Rant 302 / Dudes, What's The Internet?

Was visiting Wikipedia in hopes of seeing something about epic wars/battles on the front page. Instead I found the featured article to be about the Toa Payoh ritual murders. I thought the three were pretty much insane when they began to kill children.

Ghazali suffered a similar fate when he was brought by Hoe to the flat on 6 February. He, however, proved resistant to the sedatives, taking a long time to fall asleep. Lim decided to tie up the boy as a precaution; however, the boy awoke and struggled. Panicking, the trio delivered karate chops to Ghazali's neck and stunned him. After drawing his blood, they proceeded to drown their victim. Ghazali struggled, vomiting and losing control of his bowels as he died. Blood kept streaming from his nose after his death. While Tan stayed behind to clean the flat, Lim and Hoe disposed the body. Lim noticed that a trail of blood led to their flat, so he and his accomplices cleaned as much as they could of these stains before sunrise.^[57] What they missed led the police to their flat and resulted in their arrest.

What this paragraph is saying is that this boy died horribly for no good reason.









The Battle of Baghdad was such a tragedy. Not because so many lives were lost, but because so many books were destroyed and a flourishing city that wasn't showing any sign of decay was sacked just because of the arrogance of the Caliph.

Books, in those times before the printing press was invented, were essentially treasures. Imagine how much effort it takes to copy a book with your old ink and brush. You have to copy each page with perfect handwriting, zero mistakes and no smudge, and maybe use some preservatives to prevent the material from rotting. If there are pictures ( I imagine there would be sketches sometimes), the difficulty multiplies.

I'd say that books (and any other data storage devices) are the essence of the lives of the past, the work of generations of intelligent thoughts distilled into words. To burn books, to wipe out all copies of books (which I imagine to be very easily accomplished by burning a library in those days) is not only a tremendous loss for the people, but is also the destruction of the lives that were spent in the making of the books. In short, the Mongols didn't just kill people, they also destroyed the essence of the lives of the ancestors of their victims.

Worse is that the old Baghdad was described as a "one of the most brilliant intellectual centers in the world". Destroying it proves that the Mongols were only concerned with warmongering, that they were true barbarians. If you are thinking that people back then were all like that I'd have to remind you that this happened merely 750 years ago only. A relatively short while ago in the history of mankind.

Now I see why Islam isn't as widespread as I'd thought when I read the other historical events like Mansa Musa's hajj to Mecca. It was events like this that eventually doomed it. I just don't see the link between this religion and its downfall, though I suspect that such a thing does exists.







It's also quite interesting to read about the series of leaders of the ancient world. The Battle of Baghdad led me to the article series on the Caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty. The first caliph, Abu al-`Abbās `Abdu'llāh as-Saffāh ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah ibn Abbasibn Mutalib ibn Hashim, led the revolt against the previous Caliph and his family, the Umayyads, and founded the new dynasty. But he was named "the Slaughterer" not because he actually slaughtered millions of people but only because of his attitude towards the Umayyads - he was hell-bent of hunting down and killing every single last one of them.

It is surprising to note that he wasn't actually an uncivilized barbarian the way the Mongols were above, and his government actually included Jews, Christians and Persians. And by using the Chinese prisoners he captured in previous battles, he set up paper mills and thus improved access to education for his people.

He's not actually the bad guy his epithet seems to imply! Too bad he died of smallpox four years after he took over. Man, I think he'd have made a better name for himself if he was given more time.

By the way, I thought that all those "ibn" was a typo since I've no idea what "ibn" means. On the other hand, I know "bin" means "son of". A quick check in Wikipedia shows that they're the same. Not sure if they can be used interchangably though.






Paper has to be one of the greatest inventions of all times. Though its data storage density is low compared to modern CDs/DVDs and hard disks, it is the second most durable medium humans have ever used. I believe the most durable form is rock carvings/paintings. Books can last for centuries, while most electronic media don't last more than a decade. Paper often remain in perfect condition when stored in the same dry, dark place complete with wrapper (commonly seen in collectors' editions of comics and stamps), but I'm not sure if the same can be said of modern electronic media.

Better still is that books do not have the compatibility issues that electronic devices have, though both have the language barrier to deal with( data may be stored in a language that has become obsolete).

So if you are going to make a time capsule for the far future, use paper, words and pencil drawings or better still, rock paintings/carvings (make tablets like the way the Ten Commandments were given to Moses LOL!).








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********************** Spoiler Alert (for the Dune trilogy) ***************************
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Children of Dune, the third and last book of the first Dune trilogy, is really the best of them. How the not-children managed to outplan everyone else was nothing short of amazing, especially since they did not resort to prescience the way their father did.

It was actually very exciting to see how the plans were going well for the villains only to discover all that was really part of the twins' larger scheme to find "the Golden Path", as they call it.

The only thing I dislike was how the author used the deus ex machina so blatantly near the end. One moment Leto II was semi-conscious from the constant feeding on melange, the next moment he was pulling sandtrouts onto himself, which formed a "living skin" that gave him extraordinary strength and agility and over 4000 years of life. And let's not forget that it also becomes a superb living stillsuit.

The supposed catch was that he would no longer be human, nor would he even think like a human, though I see no signs of that in the end. So as far as I can tell, there's no catch. Well, maybe there's that part of him being sterile, but it probably also comes with the lack of sex drive. So if there's no desire for sex, then this isn't exactly a problem.

And with his 4000-year breeding programme that begins with his sister, why would he need his own children at all? He's going to be a living God for the rest of his life and the breeding programme is likely to produce genes superior to his! When he dies, he can then send his memories and persona like the rest of his ancestors to the final product of this plan, making him as much of an immortal as everyone else in his lineage.

But I'm still going to read the rest of the books. It's got promise.

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I think I have this condition called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It's not insomnia because I do find it easier to sleep in the day than at night, especially in the morning. Sleeping less or not sleeping throughout the previous day does not make me sleep earlier in the next.

I mentioned that I suspected this before, but now that I've observed myself for much longer without remembering what the symptoms are supposed to be, I'm quite sure of it. But for me, it's like my body thinks that there are more than 24 hours per day, so I tend to sleep later and later. I can maintain my sleeping hours for a couple days, but eventually the process would begin again.

Damn I hate to see the word "chronic" in those two articles. It has very bad connotations to it.

Uchiyama et al had earlier determined that sighted Non-24 patients' minimum core body temperature occurs much earlier in the sleep episode than the normal two hours before awakening. They suggest that the long interval between the temperature trough and awakening, makes illumination upon awakening virtually ineffective.^[10] (See Phase response curve, PRC.)

In their Clinical Review in 2007, Okawa and Uchiyama reported that people with Non-24 have a mean habitual sleep duration of nine to ten hours and that their circadian periods average 24.8 hours.
Without alarm clocks or any appointments during the next day, I normally sleep for nine hours a day. I also notice I sleep 1-2 hours later every night, also if uncontrolled.

Am I f*cked?








Wonder what it was like for the first humans, the original Africans, to live knowing for real that they are the only people on Earth. All the civilizations I've read about exist knowing that they have human neighbours out there, even if they're unreachable.

But these first humans, they know they are alone. They live in their primitive settlements, knowing they have no neighbours out there. They have only the rival tribes with whom they share the lands with, with whom they share the same ancestors with. Across the sea, there is no one. Across the mountains, there is no one. Only they exist.

Wonder what they think of that.






So now a US doctor is offering sex change treatments for kids as young as 7. I think it's good for those who are seriously damn sure that they're born with the wrong gender. However, if they change their minds later, I shudder to think about the consequences.

And it's kinda strange that the age of consent for sex is so much higher than the allowable age for sex change. So guys aren't allowed to f*ck around with underaged pussys, but doctors are totally okay. Girls are not to be trusted with sexual consent, ie they cannot decide if they can have sex or not, but hey it's totally fine for them to decide if they should have a vagina at all or not.








I didn't realize there was anything wrong with my blog till yesterday. Apparently there is a little mistake in the HTML for the Flash Player section. When I was changing the movies a year back I forgot to change one of the links. I've no idea how it works; I merely copied it from somewhere else and tweaked the links and player size.

However, for the second player, I only changed one of the two links among the codes. On Firefox it worked perfectly fine, but on IE the previous movie played. Worse is that I had removed it because it was on autoplay and repeat loop that I can't fix, so it became a nuisance for everyone who viewed this blog on IE.

In short, IE sucks. Switch to Firefox to avoid such bullshit elsewhere.

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.

Rant 300 / Pregant Is When The Baby Sucks The Blood For Six Months

Holy cow! Slept at 1am and woke up at 6.30am; a night filled with dreams I can't remember. All I can recall is that I woke up about 3 times and couldn't go back to sleep just now. I have to be very worried about something; I just don't know what. I mean, there are more than 1 possible matter that I should be losing sleep over.

Either that or it was the alcohol I had...







The nail on my first finger of my left hand keeps getting chipped. Somehow it cracks often when I use that finger to open cans of drinks. It never seemed to do that before the last few months. Am I getting old?







I noticed that in DotA, I always suck in the early game. I'm bad at lane control, ie last hits. DotA, as most guides say, is all about last hits, both hitting enemy creeps last for the kill and exp and gold, and hitting your own creeps to deny your enemy those 3 things.

My timing for the Necro's attack still sucks. I blame the slow speed of his crystal-like bolt - it always arrives too late. On the other hand, the Sniper's attack is so fast it seems too easy to control the lane for him.

My kills catch up with my deaths only during midgame when my ulti becomes more effective, when I can KS just about everyone.









Similarly in L4D, I can be the best or the worst player out there. I've been through rounds in which I received the least amounts of damage despite getting puked on by Boomers (when Boomers puke on you, you attract the attention of every single Common Infected in the area). Last game in Expert mode, there was one round in which I took only 10 damage!!! 10 damage = 1 hit from a Common Infected. Woot!

Expert mode is challenging, to say the least. The tank is basically invulnerable against our guns, having 8k HP and kills us from full HP with 3 hits (1 to incapacitate, 2 to finish the job). Meanwhile, our guns do mere hundreds of damage per clip. It wouldn't be a problem if it's slow, but the Tank is only very slightly slower than a healthy Survivor plus it can access more areas than us, ie it can climb over trains and railings while we have to run around them.

Noobs always try to shoot it when the only effective way to kill a Tank on Expert is to dump your Molotov in front of it, watch it catch fire and RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN till the Tank's theme music stops (it signifies the Tank's death).

Also, the hordes of Common Infected comes more frequently in Expert mode. There are several times when I suspect that there were actually 2 or 3 waves of them consecutively. During such events, those running zombies never seem to die out. Feels like something out of the movie 300, when it's just 4 of us against over (probably) 200 zombies.

Also, I keep picking the autoshotgun often these days. Especially on Expert, since autoshotguns are pwnage - it's a shotgun and you can spam-fire. This weapon is especially useful for soloing Witches, those freakin bitches who can kill you with ONE hit on that difficulty.

Also, it's partly caused by my teammates choices of weapons - if there aren't already 2 shotgunners in the team, I have to choose it. It's just more useful against everything in close range. Screw the Sniper Rifles, because though it's more fun it doesn't kill as effectively unless you can kill multiple zombies with every shot. Many people take this gun though.


I just discovered in the last game a fact that is extremely important. You cannot hide from a Tank.

I was playing in Expert mode with some other pub guys. Early into the round (in the subway with the train wrecks), a Tank appeared. One guy, quite a noob, went down first. Just when I was going to type," Molo and RUN!" I noticed no one had a Molotov. So I just ran, hoping I could find a Molotov if I backtracked and looked hard.

After a few seconds, I couldn't spot any, so I turned around and saw another guy, one whom I expected to be pro, turning back to shoot at the Tank. I kinda gave up hope right there and then. It was at that moment that I recalled that this was still early in the round, so the Safe Room must be close by. No Infected can enter a Safe Room.

So I ran back to the starting location. The other guy, though also pretty noob, followed me as I ran. However as I was about to enter the Room, I turned around to see him turning away to take another route. The Tank was getting very near (another 5 seconds and he would have been on me).

I believed he was running for the air vent near the Safe Room, where the Tank shouldn't be able to enter. But he was too slow and got caught by the Tank. You see, in Expert mode, one hit from the tank incapacitates you. He went down while I entered the Room and slammed the door shut. I tried to fire a few futile shots as a friendly gesture, so that I wouldn't appear to be abandoning a friend, despite knowing that he was as good as dead (2 hits from a Tank when you're incapacitated will kill you).

Meanwhile, I was safe. As I danced around, deciding whether I should use my pistols to kill the Expert mode Tank, it ran towards the room. I began to pistol-whip it as it approached while jumping around to simulate a victory dance.

One hit from the Tank and the door magically vanished. NOTHING SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENTER A CLOSED SAFE ROOM, RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!? But the door just disappeared! WHAT THE F**K?!?!?! Seriously, I haven't felt my heart jump that hard in years. Then it charged into me, punched me and I flew.

Everyone laughed. Except me because I was still shocked. All I could do was stare at the screen till the game restarted.

A quick check in the L4D wiki told me that nothing but a Tank can enter the beginning Safe Room. Also, if I stand right behind the closed door, the Tank would try to hit me and not the door, but doesn't do damage through it to me. I believe this is a exploitable bug. If only I knew it earlier...

T.T

1) Yeah, don't startle her next time. Just a headshot will do.

2) Girls with long fingernails are dangerous.

My comp has been running quite slowly. Though I'm delighted that L4D hasn't crashed once so far, there have been several occasions when the music stopped for no reason and the graphics lagged. The problem with the music is one I can't understand, but the lag implies possible trouble with my video card.

Outside of L4D, my comp seems to be slowing down noticeably, taking a longer time to open programmes and multitask. Defrag scans report that I don't need to defrag my hard disks yet, while registry scans reveal nothing that can't be fixed. I'll need to scan my comp before I go to bed.

Meanwhile, everything that needs to be backed up has been copied to the portable hard disk. That is, everything but the system files. I'm prepared to lose this laptop if any problems arise. Of course, it'd be better to make some backup discs, but I'm too lazy. Maybe later.

At the very worst, I can still use this laptop as a blunt melee weapon if a zombie apocalypse occurs. A short-ranged weapon if I'm in a desperate situation. Oh shit too much L4D!






What would you do in the event that everyone in the world turns into zombies? This is something you can't help but ask yourself if you play zombie-shooting games too often and watch too many zombie flicks.

Obviously, my home is a horribly poor defensive location. Weak doors and not enough food/water stashed, not to mention only the main door is made of solid wood. It is possible to camp in my home if not for the very likely event that my family would turn into zombies. I'd be hard pressed to get rid of them since I cannot camp in my room (flimsy hollow wooden door). If things are calmer outside, I'd run.

But where can I go to? What can I use as a weapon?

I'd pick my cleaver if its reach isn't so short. The hammer would be good, I guess. Or my fan, if I manage to break the head off it to use it as some sort of staff. Guns are rare here, so I'd have to be amazingly lucky to find a pistol/revolver from a corpse of a policeman.

I guess I can only run to the nearest military camp, since many of them are built at good defensive locations. Not all are good against zombies though, since many use a combination of trees and wire fences as a defensive measure while zombies can just run around trees and climb over barbed wires.

If possible, the our military HQ would be a great place to go to. First it's on a hill. Second, there are many underground vaults (with the stereotypical huge metal doors and thick concrete walls) in the basements. Third, there are ample supplies of guns and ammo. The only problem would be food and water, if camping underground becomes necessary. And I'm assuming it's not already infested by zombies by the time I arrive, if I arrive.

The rooftops would be good too, since I can be rescued more easily up there than underground, but again, flimsy doors. Someone would need to camp in front of the stairwell doors constantly. Being in an underground vault would guarantee my safety but I will die of dehydration within a few days. Again, I'm assuming that they aren't infested already.

Since it is the main HQ of the military, it should be the last place to go down. However, reaching it from my home would take some time, especially since I most likely won't be able to use any vehicles. The roads would probably be blocked by car wreacks. That leaves only walking/running, which will take hours.

Assuming that I somehow survive the zombie onslaught on the way there with my melee weapons, I'll still need to climb uphill. Of course, that would be nothing compared to the journey there from home. If anything, I expect only the buildings at the top of the hill to be guarded by survivors. There'll also be a quarantine for any survivor who recently arrived, including me.

Food and water would run out in days. If the power plants have gone down, then they'll most likely use their backup generators very sparingly. For example, all computers would be turned off and power would be re-routed to only the most important locations, eg the lights outside for the sentries and maybe battery chargers for the torches/portable spotlights.

The native fauna in the surrounding jungles would provide insignificant amounts of food, if they're even edible at all by then. We will either need supplies dropped from a chopper or be rescued and transported to another location eventually. Or risk starving to death within 2 weeks. Of course, if any mothers recently gave birth, her breastmilk would help... (No I'm not being perverted. It's a reference to that group of people who got stranded on an island some years back and survived on the milk of one of the women.)

All these are under the assumption that the zombies would be the same as those in Left4Dead, which can run and climb over stuff. Also I'll probably not survive in this scenario. If they're the lumbering sort from the Dead movie series, then I would be able pretty safe once I get out of my building. Walking to the camp would be totally fine since they only walk and can't get past most obstacles including fences and walls. I'll only need to avoid getting bitten.








Apparently, some guy on the L4D forums is organizing a speedrun contest. He is forking out $50 (probably USD) as the prize for the fastest solo run through the No Mercy campaign on Expert.

Solo here means you have to kill all 3 teammates before opening the door to begin. Time begins when the Safe Room door opens and ends when the next Safe Room door closes. To compete, players would need to get some softwares like FRAPS to record the runs.

He claims to do it because he's bored. Anyway, even if it's a fake, they can always post their vids in the forums to gain some fame. I mean, I totally agree with that guy who commented that No Mercy on Expert is close to impossible with a full team, let alone solo.

It means the pro guy will have to kill all the Smokers, Hunters and Infected hordes all by himself. It takes an immense amount of skill to turn and melee the Smoker's tongue just when it's wrapped around you. Depending on how far it is to you, you'd usually be given less than 2s to do that.

Also, when the Tank comes, it takes all your attention just to deal with it, so if any other special Infected arrives, most likely the player's f**ked. If someone can kite the Tank and melee a pouncing Hunter at the same time, he'd be no different from a human aimbot, aka freakin Godlike.

I'd love to see such a speedrun without using any exploits. I heard there's a vid of a solo speedrun on Youtube but the player used every single exploit available.








It seems it is possible for a guy to fake a vagina if he has enough sticky tape. Found a guide on how to fold in your male genitals and stick them in such that it looks like a vagina in the end. Of course, the guy has to be relaxed first. I don't want to imagine how it'd feel if the guy starts to get an erection after the process.

It is of no use but looked interesting. I wouldn't do it though, since it also looks kinda painful too.








Deleted my Fallout 3 without completing the expansion, Operation: Anchorage. I like Fallout 3 only because I can explore the map. This expansion only provides a linear map with no deviation from the main route. Basically it's just about killing the enemies, which is boring to me. I'll reinstall when the next expansion is released.








This is called financial engineering...

Just kidding. I found this somewhere on the net and thought it was quite amazing. I've tried doing it before but I've never managed to get more than 5 layers, and nowhere near this width.







Really, I don't know why they're still doing anything in Heroes Season 3. Just done watching the first episode. With 2 guys who can travel through time, I can't see how they can't live happily ever after. I mean, if anything goes wrong, Peter can just go back and undo it. Seriously, he and Hiro are able to press the real life Ctrl-Z but aren't doing so. Everything they did, like Peter shooting Nathan, makes no sense at all!

Peter could have gone even further back and stopped him by, maybe, locking him in a room and didn't have to resort to such a drastic measure. And if he found the result to be unsatisfactory, he can fly back again and redo it in another way till he gets the desired effect!

For a person who can travel in the fourth dimension at will, it is impossible to make mistakes. Any mistake can be undone. He is basically the Abrahamic God, omnipresent and omniscient. Omniscient because he can probably live forever the way Adam Monroe could. Immortality combined with time travel means he can learn of every single possible mistake made by every single sentient being in the entire Universe and undo them all.

So the story should have ended right when he met Hiro and Claire! Peter Petrelli gains immortality and the ability travel through time and space, thus becoming God and everyone lives happily ever after.

And yes he can't be killed because he can easily travel to the future to discover if and how he got shot in the head (the only Archilles' heel of those with regenerative powers) and prevent that.

The end. GG. Fin.

But no they have to go on with a ridiculous and messed up story where Sylar kills everyone. The problem with Sylar could easily be solved by preventing his birth right from the start!

They are really making something out of nothing, because they should have introduced some sort of limitations to their abilities right from the start, so that Peter wouldn't be God. Now things have come to a point where any plot makes no sense whatsoever. I don't think I can make myself enjoy the show anymore, not when Peter seems to be completely unaware of his lack of limitations.

In short, it's stupid, almost to the degree shown below.

Rant 299 / Coz I Don't Care

So it wasn't my graphics card dying after all. When I was fiddling with the Catalyst Control Center (which is somehow related to my graphics) one day, I found that I could update the software. So I did. At the same time, I decided to get Skullptura's less-than-1GB rip of L4D and it's update that comes separately. So I did.

Now I can play L4D v1.0.0.9 flawlessly, on Garena or on cracked servers. I have even more people to play with because of the cracked servers. I just don't know how to find more.

Unfortunately I can't play much these days since it's going to be the one-week break soon, which signifies that half the sem has passed. Means I have to camp in the library more often to catch up.








People care more than you'd expect but less than you think.

Why can't my hair be emo so that it'd cut itself?






Obama imposes $0.5M bailout salary cap.

Critics of the new White House regulations are likely to argue that they may make it more difficult for top Wall Street firms to attract top talent and may lead to reluctance from ailing companies to accept bailout funds.

Obviously, this isn't working. If they had been successful at it before and that these "top talents" were actually of any use, they wouldn't have had one major economic problem after another, would they?

This is stupid. The people are suffering while the top guys, aka the ones who should have prevented such problems in the first place, use large portions of the bailout money for their own compensation packages and salaries.

And look who's paying now? The very people who are getting the retrenchment and pay cuts! This cap should have been there long ago when they announced the first muilti-billion bailout package.

Rant 298 / Fakery And Faggotry

Phew! So the problem wasn't from my side when all the Google links I found were labelled as harmful to my computer. Google apologized for the error that lasted for over half an hour, which means I encountered it at the end just before they fixed it.









Sometimes I can't understand why people defend Science so vehemently. To me, they're no different from religious radicals in the way they trust Science so much that they sound as if they cannot be wrong, that it is impossible that Science can be inferior to Religion.

Why not?

I used a very simple argument that I've been using all along: electrons and electricity. We cannot see electrons. How many of us have even seen a detector detecting electrons and understand how they work? Yet for most believers of science, few has had such a privilege, despite "knowing" that electricity exists. I'm not saying that religion is in any way superior, but sometimes Science is no better than a faith, especially where theoretical physics is concerned.

Some people mentioned that they have witnessed the detection of electrons and these machines work by making us of an electron avalanche. I'm no expert, but if any of you are in electrical engineering or any related fields, you may be able to know if it's true.

For the next line, that we "know" electricity exists without proof, they argue that no matter how ignorant we are, proof of it exists everywhere. Assuming by "proof" they mean electricial devices working properly, I can't see how that is proof.

Let me break this down to cause and effect. The effect is that the fan is spinning, so you take it as proof that the cause is electricity? Why? Out of my five senses, only touch can directly detect electricity and check this out... I'll die if I touch the wires! How deliciously convenient! How suspicously familiar! Since none of my five sense can directly tell me that electricity exists, then for all I know it may be that God is pointing an almighty finger at the fan to make it spin!

Or do they mean lightning? Why, everyone knows that Zeus wields the lightning bolt as his weapon! Why must electricity be the cause? To my five senses, they are both just as valid and invalid!

What about the static electricity when I rub my palms together? It doesn't prove anything.

Therefore, unless you have studied electricity in-depth and have witnessed the detection of electrons using a machine you understand, you have no proof that electrons exist!

Now we come to theoretical physics. You "know" they're right because men have spent their whole lives studying the subject, so they should be right. Or we say that their logic is sound, so they must be right.

How funny! Just a few centuries ago, people knew that electricity works because positively charged particles are flowing in a circuit. Their logic was sound too, until some smartass came along and showed them that negatively-charged electrons are the cause.

Another example is how, for about a century, phlogiston was the accepted theory that explained combustion, not air.



Let's bring it further, and use these arguments to defend Religion.

Proof of God is all around us. No matter how ignorant you are, you have to see that God exists. Look up the night sky and witness the beauty of the stars. Use a telescope and see the Universe. They can't possibly be an accident.

The Bible is also proof that God exists!

Men have also studied Christianity throughout their lives. Why don't we trust their views? Their logic is sound too. God made us; how could we have come from mere monkeys? How ridiculously insulting!

Everything that happens is because of God's will, because... why not? He's the boss, man. He knows way more than you, so you can't possibly understand His intentions. The only way you can directly meet Him is if you kill yourself now, but check this out... you'll go to Hell if you do! How deliciously convenient! How suspiciously familiar! It's like a wave of deja vu!

By the way, I'm no Christian.

Now this is true neutrality!

Rant 297 / You Can Shave The Baby

I've always liked to read about epic battles in Wikipedia. There is little dramatization and can sometimes be rather touching. For example, I was just reading about the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII.

It's seriously one of the bloodiest I've ever read. The Germans and Russians basically turned the city into a humongous meat grinder. While the Germans fought with the better equipment and trained soldiers, the Russians made use of their advantage of sheer numbers (due to employment of civilian militias) to overwhelm their enemies.

The first part that touched me with the Russians' bravery was when the Soviets' 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment became the main defense of the city at first. The thing was, this AA regiment was made up of female volunteers untrained in fighting land targets. They had no help from the other Soviet units but they fought till every single one of their AA guns were down. By the way the ladies were fighting Panzers (German tanks), not planes!

It was estimated that during the battle, the life expectancy of a new Soviet Private in the city was below 24 hours, while that of a Soviet officer was 3 days. In other words, most Russian soldiers don't survive the day in which they arrived. As I've mentioned before, it was a freakin meat grinder.

With the amount of artillery bombing the city, it is no wonder that even today, it is dangerous to stand under trees in certain parts of the city because all the shrapnels in them help attract lightning from the sky.

Another interesting part is about this Soviet sniper named Vasily Zaytsev, who attached his scope to an anti-tank rifle so that he could snipe through brick walls. What the f*ck?!? That's a positively insanely ingenious idea lol! Btw he had 242 verified kills in the battle and many others that were not recorded, with some estimates being about 500 total.









Iceland gets the world's first homosexual PM and she is also Iceland's first female PM. She was the only politician there to gain public support last year even though everyone else lost the people's confidence.

Actually I think the same way as the Icelanders in that I have no objection to whatever the politician is. If he/she is good at the job, I see little reason not to vote for him/her. I mean, the Prime Minister is supposed to rule, so who cares even if he has a fetish for fecal matter or is a bisexual?

Now that Iceland has a lesbian Prime Minister, this is going to set a precedent for everyone else in the days to come. Will Southeast Asia ever warm up to the idea of gay rights and accept homosexuals not as subhumans but our equals?

Or will we be forever ruled by religious beliefs from the Middle Ages?

Sometimes I think someone like the Emperor Qin needs to rise again, burn some books and massacre some "intellectuals" so that the people would wake the f*ck up.

Btw Iceland in Chinese is 冰島, which not surprisingly means "ice island".








Just saw a very interesting question: Why does the Pope, who is guaranteed a place next to God in the afterlife, need to travel in his bullet-proof "Popemobile"?









Is this wrong or is this wrong? And check out the hairy asscrack!

This baby must have the most screwed up hormones ever. I never knew that babies even have pubic hair, let alone ass hair!

Fortunately this isn't some insane toy from China, but the work of an artist. The pictures are taken from his website.







Here's a wallpaper of Dawn of War II. It's going to be released in the US on the coming 19th of Feb, which probably means its torrent will be available on the 20-21st of Feb. Watched one of its demo videos from last year and found its models very similar to the first DoW.









How is babby formed? - the flash video

How girl get pragnent? - the reenactment

Rant 296 / Can It Be Food Time Now?

A couple days ago I found this jar of biscuits at home. At first glance, the brown dots on the light brown cookies gave me the impression that they were some sort of nut cookies, either walnuts or almonds.

I was hungry, so I picked it up and checked the expiry date. My mum has trouble seeing small letters so she usually doesn't check all these things. What I found on the label surprised me - "Chicken Bak Kwa Cookies". (Bak Kwa = Chinese roasted meat slices)

Huh??

Meat cookies???

(Btw looks cool huh? Found this on /wg/ lol! Thought this pic would be quite useful for exclamations.)

So I opened it, noting the label on the cap that it says "Prima Deli", a confectionary that my mum frequents.

Taste-wise, it wasn't bad at all. The bak kwa is sweet anyway, so it didn't taste too strange with the buttery cookie. One thing I like about it is that there is a lot of meat so the batter was probably half meat, half cookie batter.

Its texture, though, has some room for improvement. The bak kwa bits was too tough. Though the cookie crumbled quite nicely in the mouth, the meat needed quite a bit of chewing. So overall they were like some sort of chewy meaty cookies.







Apparently there's a documentary called "Jesus Camp" (poster above).

From Wikipedia:

All three children are very devout Christians. Levi, who has ambitions of being a pastor, has already preached several sermons at his father's church, Rock of Ages Church in St. Robert, Missouri. He is homeschooled (as are many of the campers), and learns physical science from a book that reconciles creationism with scientific principles. He is also taught that global warming is a hoax and that the Earth's temperature has a history of natural fluctuation not caused by humankind (e.g., the Ice Age was not due to any industry or pollution by mankind). Levi preaches a sermon at the camp in which he declares that his generation is key to Jesus's return. Rachael, who also attends Levi's church (her father is assistant pastor), is seen praying over a bowling ball during a game early in the film, and frequently passes Christian tracts (including some by Jack Chick) to people she meets. She does not think highly of non-charismatic churches (or "dead churches," as she calls them), feeling they aren't "churches that God likes to go to". Tory is a member of the children's praise dance team at Christ Triumphant Church. She frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and feels uncomfortable about "dancing for the flesh".

Though it's true that our Earth has a long history of temperature fluctuations, the current levels of CO2 are unprecedented, according to our polar ice. The current temperatures are also some of the highest in Earth's history.

Our generation is key to Jesus's return. Every generation says that.

God can't dislike anything or he'd have completely destroyed your land the way Katrina levelled New Orleans. C'mon, the Bible has already depicted how he destroyed heathens. He leaves no prisoner. To say he is merciful is to imply that he changes or you're contradicting yourself. God cannot change because there are many undesirable implications to that.

And dancing for the flesh? LOL!

Aren't you glad you're living in a secular nation?

Btw check out the Trivia section at IMDB for this movie.

And here's a hilarious comment from www.imdb.com:

Should be categorized "Documentary/Horror", 16 November 2006

Author: Max Prodanov from Sofia, Bulgaria

This is really a horror movie. It's comparable to The Ring and Emily Rose.

I thought we were living in the 21st century. This movie reminds me more of the 16th.

On one hand, this movie is an unforgettable experience, like a dive into darkness. On the other hand, you're left asking yourself - "am I a sadist? I'm watching little kids getting tortured, brainwashed, their lives getting deformed". When you watch this movie, the first thing you want to do is go to IMDb and write a review about it.

So,

If you're in a happy mood right now, don't watch this movie.

If you want chills down your spine, by all means, watch it!

10/10

My breakfast:


On the left, "breakfast roll" ham wrapped around huge prawns cut into halves and baked, with some chicken sausages and black pepper sprinkled on the dish. On the right, pancakes made from pancake mix, with whipped cream on top.


RAWR!!