Rant 1163 / Noodles, Games And Brain Activity

Not much to talk about these days. My order of instant noodles from Groupon just arrived, so now there is a ton of Nongshim noodles of various flavours and shapes that is rather hard to store in my home.

They came in two boxes. Very light, probably to prevent everything from getting squashed.

Whoever was in charge was way too concerned with the cost because they used second-hand cartons. This type of packaging is not bad because my business uses second-hand cartons only, but we sell my stuff to retailers so the actual consumers never sees them.

The thing is that packaging is important - using second-hand boxes shows that the product is cheap.

Sure, these noodles were indeed cheap, but Groupon is an international brand, so I expected a little more.

Anyways, the Groupon deal was:

For $28.90, you get 18 Assorted Packs of Nong Shim Noodles with Free Courier Service (worth $55).

Each 18-pack set includes:

• 3 Bags x Champong (4 packets x 134g per bag) - 3 Bags of Spicy Korean Seafood Flavour Premium Noodle Soup
• 9 x Big Bowl (117g) - 3 Ramyun Spicy Mushroom Flavour, 3 Kimchi Ramyun, 3 Korean Claypot Ramyun
• 6 x Cup Noodle (70g) - 3 Shrimp Flavour, 3 Shanghai Noodle Chicken Flavour

A pretty awesome deal IMO, so I took two after checking out the prices outside. 24 packets, 18 bowls and 12 cups for $57.80.




















Also backed another KS project, the Emotiv Insight.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-insight-optimize-your-brain-fitness-and-per

It's really a wireless EEG headset that detects your brain activity and understands simple mental commands, so it's like a controller for the brain.

Previously, this sort of thing only appeared in the media but now it's out and perfectly affordable at US$199 per set, plus $30 for international shipping.

I backed it without hesitation and I can't wait for it to arrive.

It was admittedly pure luck that I spotted the project within 24 hours of its launch and by then, there were only about 100 slots remaining for the cheapest pledge level that includes a headset. Not that anything was going to stop me from backing me if they had run out - the non-early-bird version of the same pledge level only cost US$30 more.

US$229 for a brain controller? Fuck yeah! There is no reason why anyone with $200 to spare would ignore this project! IMHO, this is the KS project of the year!

It's also evident that I'm not the only one excited about Emotiv Insight.

First, it hit its goal of US$100,000 within 2 hours during the first day. TWO HOURS!

Second, National Geographic has already done an article on it by the second day!

...

In 4 days, it has hit 400% of its original goal. That's an averate rate of $100k a day. Sure it's slowing down but that's normal, and the real issue is how slow it will get.


















Preordered Payday 2 and now waiting for it to be released next month. Found some guy who could get it for me for S$22 instead of the US$30 on Steam, so I got it through him instead. I remembered him from the Summer Sale where he volunteered to help a few other guys to buy some games for even cheaper than the Summer Sale prices (I think), so since there weren't any complaints, he's probably legit.

My guess is that he buys them from the Russian or Brazilian sites and passes them over to us, but the Russians are kind notorious for cybercrimes so I'm not to interested in buying from Russian game stores. Brazilian sites, those are already bookmarked so there's no need to go through him in the future.




















Found ants on my desk. For some reason they just appeared and were spreading quickly. Initially, only one ant was spotted and two nights later, they were swarming my bowls that were left on my desk for a few hours after dinner.

So I tried the baking soda trick again. It didn't work so well last year and against Einstein's wisdom regarding repeating action that did not work the first time, I did it again.

The following night, not a single ant was spotted, not even a dead one.

Who's your daddy now, Einstein?




















People spend ridiculous amounts of cash on Game of War. My alliance leader is a real life friend of the strongest player in my kingdom and when I poked her about how much he has spent on this game, 3 digits or 4, she told me 4.

That's way more than what I've ever spent on games!

No wonder there are so many games using the exact same formula! Those guys who are serious about this game are just crazy.