Rant 301 / War Doesn't Decide Who's Right, Only Who's Left.

The new Tor looks better than the last version I used. In fact, it feels as if it's tailored for Firefox. Of course, it's still as slow, but it sure gives me a sense of security, whether it's real or not.

Of course, it's still as slow as before, but hey, what more do you expect from a connection behind a few proxies?

The above is the map of the global network. Well, part of it anyway. Notice SG has only 5 users. Just like Malaysia (not shown here). Most Tor users are in Europe and the US East Coast.


My homepage is set to Google, which detects your IP and gives you the proper country's designated Google page. Using Tor gives me a page as random as the IP I get. Above is the Google for Slovenia.








It seems that there is a Rapidshare download manager that's written in Assembly Language, ie one of the most basic computer language at present. It's 14kb and like utorrent, doesn't need to be installed.

Very convenient and doesn't appear to contain any virus. Scanned it with both my antivirus programmes and nothing has happened to my comp so far.

I found it accidentally when I was checking if the RS dl manager offered on the rapidshare website was legit. Apparently it wasn't, but a comment on one of the websites I checked mentioned this manager and the URL and this led me to it.

Since all countries use shared IPs for connections, I often find my IP already used to download stuff from RS by some other Singaporeans. Tor is of no use in this case since apparently everyone in the world is downloading stuff from the website constantly.

This programme reminds me of the freerice.com bots I used in the past, which are just as small and simple.

However, when I tested it just now, it doesn't seem to work. The error is that it has problems dealing with the layout of the RS website when my IP is finally free to dl something, and it asks me to get the latest version of the software... as if there is a newer version...









Just played through the Dead Air campaign on Expert with pubs. The second and third rounds, I couldn't believe we made it through at all. Seriously, on Expert mode, there are no medkits outside the Safe Room, only pills. So at several points in the campaign the team were down by 2 members. Half of these times, the remaining two managed to survive wave of Infected hordes.

I can't be very good, since I'm the cautious sort - I don't shoot when the zombies are near a teammate, only run towards them and shove to prevent friendly fire. FF on Expert is PAINFUL! A noob player can easily be more dangerous than the zombies on this mode.

My Infected kill number was very low, 900+ while the rest are all over 1000, one even had 1400+. Meanwhile, I had only 1 FF incident compared to their 9-14 throughout the game. I leave the killing to them, better safe than sorry.

Once, the worst noob in the team even threw a molotov on himself and a teammate, downing them both. To make things worse, he was trying to throw it at the Tank that just appeared, so they both got raped. I didn't even notice because there was a wave on Infected running towards us, until I turned around to check on them. Neither did the third guy turn around to look, so he got burnt and downed when the fire spread to him. If ZY was there, I imagine he'd have quit the game right then and sulked for the rest of the night.

Anyway, when I saw the horrible situation, I freakin ran like hell. Unfortunately, due to my HP being below 50%, I couldn't run very fast. But I had a good headstart, so I turned back to shoot it a few times. When I turned, it stopped to throw a car at me. I dodged successfully (and miraculously) and saw that it just stood there. I thought it was dead, so I stopped too. A second later, it bent down and picked up a piece of concrete and threw it at me.

Dodge unsuccessful. I went down. Then it came over and punched me into the ground.

GG. Better luck next time.

The most difficult part had to be the last round, the finale of Dead Air. After 5 tries we still couldn't defeat the second Tank, which was the last obstacle before our rescue and salvation commenced. So we voted to reduce the difficulty to Advanced and finished it in one run with no deaths. Advanced is soooooooo easy compared to Expert. One guy even took a Sniper Rifle instead of the two best weapons (Auto-shotgun/Assault Rifle) when we lowered the difficulty.

Somehow I just like playing Dead Air most. Most commonly hosted campaigns are No Mercy, Blood Harvest and Dead Air. Death Toll is the least favoured by both players and Valve, its developer. To be honest, I've never completed Death Toll before. I thought I did until recently when I read the L4D wiki on the campaigns that I realize I've never seen the dock throughout my L4D experience. So the one time I thought I completed Death Toll, it was actually Blood Harvest.

No Mercy is the most popular campaign, but I hate the part just before the final Safe Room where there is no wall to prevent you from dropping 30 stories to the ground. The finale is fine, not that hard. Plus I hate seeing male corpse asses. Male asses hold no attraction to me, and dead gray ones are worse. Yet these appear often because the dead patients are all wearing the loose hospital gowns and I see them all the time when I'm searching for useful stuff. I swear, there is not a single female corpse in the whole hospital! It's probably to prevent the Sexually Explicit Content label on its ESRB rating. In the end, it is quite disturbing that I'm forced to glance at various partially revealed male butts throughout the round within the hospital.

Blood Harvest is full of trees and stuff, very dark and creepy. All those trees also form obstacles that block my sight but not stopping the zombies from running to me. This forces me to guess often where the zombies are by judging from their screams. Also, the Smokers can grab me without being visible. It's highly annoying when tracing the tongue doesn't work because you can't see it and there's a dark piece of log blocking your feet.

Death Toll... I can't remember much of it. No one ever hosts it these days.

Dead Air is relatively bright and is mostly held in an urban setting like No Mercy. Obstacles are always solid and the finale is the shortest of the 4. However, this finale is the only one without a good camp spot (ie enclosed space with one entrance to funnel the hordes). The only room available has a rather wide door that takes at least 2 persons to cover. This makes things very hard if the team isn't alert, especially when the Smokers appear.







Why is it that the Chinese housekeepers are so hot compared to the Indonesian and Filipino ones? Until recently, all the part-time housekeepers who come for weekly visits have been of the latter two nationalities. All of them are either mothers or young women who wear loose T-shirts and baggy berms which they change into before starting to clean my home.

The Chinese ones though, come in tight tops and denim shorts and do their jobs in this attire. And they're all in their twenties (probably my age or slightly older). It's fortunate that they've never gotten their tops wet, or it'd be bloody disturbing. Or distracting, rather.

No, I don't know them. I barely talk to them at all. Usually it's my mum who gives them the instructions; I just tell them when to clean my room and give any specific instructions I have in mind, like not tidying my bed and desk because I'm going to mess them up soon anyway.

The other difference is that they do a better job than the Indonesians and Filipinos. One of them was so good, she actually cleans our fridge of everything that's expired, every month. My mum rarely removes any leftovers from it, but she puts in something every night. I remove them whenever I see them, but I don't open the fridge to check everyday.

And she even cleaned up all those parts of the house that were untouched for years, those corners and piles of stuff that are never used. She was the one who cleaned up the master bedroom that was left unused since my father's passing, which made it clean and tidy enough to make me want to move in.

Honestly they'd make great wives, in the traditional sense. Good looking, great cleaners, just don't know if they can cook. On the other hand, there is this sense of distrust for everyone from the PRC bred in me from young that I can't get rid of. I keep my wallet in a safe place whenever I let them clean my room and my handphone in my pocket. In addition, my laptop's monitor is always turned off and all programmes close/minimized before I leave my room in their hands.

I wonder what they do as their full-time jobs. The Indonesians and Filipinos are maids who moonlight on their Sundays, but these Chinese cleaners work on weekdays only. Obviously they aren't the average maids from any households. If they work for any families or households with males living in them, they'd have the sense to dress badly like the Filipinos so that they wouldn't attract unwanted attention.

I guess they probably don't work in any jobs related to housekeeping outside, and how they clean my home is probably assumed from what they'd normally do at home.







Heavy snow in Britain, severe drought in China, floods and fires in Australia. Now we just need some hurricanes to complete the whole range of effects of global warming on the global climate. And maybe some hailstorms and tsunamis.






Zimbabwe is so screwed. I wonder if the people really can't do shit about their country's situation. The UN's estimate of the Zimbabwean unemployment rate is 94% at the moment. This means only 6% of the entire nation have honest, steady jobs. The rest eat mud and shit bricks. I don't understand how they survive at all.







The third book of the first Dune trilogy may be the best book of the three. How strange! All other series I've read so far degenerate in quality after an extraordinary first. Some would manage to bring the standard and originality back up after a while, but never back to the level of the original bestseller that the series began with.

Anyway, I haven't finished the book yet and I think I may have to order the rest soon.








Now I understand why most gamers look down on children. Just played No Mercy (L4D) on Expert with a 14 and a 12-year-old. Yes, on Expert. In summary, they suck balls big time. I don't know if they had just started playing this game, but their aim is atrocious and their tactical knowledge is non-existent.

First of all, they are literally more dangerous than the zombies themselves. They managed to shoot at me even when I'm crouching right in front of them. What the heck were they doing? Trying to shoot their feet but missed??! They also do not hesitate to throw molotovs on zombies even if there is a teammate among them (being gangbanged by them). Calculated, albeit involuntary, sacrifice for the greater good?!??

Second, they don't keep themselves fully equipped. On Expert mode, you take everything you can find. Always equip yourselves with a bomb (any bomb will do), pills and medkits whenever you can. They, on the other hand, can just run pass pills and bombs like they don't need them.

Third, they don't know what to do with zombie hordes. When you hear the music cue for a wave of them, get to the nearest corner you can find to cover your backs. But no, they're too pro for that. They are willing to stand on high ground like on top of generators and trucks alone when the Infected come running to us. 360 degrees of unprotected surface is the worst thing that can happen to you in these situations. Even a wall covers 90 degrees of your circle (back). Throw in a teammate next to you and all you need is cover your 180 degrees (front + left/right).

Fourth, when the Tanks come on Expert, throw a molotov on him (and don't miss), and run like hell!. Shoot them only when you're safely far away because it helps kill it faster, but maintaining distance is always the top priority. Eight thousand health points is no joke and I cannot stress this point enough. One hit from a Tank will down you whether you're at 100% or not. They don't seem to know that. In one round, when a Tank arrived, the only guy with a molotov just shot him. When two other members died, he was still firing at it. I ran to the Safe Room and kept spamming things like "molo!" and "burn it!" but it was all in vain. Shooting was pointless because we were all using Tier 1 weapons. My last resort when he died was to try to exploit the door like the way I saw some other pro guy did it, by crouching behind the door and camp. But the Tank just smashed the door and smashed me after. Wonder what I did wrong. Maybe I was too near the door?







OMG!! It is actually possible to play L4D in 3D!! All you need is some nVidia video card and a pair of 3D glasses.


Anyway, here's the link to the speedrun thread. Some people have already posted their vids on the second page. For players as noob as I am, prepare to be mindf*cked.







So this is Chernobyl (actually Pripyat). You know what it reminds me of?

If you've clicked on the link to read about Pripyat, you can see how tenaciously Mother Nature strives to survive. Don't be misled by the various doomsayers that Earth will die because of us. Only we will die if anything happens. If a nuke can't kill it, nothing short of a collapse of Time and Space can. Chernobyl is a great example of what the world would look like if humans disappear.

Anyway, I've never thought about how radiation causes cancer till I read the Mars trilogy. It's just all luck, I guess. All those particles that make up the dangerous radiation usually passes through our body because atoms have relatively enormous amounts of space in them (between the electrons and nuclei). The higher the radiation level, the more particles flying about in the area. All it takes to cause cancer is one lucky particle striking the right parts of your DNA's molecular structure in your cells, causing them to mutate.