Rant 378 / I Thought They Were Kidding When They Said MJ Had Just Died

Car companies around the world are doing badly these days. The world's number one automaker, Toyota, is such deep shit that its new boss isn't expected to save the company and make it profitable again within the next 2 years. One clue is that last year's net loss was its first since 1938, the year after Toyota was founded. The strong yen isn't helping either, by making their cars (eg most Lexus are made in Japan) more expensive.

On the other hand, they're actually not that bad. General Motors is both in the red and horribly in debt. Toyota's actually in pretty good shape, relatively speaking.








This month's E&T magazine had a large article on green cars. According to it, many countries are ordering electric cars in bulk. Electric cars may sound green, what with the complete absence of exhaust, but you also have to take into account the source of this electricity. For example, if your source is a petrol-burning power plant, you'd be greener if you'd just use a petrol car. Each time energy is converted, some of it must be lost. From the power plant to your wheels is a much longer chain than from your engine to your wheels, hence it's actually worse.

In Singapore, most of the electricity comes from burning gas which is cleaner than most except wind, solar and nuclear power. It is actually quite environmentally friendly if Singaporeans would drive electric cars, but the car-chargers would need to be built and that would take quite a bit of initiative.

It would not take much because car-charging stations would basically be a power cord with an electric meter and a coin/bill slot. They can be built anywhere near electric cables which are practically everywhere, even if you don't see them.

I believe they should be built in parking lots. Throw in a timer or something and people can just "park n plug". It'd be better than having to drive to a petrol station. All car parks have electric lights, hence the presence of power cables, hence car-chargers can be easily installed. Then every evening when people return home from work, they can just plug in the chargers before leaving the car for the night.

With Singapore being so small, a NiMH battery which can last up to 200km is more than enough. Most people just drive to work and back anyway, so they don't need more than 100km per day. In fact by checking my cab fare receipts I find that the distance between Buona Vista and NTU via PIE is around 15km. A full charge on such a battery can last 6 days for me (to and fro makes 30km per day).










As a last resort, I've switched my mum's mouse with mine and asked her to tell me if the cursor behaves erratically. So far she hasn't given me any negative feedback which is not exactly good news. Or maybe she doesn't notice. I wouldn't have noticed it either if not for the need for perfect mouse control when playing FPS games.

So maybe I should just stick with this arrangement, she use the new mouse while I use the old, which isn't giving me any problem.










The Last Remnant has a big problem with its battle system. For the scale that it has, it is actually very simplified. What it lacks is an AI good enough to read the minds of players.

To explain what I mean, here's an example.

In the early part of the game, I have 3 groups of 3 characters. During battle, I'm offered about 6 possible commands to give to each group. These commands encompass the orders for all the people in the group, eg X-attack Y-attack Z-special move.

80% of the time, there is a command for exactly what I want them to do, but there are turns when I want to do something that is not given, eg resurrect a dead group, or heal and attack. This wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that dead groups don't benefit from victories. So in a few boss battles when I lost a group or two, I was forced to leave them dead and prevent them from reaping the huge rewards that they should get by beating a boss.

Another situation is when I know the enemy can deal a lot of damage in a single turn and one of my groups is slightly hurt. In this case, I want to heal them preemptively because I'm not sure if it could withstand a large attack without full HP. However, the AI rarely allows healing when it's 80% HP, so it somewhat pisses me off.












House! Its latest season is finally completed, so I'm now watching it 3 times a day. After all that CSI, House is such a fantastic show to watch. In fact I feel like removing all the CSI:NY from my possession because it's gross and not interesting enough to offset the grossness. After House I have another season of Prison Break. =D











My home is being repainted. They began yesterday morning and the plan was to complete the job in 6 days. Yesterday morning was for surveying the whole flat, discussing which paint to use and bringing all the equipment over. The two men then spent the entire afternoon painting the ceiling of my bedroom and the whole of the other bedroom.

They just finished my room today. Now my room is dusty, but before mopping it was sandy. All that dirt was from the repair of the ceiling in my bathroom. There was a crack and part of the paint was drooping down. It seemed to me the paint was ready to drop off, but apparently it was much more serious than that.

The contractor/renovator/whatever (there were only him and his assistant working here) took a look and knew the problem was not just peeling paint. He took a long handle and hit that cracked part hard several times. Paint and concrete fell, revealing a rusty rod inside. I knew they had a mesh of metal rods inside because I saw it during the upgrade of the entire building, but I wasn't supposed to see those after.

It was then that my mum, who was also watching, told us that she had called the HDB and some inspectors did come. I assume it was when I was staying in the hostel because I was completely unaware of this. Anyway they took a look, knocked that part a little and told her it was fine.

If it was really fine, the contractor would have made just a round hole, not make a chunk of concrete fall.

So he fixed that with some paint and plaster, which explains the sand in my room. The bathroom was easy to fix with a broom and lots of running water. Spent half an hour cleaning it so that it would feel perfectly clean when I step inside.

But I can't just use a hose to clean my bedroom, which sucks. Now I'll just let it be a little dusty and wait for the housekeeper to come next week. Good thing I have mats everywhere.









The Last Remnant is frustrating. I'm too used to fixed commands and a lack of randomness in combat in games. In this game, the special attacks are randomly triggered, though some other players have found that they are triggered by certain conditions (but not all the time).

Which pisses me off, because when the battles get tough, I want complete control! I want each unit to do exactly as I think they should do. But yesterday when I was fighting a difficult battle with an opposing army, certain problems arose that made me stop playing the game and considered installing another.

The first was when I had lost 2 of my 4 unions (this is what they call the groups in the game, but it sounds kinda like some sort of marriage to me). I was just waiting to die when suddenly, out of nowhere, one of the (barely alive) unions was offered the option of using a special move.

I used it, not knowing what would happen. It wiped out half the enemy unions and hit the bosses for unknown amounts of damage. IF ONLY I HAD THAT EARLIER, I WOULDN'T HAVE LOST HALF MY ARMY!!! WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF THAT MOVE IF IT IS GAME OVER NO MATTER WHAT???

Hence I dislike the randomness. And I still lost that battle.

Second, they should make Standby and Heal Yourselves a standard option in every turn. In another try of the same battle, one of my union had around 5% HP remaining. I was giving 6 possible orders, none of which was for recovering health. IT IS DYING! WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE STILL WANT TO ATTACK WITH MAGIC WHEN IT IS FUCKING DYING???

None of the other unions had the option of healing other unions either. Seriously, wtf?








So I've installed Ghostbusters. It's actually a pretty good game, quite like an interactive comedy. But I miss the classic Ghostbusters theme song. I kept expecting it to play during the game but so far, I haven't heard any trace of it.

A slight problem that required a little getting used to at the start was the slow camera movement. I know it's a third-person shooter, but it feels more like a first-person shooter with you visible in the screen. Hence the movement should be as sensitive as the usual FPS, but it isn't. It's okay because I got used to it after a little playing.

Apparently the old rumours of a possible third Ghostbusters movie was transformed into this game. This is the third movie, albeit an interactive one. Most importantly, all four of the original ghostbusters were involved in voice-acting for their digital counterparts.

The characters are quite livelike, but they still feel unrealistic like NPCs in Fallout 3 and Oblivion. For example, when they follow you, they stare at you. Real people would rather stare at the walls when they follow you into an elevator.

The NPCs are also nothing more than decoys during battles. The most useful thing they can do is help you up when your health bar empties. I've watched the health of monsters when they attack the ghosts and their attack sucks compared to mine. The only reason I help them up during a fight is so that someone will help me up when I go down. If not for that I'd let them stay down when they fall.

One thing about this game that I really like is the lack of choices. Sometimes it's annoying to choose what I think helps me rather than what I would pick if I were him. No Good/Evil morality and such, just watch the cut scenes and catch ghosts.

Basically it's a simple action RPG with lots of cut scenes, a humourous script and excellent graphics.










After moving the computer back into the room, I've placed my desk in a different location. I had removed a certain stack of dusty stuff from my room, hence I was able to place my desk in a less obstructive location. However, my wireless signal became worse.

So now I'm looking for a way to strengthen my router's signal. I have to, because I'm getting a better signal from one of my neighbour's networks! His/Her router is probably right under me, judging from the excellent 70+% signal strength, compared to my router's 60%. Unfortunately the network is secured so I can't just hijack it.

One way I found is to increase the transmit power of the router. It had always been at the default value of 28mW, but the website of the firmware I'm using say that I can push it up to 80+ safely. I've just raised it to 70 and I don't see any difference. Going to set it to 40.

Also from the Status I found that my network actually has very little interference, or noise. In fact it's almost perfectly silent here. The problem lies in the signal from the router, which means it's the distance and the single concrete wall that's giving me the ping problem.

I don't know, but I sometimes get ping spikes. I don't know why this would happen if it isn't caused by noise.

Maybe I should make an antenna, but I'd have to get certain materials from electronics stores. If so I might as well just buy a new antenna.

Or I can move the router.

I've been checking the DD-WRT forums and Wiki for more help. I've been using this firmware in place of the Linksys official stuff because my bro installed this in the router for some reason. I assume it's better in some ways. Now I'm exploring the uses of this software and I found an article on the security of the provided encryption types.

(Copied directly from here.)

The wireless security settings, in decreasing order of preference, should be the pre-shared key versions of the following:

1. WPA2 + AES
2. WPA + AES (only if all devices support it).
3. WPA + TKIP (maximum security commonly supported by older wireless adapters)
4. WEP (easily cracked in 5 minutes)
5. Disabled (no security. Use some other security layer on top, like a VPN)

If your network includes a RADIUS server, you can use the RADIUS versions of the above.

WPA2 Mixed tries to fall back from WPA2 to WPA; similarly AES+TKIP tries to fall back as necessary. These may help support a mixed environment, but your ultimate security will be the lowest level.

WEP is easily cracked. It will stop the most casual roaming users but don't fool yourself into thinking you are secure. You're not.

MAC address filtering can be bypassed by cloning the MAC of an approved device on the network. MAC address filtering is not a substitute for encryption because all data is sent in the clear. Always use encryption when possible.

Oh no! Wait... I have physical access to the router. They can hack into my network, hijack my router and change my password but I, on the other hand, can press the "Off" button.

Of course they can also access my computer if anyone hacks into my router, but the chances of some dude sitting outside my door and hacking my network, out of all the routers in the entire building, is pretty slim.




Why am I still getting a better signal from a neighbour's router?!?!?








A day after MJ's death, 4 out of 10 of the most popular news on Reuters is about this sad event. Despite the fact that children today are now in a safer world, it is undeniable that we've just witnessed the passing of an age and the end of a great man. The last time something like this happened was when Mother Teresa, now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, died 12 years ago. Michael Jackson, King of Pop, Molester of Children, Master of Neverland and Mad Dude Who Hung His Kid Outside His Window has become part of the world's history thus.

The world weeps.








MJ's albums are selling like hot cakes right after his death. Apparently many of his albums are in the top selling charts at Amazon.com.

4chan has also changed the title of its pages for /b/. For now it says "Goodnight Sweet Prince" instead of "/b/" or more recently "tur/b/idity". Usually the phrase "Goodnight Sweet Prince" is used to lie about someone's death. At one time someone used a pic of Eddie Murphy and said "Goodnight sweet prince. Rest in peace, Chris Tucker." Now, this is for real.