jerk reaction was to say, "Oh," before I could stifle it, and I quickly placed the papers between her finger and thumb.
Then for reasons I still do not comprehend, she apologized.
Does being blind offend people or something? That would be so sad.
Anyway I wonder what the other receptionist was thinking and whether she was looking at us the whole time. I wasn't looking at her and she appeared busy when I entered.
Good. The pageviews are dropping. I was getting uncomfortable with the sudden attention. Who knows what is bringing all the traffic?
Down to 429 yesterday. I expect it to go below 350 today, then eventually back to 100-150.
Oh hey, there's an Indian restaurant that's offering delivery service to my area!
Khansama. I've never tried it before but it looks interesting. Free delivery for orders above S$50. Not very hard judging from the inflated prices on the menu.
Then again, it might be worth the price.
I don't know. I don't recall the prices from the Indian restaurants opposite of Beauty World. The other one I've tried recently is the one at the basement of Sim Lim Square where the briyani goes for $5.
The rice at the latter was much inferior to the former.
But for Khansama, just the plain briyani rice alone goes for $5.50 and the chicken briyani is priced at $9.50.
The most interesting thing about this brand is that they're offering weekday buffet lunch at $9.90 at the outlets near my home.
But it's only for weekdays :(
...
According to some people who have tried the buffet before, it has a very tiny selection. Basically it's just rice, naan, a few vegetable dishes and one or two meats. My guess is it's just something to get people to order from the ala carte menu.
The ala carte menu apparently is pretty good, eg the butter chicken. One of them also tried the Sikandari Raan which is "whole leg of lamb marinated in yogurt , spices and fresh lime juice and baked in charcoal oven for two hours" and said it was good, but it had to be pre-ordered.
Not playing LoL till I get my desktop back and they haven't called back yet. I'll call them after my last paper tomorrow.
Sunday 22 May 2011
Rant 782 / Terraria Replaces Meinkraft
Friday
Y'know, he may have hit upon something there.
Because lolis are now mainstream.
/wrist
The Brazilians were right though.
"Morde es #1."
My curiosity was really piqued by the 300+ pageviews from the other day, so today I checked the pageviews again.
Almost 600!!!
What on earth is happening??!??!
Someone really popular must have linked my blog to his/her website or something!
Also, 13 people were tricked into coming to my blog today with the impression that I have Witcher 2 porn here.
That's the most search terms related to Witcher 2 porn listed there that I've ever seen.
Sorry gentlemen, but this blog is perfectly SFW.
Another thing is, even if the increase is caused by normal red-blooded male gamers searching for Triss's boobies, it still doesn't account for the entire difference.
There were only 13 of such people versus a total increase of over 400 pageviews.
They couldn't have hit F5 that many times. 400 / 13 is roughly 30.
On a more negative note, there has been a marked increase in spam comments here too. Just the other day I checked the comments tab and found as many spam comments there as I'd usually find in 2 months. It's only halfway through the month!
Okay, so I only check that tab randomly but I think I haven't touched it since last month. Hence I'd say the spam is from the last 20 days or so.
Ants. This is a neverending story.
They're back and they're here to steal mouth wash from me again.
Seriously, they don't go to anywhere else in particular other than the few exploring ants that wander in random directions.
But every night since two nights ago I've had to rinse the bottle of mouth wash under the tap.
Goddamn ants with great oral hygiene!
I feel like eating durians but apparently I've got to wait till next month. Been seeing so many pics of durians and there's even a promotion for a durian tour in Malaysia.
An all-you-can-eat durian buffet plus return coach journey.
Not interested in going to Malaysia but that buffet... is just so tempting.
Too bad the promotion is over now.
But I still feel like buying durians.
Got to watch out for some the next time I go to the market.
And ask my bro if his gf hates the smell.
Today, I noticed a trend: I've been losing all the time ever since I began to play LoL on my laptop.
And there is a noticeable lag too, even though I've lowered all the settings to the minimum. In fact there have been many occasions when I appear to just get close to the enemies then turn back, when the fact is I did hit the hotkey for one ability but the lag in the laptop caused it to be skipped.
So far, I've only won once out of the 4-5 games I've played on this laptop.
Sat
Lemongrass tea. I haz sum.
Followed the instructions at the back exactly. Boiled 8oz of water and poured it into a cup with 1 teaspoon of the dried lemongrass.
Btw I have no idea why it's called "lemongrass" when it smells nothing like lemon. Probably the same reason why some people say that snake tastes like chicken. Who knows?
And it's organic too!
I'm not actually into this "organic" fad. This was actually a gift (and sample) to my mum from a family friend. Used to be a distant relative but they got divorced.
She was a bank manager back when we first came to Singapore but she's now the owner of a shop selling this sort of healthy stuff.
The smell. Not exactly a pleasant one to me. Reminds me of the times when I bite into spices that were meant to improve the taste of the dishes I was eating. Rarely have such occasions been pleasant. Seriously, bite into a non-dried star anise if you haven't tried it before.
Never really liked lemongrass even in food.
Still, it's better than an absence of taste I guess.
Better than drinking tap water.
I can play Yoot Tower on this laptop!!
So Yoot Tower can't be saved on a 64-bit Vista but works just fine on a 32-bit one.
Fun.
I'm currently having twin towers, one for pure offices and the other for mostly hotels and a couple of shops. Shops suck. This game is biased against malls, I guess.
It's a great game because it automatically mutes itself when I open another programme in front, so I can let it run in the background and make money without me watching while I do other stuff.
...
Triple towers!!! One for offices, one for hotels and another very short one for a mall. Getting expensive due to the extra Security and stuff, but it's neater.
:3
Watched some LA Noire on Vidyavidya.
The facial expressions were AMAZING! It's almost as if they had actors act out everything and pasted the videos of their faces onto the models in the game.
And I said "actors" because I recognized the mind-reading guy from Heroes in the game, so I wouldn't be surprised if the others were also actors, albeit lesser known ones.
This is getting so close to an interactive movie.
So apparently, my guess was right. In fact they used 32 cameras to record the faces as they act out the scenes.
That's a lot of effort.
Too bad it's not released on the PC platform.
So one of the MPs was "shocked" to find out that buses have been arriving late. It's fake and we all know it.
Anyone who takes buses know that during peak hours, buses frequently take very long to arrive, but when they do, they come in droves.
This problem is usually very obvious when we play transport simulation games like Cities In Motion, and the thing is, I don't know how that can be solved. People can't know everything, right?
The problem lies in the fact that in the buses' routes, there are only some stops that have unusually high numbers of passengers. Buses tend to get stuck at them waiting for people to board and alight. If there are multiple of such stops consecutively like in NTU at Boon Lay, it is unavoidable that buses stick together after a while despite their best efforts to leave the initial terminal at their proper schedules.
Some bus drivers have resorted to skipping such a stop when another bus of the same route is already there. This is done so that the buses don't all arrive at the same time at the next stop. The catch is that the bus already there may not be able to take in everyone.
Therefore the only way the MP can be really "shocked" is if he has never heard of such a problem before, in which case that is sad because it implies that he is no longer aware of the common problems plaguing the lives of average Singaporeans.
I'm not even going to discuss the obvious implication that MPs, their friends and their families do not take buses at all.
As for Tharman's comment that "expectations are high", they are only as high as the salaries the Ministers are commanding.
You mean the removal of certain Ministers are not due to the latter?
I mean, wasn't one Minister saying HDB flats were "affordable"? If he was right, why remove him for doing such a great job at keeping HDB prices "affordable"?
Speaking of him, why is he saying now that he's taking responsibility for the high prices?
So are they expensive or are they affordable?
The latter is probably right and they're "affordable" because it was said by a Minister while the former was expressed by a mere MP.
I hope I'm not going to get arrested for the blatant lack of doublethink here.
I'm sorry for sounding a little annoyed but with that salary the Ministers are commanding compared to the amount of land this government controls, failure is simply not an option, however you want to argue that this salary is perfectly fair.
It's not like they're relying completely on their political roles alone for their income.
Furthermore, I'm curious as to why nobody in the government has revealed their annual taxable income like Obama did.
Because lolis are now mainstream.
/wrist
The Brazilians were right though.
"Morde es #1."
My curiosity was really piqued by the 300+ pageviews from the other day, so today I checked the pageviews again.
Almost 600!!!
What on earth is happening??!??!
Someone really popular must have linked my blog to his/her website or something!
Also, 13 people were tricked into coming to my blog today with the impression that I have Witcher 2 porn here.
Sorry gentlemen, but this blog is perfectly SFW.
Another thing is, even if the increase is caused by normal red-blooded male gamers searching for Triss's boobies, it still doesn't account for the entire difference.
There were only 13 of such people versus a total increase of over 400 pageviews.
They couldn't have hit F5 that many times. 400 / 13 is roughly 30.
On a more negative note, there has been a marked increase in spam comments here too. Just the other day I checked the comments tab and found as many spam comments there as I'd usually find in 2 months. It's only halfway through the month!
Okay, so I only check that tab randomly but I think I haven't touched it since last month. Hence I'd say the spam is from the last 20 days or so.
Ants. This is a neverending story.
They're back and they're here to steal mouth wash from me again.
Seriously, they don't go to anywhere else in particular other than the few exploring ants that wander in random directions.
But every night since two nights ago I've had to rinse the bottle of mouth wash under the tap.
Goddamn ants with great oral hygiene!
I feel like eating durians but apparently I've got to wait till next month. Been seeing so many pics of durians and there's even a promotion for a durian tour in Malaysia.
An all-you-can-eat durian buffet plus return coach journey.
Not interested in going to Malaysia but that buffet... is just so tempting.
Too bad the promotion is over now.
But I still feel like buying durians.
Got to watch out for some the next time I go to the market.
And ask my bro if his gf hates the smell.
Today, I noticed a trend: I've been losing all the time ever since I began to play LoL on my laptop.
And there is a noticeable lag too, even though I've lowered all the settings to the minimum. In fact there have been many occasions when I appear to just get close to the enemies then turn back, when the fact is I did hit the hotkey for one ability but the lag in the laptop caused it to be skipped.
So far, I've only won once out of the 4-5 games I've played on this laptop.
Sat
Lemongrass tea. I haz sum.
Followed the instructions at the back exactly. Boiled 8oz of water and poured it into a cup with 1 teaspoon of the dried lemongrass.
Btw I have no idea why it's called "lemongrass" when it smells nothing like lemon. Probably the same reason why some people say that snake tastes like chicken. Who knows?
And it's organic too!
I'm not actually into this "organic" fad. This was actually a gift (and sample) to my mum from a family friend. Used to be a distant relative but they got divorced.
She was a bank manager back when we first came to Singapore but she's now the owner of a shop selling this sort of healthy stuff.
The smell. Not exactly a pleasant one to me. Reminds me of the times when I bite into spices that were meant to improve the taste of the dishes I was eating. Rarely have such occasions been pleasant. Seriously, bite into a non-dried star anise if you haven't tried it before.
Never really liked lemongrass even in food.
Still, it's better than an absence of taste I guess.
Better than drinking tap water.
I can play Yoot Tower on this laptop!!
So Yoot Tower can't be saved on a 64-bit Vista but works just fine on a 32-bit one.
Fun.
I'm currently having twin towers, one for pure offices and the other for mostly hotels and a couple of shops. Shops suck. This game is biased against malls, I guess.
It's a great game because it automatically mutes itself when I open another programme in front, so I can let it run in the background and make money without me watching while I do other stuff.
...
Triple towers!!! One for offices, one for hotels and another very short one for a mall. Getting expensive due to the extra Security and stuff, but it's neater.
:3
Watched some LA Noire on Vidyavidya.
The facial expressions were AMAZING! It's almost as if they had actors act out everything and pasted the videos of their faces onto the models in the game.
And I said "actors" because I recognized the mind-reading guy from Heroes in the game, so I wouldn't be surprised if the others were also actors, albeit lesser known ones.
This is getting so close to an interactive movie.
So apparently, my guess was right. In fact they used 32 cameras to record the faces as they act out the scenes.
L.A. Noire is also notable for using Lightsprint's real-time global illumination technology, as well as Depth Analysis's newly developed technology for the film and video game industries called MotionScan, where actors are recorded by 32 surrounding cameras to capture facial expressions from every angle.
That's a lot of effort.
Too bad it's not released on the PC platform.
So one of the MPs was "shocked" to find out that buses have been arriving late. It's fake and we all know it.
Anyone who takes buses know that during peak hours, buses frequently take very long to arrive, but when they do, they come in droves.
This problem is usually very obvious when we play transport simulation games like Cities In Motion, and the thing is, I don't know how that can be solved. People can't know everything, right?
The problem lies in the fact that in the buses' routes, there are only some stops that have unusually high numbers of passengers. Buses tend to get stuck at them waiting for people to board and alight. If there are multiple of such stops consecutively like in NTU at Boon Lay, it is unavoidable that buses stick together after a while despite their best efforts to leave the initial terminal at their proper schedules.
Some bus drivers have resorted to skipping such a stop when another bus of the same route is already there. This is done so that the buses don't all arrive at the same time at the next stop. The catch is that the bus already there may not be able to take in everyone.
Therefore the only way the MP can be really "shocked" is if he has never heard of such a problem before, in which case that is sad because it implies that he is no longer aware of the common problems plaguing the lives of average Singaporeans.
I'm not even going to discuss the obvious implication that MPs, their friends and their families do not take buses at all.
As for Tharman's comment that "expectations are high", they are only as high as the salaries the Ministers are commanding.
He said, "Expectations are high and we've got to try to make sure that, coming out of this whole process, we don't fall into one of two situations."
"One is to end up falling flat without being able to deliver much change. Two, trying to deliver change just for the sake of being popular and trying to please as many people as possible."
You mean the removal of certain Ministers are not due to the latter?
I mean, wasn't one Minister saying HDB flats were "affordable"? If he was right, why remove him for doing such a great job at keeping HDB prices "affordable"?
Speaking of him, why is he saying now that he's taking responsibility for the high prices?
So are they expensive or are they affordable?
The latter is probably right and they're "affordable" because it was said by a Minister while the former was expressed by a mere MP.
I hope I'm not going to get arrested for the blatant lack of doublethink here.
I'm sorry for sounding a little annoyed but with that salary the Ministers are commanding compared to the amount of land this government controls, failure is simply not an option, however you want to argue that this salary is perfectly fair.
It's not like they're relying completely on their political roles alone for their income.
Furthermore, I'm curious as to why nobody in the government has revealed their annual taxable income like Obama did.
Friday 20 May 2011
Rant 781 / Dem Bewbie Physics In PS2 Games
So an online store is giving away 4 games for free to each of the first 10k people who register at its website.
Unfortunately, I've got to be from the UK to get the good set that includes Medieval II: Total War Gold Edition - Condemned: Criminal Origins - Alpha Protocol - The Club.
The bad set is just Sonic racing games.
And I couldn't just fake it by using the UK address given to me by VPost because I've got to appear in 192.com as a person above the age of 18.
They get their names from official records like birth records.
Can't fake those unless I use an actual British guy's name and that would be identity fraud. I'm not going to commit such a serious crime for a few games.
Oh wow I just discovered a new function in Firefox 4. When I right-click on my tabs, I can choose "Pin as App Tab" to keep it pinned on the left side of the bar without the X button so that I won't accidentally close it.
This is useful since I keep a few tabs open all the time, like Wikipedia.
Bell's different from Fuwell, I guess. Back when I used to frequent Fuwell, the technician would either fix my PC within 2 days or they would tell me they couldn't find the problem and that it's possible they never would.
Bell hasn't called me today. I assume he's planning to search for the problem for another day or two before giving up and calling me. Presumably he's just letting the PC run without doing anything as part of the test since I told him the problem was random.
Honestly, I would mind if he'd install games or programmes on it and use it constantly as part of the test. As long as they can fix my PC and I don't get arrested for anything, I don't really care what they do with it.
No games for me now.
The best is LoL but even this game makes my laptop burn my hand within a single round.
Another game I have here is Mount & Blade: Warband, but this laptop can barely handle it. It can run but there's always some graphics lag and distortion.
Finally, I have Deathspank but I'm not in the mood for action RPGs, regardless of their humour.
Snake? SNAKE? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!
Nyanyanya - Bollywood style.
I just came up with the likeliest explanation for this spike: summer.
It's the same reason why 4chan is more active and it's the same reason why Vidyavidya is having more "newfriends".
Just had the worst PvP game in LoL so far. Most of the team, other than our carry in the middle lane, had no balls.
Only 5 assists because my teammates couldn't attack unless they were sure to win, again except for our carry, Caitlyn.
They hang back and play defensively while the opposite team were pushing so hard. Best advice given in the game was from our Veigar who, halfway through the game, told the team to split up and cover the three lanes after we had regrouped at the middle lane and survived one battle.
Shouldn't we push on after the five of us wins a battle together in one lane?
Maybe it's just me, but it was rather annoying when they refused to help me when I attack. It's true they had outleveled us by 1-3 levels by the time we had 5v5 fights but that's no excuse for running away with full HP.
As I've said before, I need good teammates to help me because I attack too aggressively. It's not like I have a choice - Moredekaiser's defence is his offence! Damaging enemies with my abilities gives me Armour points which act like temporary HP. The catch is that my Armour bar degrades by 3% per second, so I have to keep attacking to maintain it.
The importance of protecting my HP isn't just because I need it to stay alive like everyone else, but also because all my abilities cost HP to cast.
Hence I must be aggressive or I'd be useless.
Still, 6 kills and 15 deaths. I sucked badly in this game.
I kept pushing and pushing and my teammates just hung back and presumably cheered for me in their hearts (because, hey, we've got to be optimistic in life, right?). So many enemies won with such low HPs and at the same time, so many of my allies survived with like half HP and still ran back.
2 consecutive losses.
I sadden.
I've met a number of people who were ignorant of why many Scandinavian countries like Sweden are so wealthy today.
Here's why.
But... but.. I don't have my PC back yet!! I haven't even tried Witcher 2 yet! Will I get my computer by tomorrow so that I'll have one day to play it?
Rewatched Diamonds are Forever. Y'know, the James Bond film from the Sean Connery era. Lana Wood and Jill St John were hawt!
I think it's mainly because of the bad quality of the film used in those days. The blurriness hides a lot of details that would have been visible today.
By the time 3D films become the norm, I'd say real natural beauties are going to be rarer than diamonds.
Ignoring the piles of diamonds that certain companies are hoarding in massive underground vaults, that is.
Ordered pies again. Wanted the Lamb Special but it was sold out. Ended up with Teriyaki Chicken and Classic Beef (again).
Nothing that tastes like Teriyaki Chicken in the former. At best, I can only say it's sweet and it contains chicken.
Still good though. It's just like the Classic Beef in terms of ingredients other than the chicken and the additional carrot cubes.
Also, I might have been slightly mistaken the last time. The mash potato is only an inch thick, no more. It appeared thicker only because it kinda smeared into the meat when I cut into it.
I don't think I've ever run barefoot outdoors before.
So the Portal 2 turrets are now a reality!
If only it plays instead the voice of this turret.
Unfortunately, I've got to be from the UK to get the good set that includes Medieval II: Total War Gold Edition - Condemned: Criminal Origins - Alpha Protocol - The Club.
The bad set is just Sonic racing games.
And I couldn't just fake it by using the UK address given to me by VPost because I've got to appear in 192.com as a person above the age of 18.
They get their names from official records like birth records.
Can't fake those unless I use an actual British guy's name and that would be identity fraud. I'm not going to commit such a serious crime for a few games.
Oh wow I just discovered a new function in Firefox 4. When I right-click on my tabs, I can choose "Pin as App Tab" to keep it pinned on the left side of the bar without the X button so that I won't accidentally close it.
This is useful since I keep a few tabs open all the time, like Wikipedia.
Bell's different from Fuwell, I guess. Back when I used to frequent Fuwell, the technician would either fix my PC within 2 days or they would tell me they couldn't find the problem and that it's possible they never would.
Bell hasn't called me today. I assume he's planning to search for the problem for another day or two before giving up and calling me. Presumably he's just letting the PC run without doing anything as part of the test since I told him the problem was random.
Honestly, I would mind if he'd install games or programmes on it and use it constantly as part of the test. As long as they can fix my PC and I don't get arrested for anything, I don't really care what they do with it.
No games for me now.
The best is LoL but even this game makes my laptop burn my hand within a single round.
Another game I have here is Mount & Blade: Warband, but this laptop can barely handle it. It can run but there's always some graphics lag and distortion.
Finally, I have Deathspank but I'm not in the mood for action RPGs, regardless of their humour.
Snake? SNAKE? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!
Nyanyanya - Bollywood style.
I just came up with the likeliest explanation for this spike: summer.
It's the same reason why 4chan is more active and it's the same reason why Vidyavidya is having more "newfriends".
Just had the worst PvP game in LoL so far. Most of the team, other than our carry in the middle lane, had no balls.
Only 5 assists because my teammates couldn't attack unless they were sure to win, again except for our carry, Caitlyn.
They hang back and play defensively while the opposite team were pushing so hard. Best advice given in the game was from our Veigar who, halfway through the game, told the team to split up and cover the three lanes after we had regrouped at the middle lane and survived one battle.
Shouldn't we push on after the five of us wins a battle together in one lane?
Maybe it's just me, but it was rather annoying when they refused to help me when I attack. It's true they had outleveled us by 1-3 levels by the time we had 5v5 fights but that's no excuse for running away with full HP.
As I've said before, I need good teammates to help me because I attack too aggressively. It's not like I have a choice - Moredekaiser's defence is his offence! Damaging enemies with my abilities gives me Armour points which act like temporary HP. The catch is that my Armour bar degrades by 3% per second, so I have to keep attacking to maintain it.
The importance of protecting my HP isn't just because I need it to stay alive like everyone else, but also because all my abilities cost HP to cast.
Hence I must be aggressive or I'd be useless.
Still, 6 kills and 15 deaths. I sucked badly in this game.
I kept pushing and pushing and my teammates just hung back and presumably cheered for me in their hearts (because, hey, we've got to be optimistic in life, right?). So many enemies won with such low HPs and at the same time, so many of my allies survived with like half HP and still ran back.
2 consecutive losses.
I sadden.
I've met a number of people who were ignorant of why many Scandinavian countries like Sweden are so wealthy today.
Here's why.
But... but.. I don't have my PC back yet!! I haven't even tried Witcher 2 yet! Will I get my computer by tomorrow so that I'll have one day to play it?
Rewatched Diamonds are Forever. Y'know, the James Bond film from the Sean Connery era. Lana Wood and Jill St John were hawt!
I think it's mainly because of the bad quality of the film used in those days. The blurriness hides a lot of details that would have been visible today.
By the time 3D films become the norm, I'd say real natural beauties are going to be rarer than diamonds.
Ignoring the piles of diamonds that certain companies are hoarding in massive underground vaults, that is.
Ordered pies again. Wanted the Lamb Special but it was sold out. Ended up with Teriyaki Chicken and Classic Beef (again).
Nothing that tastes like Teriyaki Chicken in the former. At best, I can only say it's sweet and it contains chicken.
Still good though. It's just like the Classic Beef in terms of ingredients other than the chicken and the additional carrot cubes.
Also, I might have been slightly mistaken the last time. The mash potato is only an inch thick, no more. It appeared thicker only because it kinda smeared into the meat when I cut into it.
I don't think I've ever run barefoot outdoors before.
So the Portal 2 turrets are now a reality!
Behold the Portal Turret, or, thanks to the recent release of Portal 2, the Portal Turret Version 1.0, aka "Classic." This cute little fella stands 38 inches high and while it doesn't actually move or open fire on hostiles, it does sport a working, rather creepy-looking laser eye and a motion sensor that triggers the famous Portal turret audio clips. It operates on either battery or AC power and there's even a little button that overrides the motion detector and plays the Portal theme song instead!
If only it plays instead the voice of this turret.
Thursday 19 May 2011
Rant 780 / The Witcher 2 Sex Scene
So 2 characters in Portal 2 made fun of adopted children. Now the parents of adopted kids are unhappy about that. What about the insults about being fat??? Why aren't the fat people or their parents complaining about the game? Everybody is ignoring all the overweight people who were emotionally damaged by this game.
Why? Are fat people less human than adopted children?
:3
"We did contact Sony who distributes the game. They told us to contact Valve, the company that actually created the game. I did; we've not heard back from them."
"They're passing the buck on to somebody else."
"It certainly seems that way."
The things people say to get themselves noticed.
Oh crap! I just realized I've something very important in my old Caviar Black HDD that I did not back up - my list of spare emails!!! Although half of them have Facebook accounts which I can trace back, it means I've lost the other half. Or at least I think it's half the list.
Cisco auxiliary police slamming some asshole onto the floor... Like a boss!!
The other guy started shoving the policeman first, so the latter's response was pretty legit IMO. That Cisco guy must have felt so good after that.
The page views of this blog just exceeded the 300 mark for the first time AFAIK.
Like I've said before, I don't watch this number all the time so I cannot confirm if this is just a random spike or if it's constant.
Back when I first discovered this Stats page I used to watch it a bit, so I've seen spikes a few times. I'm guessing that happens when some bored person discovers this blog, finds it interesting and shows it to his friends. Pageview count rises.
His friends would check it out and decide it's not a blog they would visit regularly, or ever again. Pageview count drops back to normal.
Still, it's 300, a pretty big number for a blog that used to be getting 50 views per day last year.
And I have no idea why it's rising.
A stranger thing is that unlike before, there is no longer a single rant that attracts most of the attention. It used to be that the Zalgo rant got like half the page views of this blog or something before the Guile nonsense totally killed the traffic to that page until recently, but now as you can see, the most visited is number 163 in which I described one of the matches I watched on Starcraft 1 GSL, and it is not even ahead of the second most popular rant by a lot.
Judging from the number of page views in the last month, this number is either a spike or it only began this month. 4574 / 30 is only about 152.4 which is only half of this 300 mark.
Most likely a huge spike. The likelihood of pageviews doubling and staying there for no apparent reason is too improbable to be taken seriously.
Oh, and some people came here looking for Witcher 2 porn. I have no idea why Google is including this blog among the results for search terms like "Witcher 2 nudity" and "Witcher 2 nude".
Apparently Google thinks what I have here is some kind of Witcher 2 porn blog or something.
Seriously, Google,
Moreover, Witcher 2 was released only yesterday and everyone's searching for uploads of rule 34 of it already!
The Internet is truly for porn.
11pm. No call from Bell yet.
...
1.35pm. Got a call from the technician from Bell asking me to tell him what the problem is. Apparently it booted up just fine and he's now testing the RAM and HDD. Since it's a random thing and there is currently no offline game in the brand new Caviar Black, I understand that he may not find what is wrong.
Did I mention I removed the Blue before I brought it there? Probably not. It wasn't necessary to the troubleshoot process anyway.
I do hope he will find out what's wrong and prove me wrong. Would be a big waste of time and money if he doesn't.
But que sera sera.
What a majestic sight! What graceful flight from a lawnmower!
What exactly is the purpose of giving the power of flight to a lawnmower anyway?
Just received this promotional offer from Starhub via SMS saying if I recontract within the month I can get either the HTC Mozart or LG Optimus 7 for free.
Sounds good. In fact I like the Mozart for its 8MP camera which exceeds even the 6MP of my current camera.
But...
It's the PC Show next month!
It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, technological expo in Singapore every year. Doubtless Starhub will have a huge booth there displaying many fantastic promotions.
The thing is, will they be as good as this?
Maybe.
Heck, I'll wait till next month.
Current list of items to be bought during PC Show:
1) Tablet (preferably with TV Out)
2) Handphone (recontract)
3) Camera (if the new handphone doesn't have a better resolution than my current camera, which is unlikely)
4) Printer ink (if available)
Senior Minister Goh is going to retire and become an Emeritus Senior Minister instead. It's most likely just an empty title that allows him to have something similar to the post of Minister Mentor without having any duty whatsoever.
I don't believe he's going to get paid for this position but I don't know. It wouldn't make sense.
I like this post made just for him. It acknowledges (and clearly states) the fact that he's been almost as important as LKY in the building of the country. Gives him the respect he deserves without offending LKY.
I've just noticed yet another issue I did not take into account when I calculated the number of days we can survive on our water in Die2Nite.
Concrete. I forgot about concrete.
We need water to make concrete, and each block of concrete is a defensive object which we need in order to take advantage of the Defensive Focus upgrade, which permanently raises the Defence value of these items for free.
I'm unable to tell how many bags of cement mix we will find in the future, so this is an unknown variable in the equation, preventing me from making any accurate estimations regarding our water supply.
About 18 may be a healthy estimate still, but I can no longer be as confident about this number as before.
In any case, I have to say this is an awesome town just because we managed to construct 2 of the 4 structures that require Foundations, leaving only The Big Rebuild to be built in the very near future.
Going to complete False Town today. Only 29APs to go, 4 hours before tonight's attack.
My first defeat in LoL!
I knew it would happen someday but I was hoping it would come later.
It was mostly this newbie Mao Kai's fault who fed so badly he ended up with a 0/14 k/d ratio. My lane buddy, Ashe, wasn't exactly good either, hence she (since Ashe was female and I don't know what the player's gender was) was unable to assist me in killing the enemies most of the time. Our Ryze and Jax were great but not good enough to offset their noobness.
We got the 2 enemies in our lanes down to a tiny bit of health so many times!
Sometimes, you've got to have balls regardless of your gender, man!
Nevertheless, it was a good game. Both sides, other than these two, played well.
Why? Are fat people less human than adopted children?
:3
"We did contact Sony who distributes the game. They told us to contact Valve, the company that actually created the game. I did; we've not heard back from them."
"They're passing the buck on to somebody else."
"It certainly seems that way."
The things people say to get themselves noticed.
Oh crap! I just realized I've something very important in my old Caviar Black HDD that I did not back up - my list of spare emails!!! Although half of them have Facebook accounts which I can trace back, it means I've lost the other half. Or at least I think it's half the list.
Cisco auxiliary police slamming some asshole onto the floor... Like a boss!!
The other guy started shoving the policeman first, so the latter's response was pretty legit IMO. That Cisco guy must have felt so good after that.
The page views of this blog just exceeded the 300 mark for the first time AFAIK.
Like I've said before, I don't watch this number all the time so I cannot confirm if this is just a random spike or if it's constant.
Back when I first discovered this Stats page I used to watch it a bit, so I've seen spikes a few times. I'm guessing that happens when some bored person discovers this blog, finds it interesting and shows it to his friends. Pageview count rises.
His friends would check it out and decide it's not a blog they would visit regularly, or ever again. Pageview count drops back to normal.
Still, it's 300, a pretty big number for a blog that used to be getting 50 views per day last year.
And I have no idea why it's rising.
A stranger thing is that unlike before, there is no longer a single rant that attracts most of the attention. It used to be that the Zalgo rant got like half the page views of this blog or something before the Guile nonsense totally killed the traffic to that page until recently, but now as you can see, the most visited is number 163 in which I described one of the matches I watched on Starcraft 1 GSL, and it is not even ahead of the second most popular rant by a lot.
Judging from the number of page views in the last month, this number is either a spike or it only began this month. 4574 / 30 is only about 152.4 which is only half of this 300 mark.
Most likely a huge spike. The likelihood of pageviews doubling and staying there for no apparent reason is too improbable to be taken seriously.
Oh, and some people came here looking for Witcher 2 porn. I have no idea why Google is including this blog among the results for search terms like "Witcher 2 nudity" and "Witcher 2 nude".
Apparently Google thinks what I have here is some kind of Witcher 2 porn blog or something.
Seriously, Google,
Moreover, Witcher 2 was released only yesterday and everyone's searching for uploads of rule 34 of it already!
The Internet is truly for porn.
11pm. No call from Bell yet.
...
1.35pm. Got a call from the technician from Bell asking me to tell him what the problem is. Apparently it booted up just fine and he's now testing the RAM and HDD. Since it's a random thing and there is currently no offline game in the brand new Caviar Black, I understand that he may not find what is wrong.
Did I mention I removed the Blue before I brought it there? Probably not. It wasn't necessary to the troubleshoot process anyway.
I do hope he will find out what's wrong and prove me wrong. Would be a big waste of time and money if he doesn't.
But que sera sera.
What a majestic sight! What graceful flight from a lawnmower!
What exactly is the purpose of giving the power of flight to a lawnmower anyway?
Just received this promotional offer from Starhub via SMS saying if I recontract within the month I can get either the HTC Mozart or LG Optimus 7 for free.
Sounds good. In fact I like the Mozart for its 8MP camera which exceeds even the 6MP of my current camera.
But...
It's the PC Show next month!
It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, technological expo in Singapore every year. Doubtless Starhub will have a huge booth there displaying many fantastic promotions.
The thing is, will they be as good as this?
Maybe.
Heck, I'll wait till next month.
Current list of items to be bought during PC Show:
1) Tablet (preferably with TV Out)
2) Handphone (recontract)
3) Camera (if the new handphone doesn't have a better resolution than my current camera, which is unlikely)
4) Printer ink (if available)
Senior Minister Goh is going to retire and become an Emeritus Senior Minister instead. It's most likely just an empty title that allows him to have something similar to the post of Minister Mentor without having any duty whatsoever.
I don't believe he's going to get paid for this position but I don't know. It wouldn't make sense.
I like this post made just for him. It acknowledges (and clearly states) the fact that he's been almost as important as LKY in the building of the country. Gives him the respect he deserves without offending LKY.
I've just noticed yet another issue I did not take into account when I calculated the number of days we can survive on our water in Die2Nite.
Concrete. I forgot about concrete.
We need water to make concrete, and each block of concrete is a defensive object which we need in order to take advantage of the Defensive Focus upgrade, which permanently raises the Defence value of these items for free.
I'm unable to tell how many bags of cement mix we will find in the future, so this is an unknown variable in the equation, preventing me from making any accurate estimations regarding our water supply.
About 18 may be a healthy estimate still, but I can no longer be as confident about this number as before.
In any case, I have to say this is an awesome town just because we managed to construct 2 of the 4 structures that require Foundations, leaving only The Big Rebuild to be built in the very near future.
Going to complete False Town today. Only 29APs to go, 4 hours before tonight's attack.
My first defeat in LoL!
I knew it would happen someday but I was hoping it would come later.
It was mostly this newbie Mao Kai's fault who fed so badly he ended up with a 0/14 k/d ratio. My lane buddy, Ashe, wasn't exactly good either, hence she (since Ashe was female and I don't know what the player's gender was) was unable to assist me in killing the enemies most of the time. Our Ryze and Jax were great but not good enough to offset their noobness.
We got the 2 enemies in our lanes down to a tiny bit of health so many times!
Sometimes, you've got to have balls regardless of your gender, man!
Nevertheless, it was a good game. Both sides, other than these two, played well.
Tuesday 17 May 2011
Rant 779 / It's Only Been Less Than Four Months!
So I gave up. Within an hour of booting up, the PC stopped responding. Mouse and capslock worked fine, but everything I tried to open stopped responding as if the computer was busy.
After 10mins, I hit the reset button. On the boot screen, I apparently have no drives in the computer. No hard disk and not even the DVD drive.
Unplugged and replugged both drives, pressed all the connectors to make sure they were all properly plugged in. Nope. It couldn't boot into Windows. During the several reboots, it seemed to be randomly detecting drives. Sometimes there's the DVD drive, sometimes there's both the DVD drive and one of the HDDs, and sometimes just the HDDs.
Fuck it.
Put it into the box it came in and carried it to Sim Lim Square.
Then the guy at the back of Bell (the shop I bought it from) said the technician was on holiday (Vesak Day today, public holiday). Not surprised but annoyed nonetheless. Left my computer and trolley there after they took down my name, phone number and invoice number.
He said the technician would call me. Means I'll have to wait for someone to call. Means I can't wake up late.
Speaking of calls, why is HX's phone giving me random calls?
By the way, I just got a copy of Witcher 2 and Brink.
So all 3 games I've played against people in League of Legends so far ended in the opponents conceding.
Is this a good sign or is this a good sign?
...
Make that 4 now. What is going on? How can I be this lucky to get such good teammates?
Seriously. As you can see, my k/d/a ratios aren't even that good.
Okay, finally a game in which the enemies didn't successfully concede. Well, they were voting at the end and had only 3 "yes" votes, which was 1 vote short of the 4 they needed. Don't have a screenshot so I can't prove it. I was feeding (12/13/13) near the end but our Jax was good.
12/13/13 shows how aggressive (and successful, fortunately) I am. Hence I need good teammates to avoid being too much of a burden to my team. Ergo I have good teammates.
My bro felt like trying The Shepherd's Pie and my mum wanted to try a real pie (as real as it gets without being homemade anyway) so we ordered one.
Only picked the Classic Beef because we had other things ready for dinner already. Yes it wasn't necessary but they both felt like having pie, so whatever.
$23.90. $2-6 delivery charge ($5 in my case) and an extra $1 public holiday surcharge (yea, it's on their website but buried in some corner of it).
It was pretty good. Filling. A third of the pie would be enough for most people. Half if they're starving.
Comes in a 9" by 9" aluminium foil tray. Top layer consists of over an inch of mash potato, followed by a thin layer of cheese and the bottom is a mix of beef and a bit of corn about an 1.5cm thick.
Good for 4-6 people my ass. 6 is only if they're all women trying to maintain their figures. Or if they're babies. 4 would be average.
The strange thing about this is that online ordering is not available for same-day deliveries. If you want it within the day, you have to call them. Not a problem but it's just weird.
Not filling enough for the price but it's a new experience.
So according to my calculations in Die2Nite, my town has about 18 days remaining at most. We currently have 147 units of water left, plus another 140 if we fully upgrade our water pump. Our water consumption rate is 17 assuming the 34 of us follow our water schedules strictly.
287 / 17 = 16.88
After that, we have 1 more day to get the condition of Thirsty and another day to become Dehydrated. Once we reach 2300 hours while Dehydrated, we die.
Since half of us will stop drinking earlier than the other half, that half will have 1 day less. But that's somewhat offset by the "0.88", which really means 15 units of water. This means 2 will die a day earlier than everyone else. The other 15 will live the longest and get 19 days.
Hence "about 18 days".
:3
Episode 3 is taking so long only because it's unable to escape from the gravitational field of Gabe Newell.
After 10mins, I hit the reset button. On the boot screen, I apparently have no drives in the computer. No hard disk and not even the DVD drive.
Unplugged and replugged both drives, pressed all the connectors to make sure they were all properly plugged in. Nope. It couldn't boot into Windows. During the several reboots, it seemed to be randomly detecting drives. Sometimes there's the DVD drive, sometimes there's both the DVD drive and one of the HDDs, and sometimes just the HDDs.
Fuck it.
Put it into the box it came in and carried it to Sim Lim Square.
Then the guy at the back of Bell (the shop I bought it from) said the technician was on holiday (Vesak Day today, public holiday). Not surprised but annoyed nonetheless. Left my computer and trolley there after they took down my name, phone number and invoice number.
He said the technician would call me. Means I'll have to wait for someone to call. Means I can't wake up late.
Speaking of calls, why is HX's phone giving me random calls?
By the way, I just got a copy of Witcher 2 and Brink.
So all 3 games I've played against people in League of Legends so far ended in the opponents conceding.
Is this a good sign or is this a good sign?
...
Make that 4 now. What is going on? How can I be this lucky to get such good teammates?
Seriously. As you can see, my k/d/a ratios aren't even that good.
Okay, finally a game in which the enemies didn't successfully concede. Well, they were voting at the end and had only 3 "yes" votes, which was 1 vote short of the 4 they needed. Don't have a screenshot so I can't prove it. I was feeding (12/13/13) near the end but our Jax was good.
12/13/13 shows how aggressive (and successful, fortunately) I am. Hence I need good teammates to avoid being too much of a burden to my team. Ergo I have good teammates.
My bro felt like trying The Shepherd's Pie and my mum wanted to try a real pie (as real as it gets without being homemade anyway) so we ordered one.
Only picked the Classic Beef because we had other things ready for dinner already. Yes it wasn't necessary but they both felt like having pie, so whatever.
$23.90. $2-6 delivery charge ($5 in my case) and an extra $1 public holiday surcharge (yea, it's on their website but buried in some corner of it).
It was pretty good. Filling. A third of the pie would be enough for most people. Half if they're starving.
Comes in a 9" by 9" aluminium foil tray. Top layer consists of over an inch of mash potato, followed by a thin layer of cheese and the bottom is a mix of beef and a bit of corn about an 1.5cm thick.
Good for 4-6 people my ass. 6 is only if they're all women trying to maintain their figures. Or if they're babies. 4 would be average.
The strange thing about this is that online ordering is not available for same-day deliveries. If you want it within the day, you have to call them. Not a problem but it's just weird.
Not filling enough for the price but it's a new experience.
So according to my calculations in Die2Nite, my town has about 18 days remaining at most. We currently have 147 units of water left, plus another 140 if we fully upgrade our water pump. Our water consumption rate is 17 assuming the 34 of us follow our water schedules strictly.
287 / 17 = 16.88
After that, we have 1 more day to get the condition of Thirsty and another day to become Dehydrated. Once we reach 2300 hours while Dehydrated, we die.
Since half of us will stop drinking earlier than the other half, that half will have 1 day less. But that's somewhat offset by the "0.88", which really means 15 units of water. This means 2 will die a day earlier than everyone else. The other 15 will live the longest and get 19 days.
Hence "about 18 days".
:3
Episode 3 is taking so long only because it's unable to escape from the gravitational field of Gabe Newell.
Rant 778 / Six Hours Per Terabyte
Today's map as seen from our Map Viewer.
All the digits are the zombie counts on each tile, displayed like this because we have a level 5 Watchtower that reveals all tiles within 10 tiles.Yellowish-green tiles are lightly infested, reds are seriously infested, blues are practically bursting with them.
On my non-water days like today, this wouldn't be a concern. Since we have over 100 logs and scrap metals, I can just stay in town and convert these raw materials. Boring but necessary.
But after yesterday's killing spree, I wanted to look outside to see if my efforts did anything to stop them.
Nope.
Yesterday, none of the zombies were within 1 tile of my town. Today, 3 tiles next to town are infested.
As for defence, we're still trying as hard as we can to bring in defensive objects but it's getting hard when many of us are unable to reach non-depleted zones where they can be found. Defensive structures aren't needed yet because we only lack less than a hundred points tonight, something which can be easily remedied another cheap building.
The format process is slower than expected. It's taking 2 hours to format 21%.
...
So it takes 6 hours to fully format a 1TB hard drive. Important thing to note. Hopefully it's really that long and not because my computer has difficulty reading the hard disk or something.
...
I hate how it gets stuck at "Expanding files..." and then suddenly becomes unable to read the disk. Then when I restart it, the DVD drive isn't detected. Happened once the other day, happened again just now.
...
Encountered a few short pauses that could be explained by the fact that I was doing 3-4 things at the same time including watching the stream on Vidyavidya, downloading programmes and updates, and installing programmes.
Googling this issue gave me results that mostly point to temperature issues.
Possible. The grills at the front of the HAF 912 casing has 2 layers, which makes it a good filter but a bitch to clean. This basically prevents me from merely relying on wiping with wet rags because it can't reach the one inside.
None of the fans appear dusty, but I cannot see the fan in the graphics card. Might have to try if the pauses return. So far I'm not getting anything similar to what I had been getting before the format.
I guess I should use my heavy duty vacuum cleaner on it.
All the digits are the zombie counts on each tile, displayed like this because we have a level 5 Watchtower that reveals all tiles within 10 tiles.Yellowish-green tiles are lightly infested, reds are seriously infested, blues are practically bursting with them.
On my non-water days like today, this wouldn't be a concern. Since we have over 100 logs and scrap metals, I can just stay in town and convert these raw materials. Boring but necessary.
But after yesterday's killing spree, I wanted to look outside to see if my efforts did anything to stop them.
Nope.
Yesterday, none of the zombies were within 1 tile of my town. Today, 3 tiles next to town are infested.
As for defence, we're still trying as hard as we can to bring in defensive objects but it's getting hard when many of us are unable to reach non-depleted zones where they can be found. Defensive structures aren't needed yet because we only lack less than a hundred points tonight, something which can be easily remedied another cheap building.
The format process is slower than expected. It's taking 2 hours to format 21%.
...
So it takes 6 hours to fully format a 1TB hard drive. Important thing to note. Hopefully it's really that long and not because my computer has difficulty reading the hard disk or something.
...
I hate how it gets stuck at "Expanding files..." and then suddenly becomes unable to read the disk. Then when I restart it, the DVD drive isn't detected. Happened once the other day, happened again just now.
...
Encountered a few short pauses that could be explained by the fact that I was doing 3-4 things at the same time including watching the stream on Vidyavidya, downloading programmes and updates, and installing programmes.
Googling this issue gave me results that mostly point to temperature issues.
Possible. The grills at the front of the HAF 912 casing has 2 layers, which makes it a good filter but a bitch to clean. This basically prevents me from merely relying on wiping with wet rags because it can't reach the one inside.
None of the fans appear dusty, but I cannot see the fan in the graphics card. Might have to try if the pauses return. So far I'm not getting anything similar to what I had been getting before the format.
I guess I should use my heavy duty vacuum cleaner on it.
Sunday 15 May 2011
Rant 777 / I Really Can't Be Arsed To Make The Seven Hundred And Seventy-seventh Rant Any Different From The Rest
Something is still wrong. I'm getting the same pauses but they're quicker, like half a second. It began when I closed Global Agenda, when it crashed for a while. No response from mouse nor Capslock. A long while. Maybe an entire minute.
But it recovered and went on as if nothing had happened. But there were intermittent shorter pauses every 5 seconds or so.
So I restarted the computer hoping it would magically get rid of the problem.
Nope. It continued to pause frequently but I ignored it ( I was eating). Then at one point the long pause came again, similar to the initial crash. Again I waited and it reverted back to normal. No pauses now.
But what is happening?
This is hilarious and yet sad. I'm 90% sure everyone in the Marine Parade had voted for PAP because of SM Goh. Now he says he's leaving the Cabinet. At least he's staying to manage Marine Parade, but still, that's kinda missing the point. When people vote for an experienced ex-Prime Minister with a record like his, they aren't just trying to get someone to manage their neighbourhood.
I mean, he's grossly overqualified for the job, seriously.
The pauses were back. One blue screen giving me this error "Kernel Data Inpage Error".
Which made me remember I might have missed an important step - formatting the brand new hard drive before use.
I don't know if it's actually important, hence I'm not sure about it.
So I spent an entire evening on a disk scan. Now I'm blogging about it. No pauses so far, but who knows what's going to happen later. If it happens again, I'll be spending the entire day tomorrow formatting and reinstalling everything.
So apparently, spouting vulgarities numbs pain. The catch is that you can't be the sort who curses like a sailor on a regular basis. In fact, it only works on people who usually avoid such colourful language.
Fuck.
So everyone reading this who doesn't usually use vulgar language should memorise the entire script used in this video, then recite it when in pain.
Youtube - your best source of free online painkillers.
Found this great horror game, Hotel 626.
Only suitable for healthy individuals with excessively huge balls and no heart condition.
So far so good in Die2Nite. We've hit day 12 in the current town and we've only lost 5 people, leaving 35 people alive to work on everything.
Water is a concern as expected but it turns out the main problem in the long term is really the zombie infestation outside.
Today was the first time I was unable to reach any clear non-depleted zones (usually rather far from town, like 6-7 steps away) because of the zombies.
Of course I can reach those tiles, but the path to those are so filled with undeads that I have to fill my inventory with weapons. What would be the point of scavenging if I have no space for new items?
Fortunately we have built the structure that allows us to refill water weapons for free, so I can go out for a zombie-killing spree instead.
Right now we have a total of 162 water rations. We have built everything that could give us more water, so this indicates how long we're going to last.
Of course it is possible to scavenge filled jerry cans outside, but with the current state of infestation outside, I don't believe we will be finding enough to affect the outcome significantly.
With 35 of us, this gives us a water consumption rate of 17.5 per day. We only drink on alternate days. In other words, we have 9 days to go before we begin to sleep thirsty.
It's day 12, so my estimate is that we will be dying on day 22 or 23, assuming nobody screws up their scavenging plans and come back thirsty on their non-drinking days.
Defence is the only the third priority because we are almost running out of things to build. The bigger projects we have not built are the False Town and the Big Rebuild, and at the moment they aren't needed urgently. We have 963 defence points which exceeds tonight's upper limit of 928 zombies and pretty close to tomorrow's upper limit of 1100 zombies.
This means instead of construction, we need more APs spent on scavenging and converting our 100+ logs and scrap metals (each) into planks, wrought iron and etc. We're still short on beams mainly.
So far so good. Been using the PC for over 5 hours and no pauses. Before the scan, it was pausing within an hour after booting. Looks like the disk scan worked.
Then again, it's not completely gone. I'm hearing pauses from the vidyavidya stream once in a while when I'm on another tab. Doesn't happen when I'm watching it though. Maybe it's just the player.
...
Maybe. Maybe not.
It did that pausing thing again when I closed the tab. In fact, it kept doing it for a while when I was watching a movie right after that, with 2 very long pauses that last roughly a min. I was counting after a while during the second one to know if I should just hit the reset button.
But nothing after that. Everything's smooth.
I'm not sure if it's still the HDD, but I'll be formatting the Black tomorrow and spend the entire day reinstalling and updating everything.
I kinda suspect it is a memory problem, but it may not be the hard disk. Again, it's just a suspicion. I'll know for sure by the day after tomorrow. IIRC there's a 7-day warranty thing which allows me to exchange this new HDD for a newer one. Not sure, but it doesn't matter since I'll be going back immediately if I can confirm the problems are from this HDD.
I don't feel that this is likely. Most probably, it's either the mobo or the RAM, unlikely as this is. I mean, seriously, this computer, other than the previous Caviar Black and the current one, are about half a year old only. What's the chance of a failure that's serious enough to require a replacement this soon?
As for the Caviar Black, I just realized it only lasted 3 years. That, I guess, is the lifespan under constant usage of 16-24 hours every day.
Anyway I was watching The Other Guys. I've generally disliked films starring Will Ferrell. Never really liked his kind of humour. Too stupid.
But this time, it's different. My favourite scene has to be the one in which he and his wife (Eva Mendez) got her mother to bring intimate messages back and forth to each other. I'm surprised she even allowed herself to bring the first message to him at all.
In this film, Will Ferrell's usual over-the-board stupidity was reduced, and I believe someone else influenced the script who wasn't involved in his previous films. The style is still his but something more was added. For example, his partner's vast knowledge acquired only because he wanted to use it to tease other people didn't feel like the usual style used in his other films I've seen.
Usually, his buddies would be as moronic as or even worse than him.
So I checked Wikipedia and guess what I found - Ferrell wasn't involved in this script. McKay's the one who co-wrote the scripts with him for films like Anchorman and Talledega Nights (examples of films that made me dislike his style), but this time, McKay did it with Chris Henchy instead.
No wonder!
I think it had always been Ferrell's idea to go for extreme idiocy, while McKay just wanted it to reach "very stupid". No idea about Henchy's style.
As for the film itself, it's hilarious. I think it's a great comedy, so it came as no surprise when I read that it toppled Inception from the number one spot at the box office.
Okay, the pauses are back again after I opened vidyavidya on Firefox after watching the movie. It was fine for most of the film after like the first 30mins (I don't know, just a guess), but it's back. It's definitely (currently) being caused by the Flash player then.
However, I cannot rule out the possibility that it's being caused by an outdated video card driver.
Whatever. I'm going to bed very soon. Going to format tomorrow and do everything after that.
I did want to make this rant different from the usual since it's TRIPLE SEVEN! But... I cba to do it. Still it's 777.
After seven hundred and seventy six rants, I'm still making frequent spelling, grammatical and factual mistakes everywhere.
C'est la vie.
But it recovered and went on as if nothing had happened. But there were intermittent shorter pauses every 5 seconds or so.
So I restarted the computer hoping it would magically get rid of the problem.
Nope. It continued to pause frequently but I ignored it ( I was eating). Then at one point the long pause came again, similar to the initial crash. Again I waited and it reverted back to normal. No pauses now.
But what is happening?
This is hilarious and yet sad. I'm 90% sure everyone in the Marine Parade had voted for PAP because of SM Goh. Now he says he's leaving the Cabinet. At least he's staying to manage Marine Parade, but still, that's kinda missing the point. When people vote for an experienced ex-Prime Minister with a record like his, they aren't just trying to get someone to manage their neighbourhood.
I mean, he's grossly overqualified for the job, seriously.
The pauses were back. One blue screen giving me this error "Kernel Data Inpage Error".
Which made me remember I might have missed an important step - formatting the brand new hard drive before use.
I don't know if it's actually important, hence I'm not sure about it.
So I spent an entire evening on a disk scan. Now I'm blogging about it. No pauses so far, but who knows what's going to happen later. If it happens again, I'll be spending the entire day tomorrow formatting and reinstalling everything.
So apparently, spouting vulgarities numbs pain. The catch is that you can't be the sort who curses like a sailor on a regular basis. In fact, it only works on people who usually avoid such colourful language.
Fuck.
So everyone reading this who doesn't usually use vulgar language should memorise the entire script used in this video, then recite it when in pain.
Youtube - your best source of free online painkillers.
Found this great horror game, Hotel 626.
Only suitable for healthy individuals with excessively huge balls and no heart condition.
So far so good in Die2Nite. We've hit day 12 in the current town and we've only lost 5 people, leaving 35 people alive to work on everything.
Water is a concern as expected but it turns out the main problem in the long term is really the zombie infestation outside.
Today was the first time I was unable to reach any clear non-depleted zones (usually rather far from town, like 6-7 steps away) because of the zombies.
Of course I can reach those tiles, but the path to those are so filled with undeads that I have to fill my inventory with weapons. What would be the point of scavenging if I have no space for new items?
Fortunately we have built the structure that allows us to refill water weapons for free, so I can go out for a zombie-killing spree instead.
Right now we have a total of 162 water rations. We have built everything that could give us more water, so this indicates how long we're going to last.
Of course it is possible to scavenge filled jerry cans outside, but with the current state of infestation outside, I don't believe we will be finding enough to affect the outcome significantly.
With 35 of us, this gives us a water consumption rate of 17.5 per day. We only drink on alternate days. In other words, we have 9 days to go before we begin to sleep thirsty.
It's day 12, so my estimate is that we will be dying on day 22 or 23, assuming nobody screws up their scavenging plans and come back thirsty on their non-drinking days.
Defence is the only the third priority because we are almost running out of things to build. The bigger projects we have not built are the False Town and the Big Rebuild, and at the moment they aren't needed urgently. We have 963 defence points which exceeds tonight's upper limit of 928 zombies and pretty close to tomorrow's upper limit of 1100 zombies.
This means instead of construction, we need more APs spent on scavenging and converting our 100+ logs and scrap metals (each) into planks, wrought iron and etc. We're still short on beams mainly.
So far so good. Been using the PC for over 5 hours and no pauses. Before the scan, it was pausing within an hour after booting. Looks like the disk scan worked.
Then again, it's not completely gone. I'm hearing pauses from the vidyavidya stream once in a while when I'm on another tab. Doesn't happen when I'm watching it though. Maybe it's just the player.
...
Maybe. Maybe not.
It did that pausing thing again when I closed the tab. In fact, it kept doing it for a while when I was watching a movie right after that, with 2 very long pauses that last roughly a min. I was counting after a while during the second one to know if I should just hit the reset button.
But nothing after that. Everything's smooth.
I'm not sure if it's still the HDD, but I'll be formatting the Black tomorrow and spend the entire day reinstalling and updating everything.
I kinda suspect it is a memory problem, but it may not be the hard disk. Again, it's just a suspicion. I'll know for sure by the day after tomorrow. IIRC there's a 7-day warranty thing which allows me to exchange this new HDD for a newer one. Not sure, but it doesn't matter since I'll be going back immediately if I can confirm the problems are from this HDD.
I don't feel that this is likely. Most probably, it's either the mobo or the RAM, unlikely as this is. I mean, seriously, this computer, other than the previous Caviar Black and the current one, are about half a year old only. What's the chance of a failure that's serious enough to require a replacement this soon?
As for the Caviar Black, I just realized it only lasted 3 years. That, I guess, is the lifespan under constant usage of 16-24 hours every day.
Anyway I was watching The Other Guys. I've generally disliked films starring Will Ferrell. Never really liked his kind of humour. Too stupid.
But this time, it's different. My favourite scene has to be the one in which he and his wife (Eva Mendez) got her mother to bring intimate messages back and forth to each other. I'm surprised she even allowed herself to bring the first message to him at all.
In this film, Will Ferrell's usual over-the-board stupidity was reduced, and I believe someone else influenced the script who wasn't involved in his previous films. The style is still his but something more was added. For example, his partner's vast knowledge acquired only because he wanted to use it to tease other people didn't feel like the usual style used in his other films I've seen.
Usually, his buddies would be as moronic as or even worse than him.
So I checked Wikipedia and guess what I found - Ferrell wasn't involved in this script. McKay's the one who co-wrote the scripts with him for films like Anchorman and Talledega Nights (examples of films that made me dislike his style), but this time, McKay did it with Chris Henchy instead.
No wonder!
I think it had always been Ferrell's idea to go for extreme idiocy, while McKay just wanted it to reach "very stupid". No idea about Henchy's style.
As for the film itself, it's hilarious. I think it's a great comedy, so it came as no surprise when I read that it toppled Inception from the number one spot at the box office.
Okay, the pauses are back again after I opened vidyavidya on Firefox after watching the movie. It was fine for most of the film after like the first 30mins (I don't know, just a guess), but it's back. It's definitely (currently) being caused by the Flash player then.
However, I cannot rule out the possibility that it's being caused by an outdated video card driver.
Whatever. I'm going to bed very soon. Going to format tomorrow and do everything after that.
I did want to make this rant different from the usual since it's TRIPLE SEVEN! But... I cba to do it. Still it's 777.
After seven hundred and seventy six rants, I'm still making frequent spelling, grammatical and factual mistakes everywhere.
C'est la vie.
Saturday 14 May 2011
Rant 776 / Too Much For Too Much
I can see the potential there but I wish they could change the sound it produces to something nicer that doesn't remind me of a cathode ray oscilloscope.
So when players hit level 18 in Global Agenda, that's where the standard MMO game ends. There are a lot of different PvP and PvE missions available and they're all in instances. Basically, this is a third-person shooter in which the game lobby is converted into Dome City.
This game has nothing to do with exploring new areas and is focused on PvP (because PvE gets boring after a while even with the mobs' random spawn spots.
Watched Skyline. Totally reminded me of Mass Effect.
The eyes and the shape of the heads were so similar to those of the Collectors. Can't blame me for having the initial impression that it was a ME ripoff.
As for the film itself, it's a great film with some not so great plot. Top tier special effects on a B-movie script.
The worst thing about the movie has to be the female protagonist, the pregnant girl. I think she was supposed to be scared to the point where she refused to leave the room, but she appeared to be more in denial than in fear.
It was obvious they couldn't stay there for long without water, so they had to have a better chance leaving than staying there.
Moreover, aren't there supposed to be more guns than people in the USA? Why is it that there was only one guy in the whole group with a gun? Instead of staying in the room that day, they could have searched the rest of the building quietly for weapons and supplies, right?
It couldn't have been that dangerous. Lots of people must have let their curtains down in the hotel, especially those who were planning to wake up late. They could even have found other survivors.
Heck, couldn't they have tried the sewers?
The ending was unique for a Western-style plot ("Western" as in "white people", not the Wild West sort), IMO. I'd expect such a last-minute miracle/deus ex machina to appear in Japanese animes, not Hollywood films. That was probably its saving grace, since it really lifts the mood and makes viewers happy. Doesn't exactly improve the plot, but by that point, I didn't really care.
If they make the second movie as planned, I'm pretty sure it will be the last of the series, unless this sequel beats the odds and turns out to be better than its prequel.
In short, got on my nerves a few times but overall an exciting film.
So it was my old hard disk that was giving me problems.
I know because it died this afternoon.
It started when Global Agenda started to pause (the sound too) for a few times while I was in a Medium Security Mission. Thought I'd google for an answer later.
After finishing the game, forgot to check for it. Decided to queue for a High Sec mission but it crashed.
There was a flash of blue screen then it restarted before I could see what the error was.
Thought it was another NTFS.sys Stop error.
It might have been. I don't know.
What followed was that no hard disk drive was detected when it restarted.
Shit. Mobo problem. If it was a HDD problem one of them should have been detected.
Hoping it was not, I restarted it a few times and googled on my laptop for answers. Majority pointed at HDD failure.
That was not good.
One advised changing the SATA configuration in the BIOS to IDE.
It appeared to work. It finally detected the HDDs.
Except while one was fine, the other was gibberish. Restarted several times, nothing worked. At one point, one of my HDDs was a "PATA" drive with a label containing "@" and the rectangle symbol that people get when the PC can't display the foreign language font.
What the heck is a PATA??
From this, I deduced it really meant that a HDD has died. But which one? Of course the Black would make sense.
Tested it first by unplugging it. Couldn't boot Windows but the drive was correctly labelled in the startup screen. Ended up stuck with the error "BOOTMGR is missing".
Unplugged my Blue and replugged the Black. Gibberish label and "I/O Device Error". Yep, Black died. My C drive. Well, at least the really important stuff are still there in my Blue while most documents have been backed up in the new external HDD.
So I spend over an hour going to Sim Lim to get another Black. Went to Bell where I bought this new PC but the 500GB was sold out. The closest available was the 1TB Black with 64MB Cache.
S$120 gone.
This is unnecessarily big though.
On the other hand, this means I won't have to delete games very often now.
Spoil myself.
Now I'm reinstalling everything. Just updating Windows alone took the rest of the day and most of tonight.
But I've lost all my bookmarks and torrents.
Thinking that these HDDs aren't going to die anytime soon, I had deleted the backups in the old My Book external HDD. The new one doesn't have it. I checked. I had my work stuff though. Luckily.
Means I have to rebuild my huge collection of bookmarks. Means someday I'll remember forgotten websites like I did back when I had my first Acer laptop replaced by the current one.
And the torrents. That's going to be a problem. I'm going to try to access my dead Black to see if anything inside can be copied over.
These few nights have been hot. Just now was even hotter because I was washing dishes while boiling soup and hot water on the stove next to me. Wanted to make jelly simultaneously.
In the end, my hands were soaking in sweat literally. I'm not kidding. When I took off the gloves and tilted them over, sweat poured out of them.
Hot.
On some mornings, it got so hot the trick I mentioned about setting the air conditioner to switch off 1-2 hours after I fall asleep doesn't work because it was so warm I woke up earlier than usual.
Wednesday 11 May 2011
Rant 775 / What Is Going On Here?
So after playing against bots exclusively for such a long time in League of Legends, I thought it would be unhealthy if I continued this practice forever. Furthermore, my friends are all playing against real humans. If I went on like this, my tactics and habits might become too adapted to AI behaviour which can hamper my ability to compete against actual players.
For example, AI follows you stupidly behind towers if you know how to guide them, ie through the jungle. This is a cheap trick some players use to get a double kill and first blood simultaneously in the beginning of matches.
Real people don't do that. Furthermore, real people might go into the bushes before minions start to spawn to see if there is anyone hiding inside, particularly if they're able to teleport or turn invisible. AI does not do that, making it safe to camp within and ambush them, as long as they didn't see you go into the bushes in the first place. If they did, they may follow you, especially midway during the games when your HP is low.
Apparently, I'm not half bad at using Mordekaiser now, but I'm only using one game to judge. It seems Siphon of Destruction is a good way to shave HP off bots and is also a fantastic way to prevent melee enemies from attacking minions, drastically reducing their cash flow in the early game.
However, the guides I read told me Mordekaiser's better than this. According to those players who wrote them, Mordekaiser can make a good assassin. I don't know how I can do that with just Siphon, Mace of Spades and the Summoner spells Ignite and Exhaust, unless the target is already half dead far from a tower and is unable to slow me, teleport away or speed up. What's the chance of that in the early stages of a real PvP game? Even semi-decent players know they need to stay close to towers if they're close to or below half HP.
Still, I was fortunate that the 2 enemies in my lane were melee champions, though one of them could turn invisible. No matter, I merely had to save my Mace of Spades whenever she goes missing and smash her in the face with metal and lightning whenever she appears close to me.
Since they were both so intimidated by my Siphon spam (seriously, I used it immediately after cooldown all the time), they didn't dare to hit me at all. This allowed me to fill up my Armour bar which rises every time I do damage with an ability, rendering any of their attacks very ineffective.
In the end, at lvl7, 4 of them finally ambushed me and my buddy, killing me. I almost got 2 of them. Almost, not did. Sad.
Not because I didn't kill them. Well, not completely anyway. The main reason I'm sad is because I made an embarrassing mistake during that fight when I panicked. Instead of hitting R to use my ultimate skill, I was spamming F. Since I had already used everything but R, I was wondering why nothing was coming up.
When my buddy died, I looked down and saw that. In the end, I used it too late. If I had used it earlier, I might have lasted longer and killed someone because it drains HP for 10s.
Still, it wasn't all bad. After we downed 2 of their towers on the top lane without losing any on our lanes, they conceded.
Second game, ended the same way. We downed 2 towers on one side and they conceded. We had one guy on our team disconnect during loading screen and never returned, so it was no small feat. Some may say that it's easier because 2 of us got to solo a lane, but that's only if they both survive all the gank attempts. Now that's not easy when you're alone.
I'm not saying I played a big part in these. It's probably more like I got lucky because in both games, our carries in the middle lane were fantastic players, always at the right places at the right time.
So it's back to the extremely hot days I hate every year.
This morning when I got up I thought my room was warm. I had set the timer of my air conditioner to switch off at 5.30am and my curtains were preventing sunlight from warming up my room. End result was that my room was barely cooler than the rest of my home. Even my bathroom, which is usually cooler because of its wetness, wasn't much cooler than my room.
Using the oral thermometer I'd gotten from school back in the SARS days, I'd determined that the temperature of my room was 32.4 degrees Celsius with my windows shut, curtains covering the lower 4/5 of the window and my computer on. My windows face the east, so I didn't have a choice about the curtains until the evening.
Even the breeze was warm and my fan was and is still blowing warm wind at me.
Still, it's cooler than the outside which IIRC has been staying at around 36-38 degrees Celsius.
At this point, I'm sacrificing ventilation for coolness.
Keeping myself wet helps, especially since the bathroom is just next to me. Keeping the bathroom floor wet should lower the temperature too, hopefully. I don't know and I don't really want to experiment.
So I've to do research now. I don't exactly know how to do it. I'm supposed to find some jacket designs and prepare for winter. The problem is, people are only looking at fall 2011 now. Fortunately due to reasons I cannot explain here, it's not all bad.
Right now I'm browsing through fashion forums for ideas.
What I'm getting right now is the impression that Singaporeans generally have little fashion sense. Youtube has few videos on Singaporean fashion and those are all fashion shows held here.
Fashion sections in Singapore online forums are generally merged with the "Grooming" category and, from what I've seen, are much less alive than other sections.
The reality is different though. Or maybe the older women we target have better tastes.
There are a few active Singaporean fashion websites but there is nothing on winter fashion. Makes sense, I guess.
What do?
I have no choice but to browse UK and US fashion forums.
...
And as expected, my choices sucked. But at least now I know some of the designs I have to avoid.
Been trying out this MMORPG called "Global Agenda". It's a third-person shooter (just like, say, Mass Effect) and a MMORPG. Sounded fun but it had been pay-to-play until recently. When I learnt that it became free-to-play with optional paid membership, I had to give it a try.
MMOs like this just don't come by very often.
It's sci-fi, so to me it felt kind of similar to playing Mass Effect. But almost everything else is different.
For example, the ping. Since it's obviously not in Asia (most likely in the US), I had to get used to playing a shooter at about 200ms ping again. Haven't had to do it since I stopped playing Empires.
The next difference I feel is really important is that I have a jetpack. All players do. However, it (obviously) has a catch - it drains energy. Energy is also needed to shoot (again, similar to ME1's heat capacity for guns because I have to stop firing once in a while to recharge). Therefore I can't just fly anywhere I want and start spraying when I land. Instead, I have to watch my energy when I fly so that I have enough to fire, or land somewhere clear to recharge before attacking.
Anyway there are 4 classes - Assault, Recon, Medic and Robotics.
It should be obvious to most players with MMO experience what the first 3 are, if not all 4. But just in case, let me list them down:
Assault - heavy weapons
Recon - sniper
Medic- healer
Robotics - summoner
So far I've only tried Robotics and it's fun. I actually didn't know what it really is about but I picked it anyway because I know what the other three do.
This class can have up to 4 machines equipped and ready to use, but 3 is preferable in order to leave one slot for a Repair Arm which speeds up the deploy speed of the healing station and turret. I don't know if there are different machines at higher levels, but for now I see only 4 kinds:
1) healing station - heals everyone in a certain radius, has unlimited time, quick deploy
2) turret - kills stuff, has unlimited time, slow deploy
3) shield - giant forcefield which only you and your allies can shoot through, lasts a short time only, instant deploy
4) drone - kills stuff, lasts a short time only, instant deploy, can be mobile depending on model
This makes the Robotics a jack-of-all-trades, although I mainly use my gun and my turret only. The turret is more lethal than my gun but it has a limited arc of fire (current turret only can fire in a 90-degree arc) and limited range (100 vs my current gun's 165 units). After some time, I've learnt that it works best indoors where its small arc is offset by placing it in a corner or a doorway.
This game also has some interesting PvP. Right now I've only tried the Mercenary missions in which two teams fight to capture points on a map. There's also a Double Agent mission available in which 6 players play in a PvE mission except 2 of them play as the enemy, presumably on the side of the "E". That reminds me of L4D.
I have to admit I had no idea what that last instrument was. I've never heard of a "theremin" before... and honestly I can see why. Or hear it, rather.
It doesn't exactly have the most beautiful sound and it certainly has to be hard to master. I mean, a slight twitch would ruin the music. The other problem is that you can't have an abrupt change of tone.
Original:
WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH???!??! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE BOSS ATTACKING WITH?!??!? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE BOSS?!??!
This game is gay in more ways than one.
And you know who I pity? The game testers.
So I haven't been watching GSL on GOMTV until yesterday when I watch Jinro's matches.
It was disappointing. I couldn't help but notice that Jinro really didn't play as well as he used to. In a few of the games, he was turtling so hard I wondered if he'd, for some reason, been training on Civilization V instead of Starcraft 2.
Whatever his problems are, he should probably fix them soon. According to the commentators it isn't easy to get promoted back to Code S from Code A.
For example, AI follows you stupidly behind towers if you know how to guide them, ie through the jungle. This is a cheap trick some players use to get a double kill and first blood simultaneously in the beginning of matches.
Real people don't do that. Furthermore, real people might go into the bushes before minions start to spawn to see if there is anyone hiding inside, particularly if they're able to teleport or turn invisible. AI does not do that, making it safe to camp within and ambush them, as long as they didn't see you go into the bushes in the first place. If they did, they may follow you, especially midway during the games when your HP is low.
Apparently, I'm not half bad at using Mordekaiser now, but I'm only using one game to judge. It seems Siphon of Destruction is a good way to shave HP off bots and is also a fantastic way to prevent melee enemies from attacking minions, drastically reducing their cash flow in the early game.
However, the guides I read told me Mordekaiser's better than this. According to those players who wrote them, Mordekaiser can make a good assassin. I don't know how I can do that with just Siphon, Mace of Spades and the Summoner spells Ignite and Exhaust, unless the target is already half dead far from a tower and is unable to slow me, teleport away or speed up. What's the chance of that in the early stages of a real PvP game? Even semi-decent players know they need to stay close to towers if they're close to or below half HP.
Still, I was fortunate that the 2 enemies in my lane were melee champions, though one of them could turn invisible. No matter, I merely had to save my Mace of Spades whenever she goes missing and smash her in the face with metal and lightning whenever she appears close to me.
Since they were both so intimidated by my Siphon spam (seriously, I used it immediately after cooldown all the time), they didn't dare to hit me at all. This allowed me to fill up my Armour bar which rises every time I do damage with an ability, rendering any of their attacks very ineffective.
In the end, at lvl7, 4 of them finally ambushed me and my buddy, killing me. I almost got 2 of them. Almost, not did. Sad.
Not because I didn't kill them. Well, not completely anyway. The main reason I'm sad is because I made an embarrassing mistake during that fight when I panicked. Instead of hitting R to use my ultimate skill, I was spamming F. Since I had already used everything but R, I was wondering why nothing was coming up.
When my buddy died, I looked down and saw that. In the end, I used it too late. If I had used it earlier, I might have lasted longer and killed someone because it drains HP for 10s.
Still, it wasn't all bad. After we downed 2 of their towers on the top lane without losing any on our lanes, they conceded.
Second game, ended the same way. We downed 2 towers on one side and they conceded. We had one guy on our team disconnect during loading screen and never returned, so it was no small feat. Some may say that it's easier because 2 of us got to solo a lane, but that's only if they both survive all the gank attempts. Now that's not easy when you're alone.
I'm not saying I played a big part in these. It's probably more like I got lucky because in both games, our carries in the middle lane were fantastic players, always at the right places at the right time.
So it's back to the extremely hot days I hate every year.
This morning when I got up I thought my room was warm. I had set the timer of my air conditioner to switch off at 5.30am and my curtains were preventing sunlight from warming up my room. End result was that my room was barely cooler than the rest of my home. Even my bathroom, which is usually cooler because of its wetness, wasn't much cooler than my room.
Using the oral thermometer I'd gotten from school back in the SARS days, I'd determined that the temperature of my room was 32.4 degrees Celsius with my windows shut, curtains covering the lower 4/5 of the window and my computer on. My windows face the east, so I didn't have a choice about the curtains until the evening.
Even the breeze was warm and my fan was and is still blowing warm wind at me.
Still, it's cooler than the outside which IIRC has been staying at around 36-38 degrees Celsius.
At this point, I'm sacrificing ventilation for coolness.
Keeping myself wet helps, especially since the bathroom is just next to me. Keeping the bathroom floor wet should lower the temperature too, hopefully. I don't know and I don't really want to experiment.
So I've to do research now. I don't exactly know how to do it. I'm supposed to find some jacket designs and prepare for winter. The problem is, people are only looking at fall 2011 now. Fortunately due to reasons I cannot explain here, it's not all bad.
Right now I'm browsing through fashion forums for ideas.
What I'm getting right now is the impression that Singaporeans generally have little fashion sense. Youtube has few videos on Singaporean fashion and those are all fashion shows held here.
Fashion sections in Singapore online forums are generally merged with the "Grooming" category and, from what I've seen, are much less alive than other sections.
The reality is different though. Or maybe the older women we target have better tastes.
There are a few active Singaporean fashion websites but there is nothing on winter fashion. Makes sense, I guess.
What do?
I have no choice but to browse UK and US fashion forums.
...
And as expected, my choices sucked. But at least now I know some of the designs I have to avoid.
Been trying out this MMORPG called "Global Agenda". It's a third-person shooter (just like, say, Mass Effect) and a MMORPG. Sounded fun but it had been pay-to-play until recently. When I learnt that it became free-to-play with optional paid membership, I had to give it a try.
MMOs like this just don't come by very often.
It's sci-fi, so to me it felt kind of similar to playing Mass Effect. But almost everything else is different.
For example, the ping. Since it's obviously not in Asia (most likely in the US), I had to get used to playing a shooter at about 200ms ping again. Haven't had to do it since I stopped playing Empires.
The next difference I feel is really important is that I have a jetpack. All players do. However, it (obviously) has a catch - it drains energy. Energy is also needed to shoot (again, similar to ME1's heat capacity for guns because I have to stop firing once in a while to recharge). Therefore I can't just fly anywhere I want and start spraying when I land. Instead, I have to watch my energy when I fly so that I have enough to fire, or land somewhere clear to recharge before attacking.
Anyway there are 4 classes - Assault, Recon, Medic and Robotics.
It should be obvious to most players with MMO experience what the first 3 are, if not all 4. But just in case, let me list them down:
Assault - heavy weapons
Recon - sniper
Medic- healer
Robotics - summoner
So far I've only tried Robotics and it's fun. I actually didn't know what it really is about but I picked it anyway because I know what the other three do.
This class can have up to 4 machines equipped and ready to use, but 3 is preferable in order to leave one slot for a Repair Arm which speeds up the deploy speed of the healing station and turret. I don't know if there are different machines at higher levels, but for now I see only 4 kinds:
1) healing station - heals everyone in a certain radius, has unlimited time, quick deploy
2) turret - kills stuff, has unlimited time, slow deploy
3) shield - giant forcefield which only you and your allies can shoot through, lasts a short time only, instant deploy
4) drone - kills stuff, lasts a short time only, instant deploy, can be mobile depending on model
This makes the Robotics a jack-of-all-trades, although I mainly use my gun and my turret only. The turret is more lethal than my gun but it has a limited arc of fire (current turret only can fire in a 90-degree arc) and limited range (100 vs my current gun's 165 units). After some time, I've learnt that it works best indoors where its small arc is offset by placing it in a corner or a doorway.
This game also has some interesting PvP. Right now I've only tried the Mercenary missions in which two teams fight to capture points on a map. There's also a Double Agent mission available in which 6 players play in a PvE mission except 2 of them play as the enemy, presumably on the side of the "E". That reminds me of L4D.
I have to admit I had no idea what that last instrument was. I've never heard of a "theremin" before... and honestly I can see why. Or hear it, rather.
It doesn't exactly have the most beautiful sound and it certainly has to be hard to master. I mean, a slight twitch would ruin the music. The other problem is that you can't have an abrupt change of tone.
Original:
WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH???!??! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE BOSS ATTACKING WITH?!??!? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE BOSS?!??!
This game is gay in more ways than one.
And you know who I pity? The game testers.
So I haven't been watching GSL on GOMTV until yesterday when I watch Jinro's matches.
It was disappointing. I couldn't help but notice that Jinro really didn't play as well as he used to. In a few of the games, he was turtling so hard I wondered if he'd, for some reason, been training on Civilization V instead of Starcraft 2.
Whatever his problems are, he should probably fix them soon. According to the commentators it isn't easy to get promoted back to Code S from Code A.
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