Jagged Alliance is really hard on the second of three difficulties! I can barely keep all my mercenaries alive through every battle and if I rest for too long, the loyalty of the towns decrease and drag my income down with it.
Now I have to let go of my weakest mercenary. Even though he's the weakest, he is an excellent medic. I have a second medic (comes free with the storyline) but she is only half as good as he is. I'm now considering a new run.
Empires v2.25 is finally out, after over a year of development from v2.24d. Comes with all new special particle effects that make nukes explode in mushroom clouds and artilleries blow up dirt clouds when they hit.
I only wish they had also added fake craters in addition to the dirt clouds for added visual impact. Nevertheless, Empires looks much better now.
Procrastination is a sweet habit. The acceptance of the fact that you do not have to do something now and will not encounter any consequences for postponing it brings a sort of exhilaration, a great sense of relief, even if it's only for a few days.
I'll type the rest tomorrow.
Don Quixote is the first book of its kind that I've read. It's in the comedy genre but its humour is more of the slapstick sort, the form that is more popular decades ago when Charlie Chaplin slipping on a banana skin was widely considered hilarious.
Or maybe I just don't get the jokes, I don't know. Well slapstick humour is still popular today but back then it wasn't coarse. Fecal matter and regurgitated food became funny only in the 90s.
I've only gone through less than a fifth of the book ( part 1 chapter 15) and I understand that the entire book is about this farmer who read so much fiction about chivalrous knights saving damsels in distress that one day he decided to become a knight errant. So he put on some old armour used by his ancestors ages ago, saddled his farmhorse and named a girl in a nearby village as his lady love without her knowledge.
Then he travelled on his horse with his squire he recruited early in his journey, using the morals as described by various novels (including the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) to handle problems he met on the road, only to land themselves in trouble more often than not. Somehow everyone managed to see him as a crazy man except for Sancho, who actually believed he was a knight.
Anyways this is definitely not the sort of book that keeps me turning the pages, but it serves well enough as a filler while I search for other books. Good books in the fantasy and sci-fi genre aren't limitless after all, not when Terry Goodkind is done writing the Sword of Truth books, Robert Jordan is dead, George R. R. Martin is taking forever to write the next Song of Ice and Fire novel, Isaac Asimov is long dead and Terry Goodkind is using the same old formula for all of his trilogies.
One would have thought that with 6 billion people in the world we could have written more quality books than this. Well the truth sucks.
Unrelated but here's some Brokeback Potter.
"You fraternised with the enemy!"
"Oh no, I didn't enter."
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Rant 525 / Now In Chapters And Technicolour
The WePad
The WePad, Germany's answer to Apple's iPad, sounds intriguing. I wonder what it will be like when compared to the iPad. We will have to wait and see.
Some people are obviously twisting facts to suit theories.
A study shows that spanking children could make them more aggressive. I don't agree. Not all children understand logic and the necessity for good behaviour even when you try to explain it to them. I remember the times when I did the things I did even after repeated warnings/scoldings simply because I had no idea why I should not do it and the explanations given to me didn't seem to make sense till I was much older.
I also like this comment from that page:
Bleach, atm, sucks
Just remembered about Bleach (the anime) and checked my records (I have a TXT file with the filename as "Next is XXX" where "XXX" refers to the number of the next episode I should watch) and found that I'm only at episode 238 next for Bleach and 127 for Naruto Shippudden. Since I've long given up on Naruto, I ignored that and went to check the DB website and to my surprise, Bleach is already at episode 266.
That's a 27-episode marathon coming up! Then as I clicked on the links I found the torrent for episode 252 to be dead. I was unable to find any replacement links for this particular episode either. To make things worse, all the episodes are still fillers. In fact all the coming episodes are fillers until somewhere in June, and even that is unconfirmed.
Not exactly enthusiastic about it anymore.
Can We Believe George Soros's Words?
He warns that they're making an even bigger bubble now. Anyone else thinks that he is manipulating the markets with his "advice"?
Dreaming of Future Movies
Playing with Fallout 3 and Oblivion on third-person view (go to console and type "tfc") made me think of how movies can be made this way.
Right now, moving pictures are events shown on 2D screens and a few on 3D but that's not what we really want, just what people can make.
What people want is more than just this peek of voyeurism. They want to see the events unfold. Films today, made with all sorts of camera techniques, merely help the audience see the important parts to offset the limits of a single camera.
Then here is my suggestion: Imagine if someone has programmed the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 to move on his own, to complete the entire story automatically. Now the player controls a camera that can move freely in all directions, so he can move the camera with the protagonist or to anywhere else.
A movie that is viewable from every single angle. The audience is given control of the point of view, enabling them to see things in first, second or third-person views. They become ghosts that float around and can watch the protagonist as he goes on to save the world, or watch the other characters in their sub-plots.
Of course, a "default" camera is provided to give the audience the experience that one would expect to get from the films we have now. This would be involve instructions from a director to make it a "real" film.
One can also see this as a role-playing game in which the player merely watches. He may be able to control the time but he cannot affect the world in any other way.
Too bad I'm neither a programmer nor a drama student.
The WePad, Germany's answer to Apple's iPad, sounds intriguing. I wonder what it will be like when compared to the iPad. We will have to wait and see.
Some people are obviously twisting facts to suit theories.
A study shows that spanking children could make them more aggressive. I don't agree. Not all children understand logic and the necessity for good behaviour even when you try to explain it to them. I remember the times when I did the things I did even after repeated warnings/scoldings simply because I had no idea why I should not do it and the explanations given to me didn't seem to make sense till I was much older.
I also like this comment from that page:
Bleach, atm, sucks
Just remembered about Bleach (the anime) and checked my records (I have a TXT file with the filename as "Next is XXX" where "XXX" refers to the number of the next episode I should watch) and found that I'm only at episode 238 next for Bleach and 127 for Naruto Shippudden. Since I've long given up on Naruto, I ignored that and went to check the DB website and to my surprise, Bleach is already at episode 266.
That's a 27-episode marathon coming up! Then as I clicked on the links I found the torrent for episode 252 to be dead. I was unable to find any replacement links for this particular episode either. To make things worse, all the episodes are still fillers. In fact all the coming episodes are fillers until somewhere in June, and even that is unconfirmed.
Not exactly enthusiastic about it anymore.
Can We Believe George Soros's Words?
He warns that they're making an even bigger bubble now. Anyone else thinks that he is manipulating the markets with his "advice"?
Dreaming of Future Movies
Playing with Fallout 3 and Oblivion on third-person view (go to console and type "tfc") made me think of how movies can be made this way.
Right now, moving pictures are events shown on 2D screens and a few on 3D but that's not what we really want, just what people can make.
What people want is more than just this peek of voyeurism. They want to see the events unfold. Films today, made with all sorts of camera techniques, merely help the audience see the important parts to offset the limits of a single camera.
Then here is my suggestion: Imagine if someone has programmed the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 to move on his own, to complete the entire story automatically. Now the player controls a camera that can move freely in all directions, so he can move the camera with the protagonist or to anywhere else.
A movie that is viewable from every single angle. The audience is given control of the point of view, enabling them to see things in first, second or third-person views. They become ghosts that float around and can watch the protagonist as he goes on to save the world, or watch the other characters in their sub-plots.
Of course, a "default" camera is provided to give the audience the experience that one would expect to get from the films we have now. This would be involve instructions from a director to make it a "real" film.
One can also see this as a role-playing game in which the player merely watches. He may be able to control the time but he cannot affect the world in any other way.
Too bad I'm neither a programmer nor a drama student.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Rant 524 / What If The Next Dalai Lama Is An Eskimo?
Catholic churches in the US are going broke, some selling their lands to pay debts while others are even considering bankruptcy. I don't think those in Singapore are in such a bad situation, but don't Catholic churches everywhere get financial aid from the Vatican? I don't know the exact policies regarding the Church's money though I believe that places of worship shouldn't be sold due to financial problems if those of the same religion in other parts of the world can help.
Of course, money and religion shouldn't even be intertwined at all, but things are the way they are and I'm in no position to do anything about that. The thing is, if the believers allow their places of worship to be taken away without doing everything they can, what are they believing in in the first place? Are they just going to worship at another place that isn't sold yet?
Temples and churches are sacred buildings, they aren't supposed to be built and taken down on a whim. In a sense, they are symbols of the strength of the followers' belief. If the community is okay with their church being sold and none of them are broke, then what they're saying is that their families/personal lives are more important than their religion.
There is the possibility that the people who use those churches wouldn't be able to save them even if they had pooled their resources. This would prove that money is necessary to sustain a religion, a very unfortunate phenomenon. In terms of natural selection, this is evidence that religions with wealthier believers have better chances of survival.
This news reminds me of the Papal States and how the power of the Catholic Church is still waning today. At first it was Napoleon who took a bite out of their lands, then when Italy was unified they took the rest, leaving that tiny bit that is now called the Vatican City. By the way if you come across any Vatican Euros it's a good idea to keep it due to their rarity. At the rate it's going they may get even rarer.
Oh wow this is surprising. In World War I, the British recruited hundreds of Nagas to fight for them in France. Apparently the German Minotaurs were strong enough to defeat the French Harpies regiment. They should have just upgraded them to Harpy Hags to get the No Retaliation bonus because it's cheap and makes the Harpies much more powerful. Nagas are expensive though they are worth the gold. Even today India still has a Naga Regiment in their Army.
Jokes aside, the British really did get Nagas to help at the French front from Nagaland, north-east India. The Naga Regiment in the Indian Army is also real and last fought in the 1999 against Pakistan.
This month's issue of National Geographic is all about water. Less than 1% of the Earth's water is fresh and liquid, and in many places in the world people are getting too much or not enough of it.
What really caught my eyes was this map showing the price of tap water around the world. Apparently Singapore's tariff of US$0.61 per 100 gallons (S$0.85 per 379 litres) is pretty low for a developed country, but very high compared to the rest of South-east Asia. To the North of us, the only country that has more expensive water is Japan. To the South, Australia and New Zealand.
In fact in the entire Asian continent, the price of water in Singapore is only lower than those in Japan and Dubai. Compared to the rest of the world, it is still cheaper than almost all of those in Western Europe, North America and Oceania. I can probably say that we have the most expensive water in our region but the cheapest in the First World.
When the present Dalai Lama passes away, the succession is going to be a huge problem. It's not just because China has already chosen their own puppet Dalai Lama, but also because Tenzin Gyatso has said that his reincarnation is not going to be in PRC-controlled territories.
Traditionally 13 of the 14 Dalai Lamas have been born in Tibet, with only one exception who's from Mongolia. Since Tibet might as well be part of China now and Tenzin hasn't said where he will be reborn, we may see lots of Tibetan monks travelling on planes in the future.
It is entirely possible that the next Dalai Lama may turn out to be a Israeli Jew and the following image is an artist's impression of the face of the Jewish God when this happens.
FFXIV is going to come out in the near future! I'm quite interested to see if SquareEnix has learnt anything from FFXI in the last few years. If they do succeed, I am seriously considering trying it out. But first I'll have to wait for reviews months after its release.
Of course, money and religion shouldn't even be intertwined at all, but things are the way they are and I'm in no position to do anything about that. The thing is, if the believers allow their places of worship to be taken away without doing everything they can, what are they believing in in the first place? Are they just going to worship at another place that isn't sold yet?
Temples and churches are sacred buildings, they aren't supposed to be built and taken down on a whim. In a sense, they are symbols of the strength of the followers' belief. If the community is okay with their church being sold and none of them are broke, then what they're saying is that their families/personal lives are more important than their religion.
There is the possibility that the people who use those churches wouldn't be able to save them even if they had pooled their resources. This would prove that money is necessary to sustain a religion, a very unfortunate phenomenon. In terms of natural selection, this is evidence that religions with wealthier believers have better chances of survival.
This news reminds me of the Papal States and how the power of the Catholic Church is still waning today. At first it was Napoleon who took a bite out of their lands, then when Italy was unified they took the rest, leaving that tiny bit that is now called the Vatican City. By the way if you come across any Vatican Euros it's a good idea to keep it due to their rarity. At the rate it's going they may get even rarer.
Oh wow this is surprising. In World War I, the British recruited hundreds of Nagas to fight for them in France. Apparently the German Minotaurs were strong enough to defeat the French Harpies regiment. They should have just upgraded them to Harpy Hags to get the No Retaliation bonus because it's cheap and makes the Harpies much more powerful. Nagas are expensive though they are worth the gold. Even today India still has a Naga Regiment in their Army.
Jokes aside, the British really did get Nagas to help at the French front from Nagaland, north-east India. The Naga Regiment in the Indian Army is also real and last fought in the 1999 against Pakistan.
This month's issue of National Geographic is all about water. Less than 1% of the Earth's water is fresh and liquid, and in many places in the world people are getting too much or not enough of it.
What really caught my eyes was this map showing the price of tap water around the world. Apparently Singapore's tariff of US$0.61 per 100 gallons (S$0.85 per 379 litres) is pretty low for a developed country, but very high compared to the rest of South-east Asia. To the North of us, the only country that has more expensive water is Japan. To the South, Australia and New Zealand.
In fact in the entire Asian continent, the price of water in Singapore is only lower than those in Japan and Dubai. Compared to the rest of the world, it is still cheaper than almost all of those in Western Europe, North America and Oceania. I can probably say that we have the most expensive water in our region but the cheapest in the First World.
When the present Dalai Lama passes away, the succession is going to be a huge problem. It's not just because China has already chosen their own puppet Dalai Lama, but also because Tenzin Gyatso has said that his reincarnation is not going to be in PRC-controlled territories.
Traditionally 13 of the 14 Dalai Lamas have been born in Tibet, with only one exception who's from Mongolia. Since Tibet might as well be part of China now and Tenzin hasn't said where he will be reborn, we may see lots of Tibetan monks travelling on planes in the future.
It is entirely possible that the next Dalai Lama may turn out to be a Israeli Jew and the following image is an artist's impression of the face of the Jewish God when this happens.
FFXIV is going to come out in the near future! I'm quite interested to see if SquareEnix has learnt anything from FFXI in the last few years. If they do succeed, I am seriously considering trying it out. But first I'll have to wait for reviews months after its release.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Rant 523 / Fisting On Delicacies
This is really a bad time to be an Arab. If the average non-Arab person gets caught smoking in the plane's restroom, he most definitely would not be wrestled to the ground and cause the pilot to call for help. Fighter jets would also not be called to aid in the situation and create headlines.
But if you're Arab and have a Muslim name, even one sniff of smoke coming from the cubicle you're in can cause White House aides to rush to the US President to inform him of a possible terrorist.
Paranoia? No, it's just caution... right?
Just found this little gem of a game called Jagged Alliance 2. I've only tried a bit of it but it looks good so far. Played for a few hours but trying to figure out the controls is giving me quite a bit of frustration. Googling for forums that discuss this gave me little, but the manual turned out to be easier to find than I thought.
Jagged Alliance 2 is a tactical RPG in which you control hired mercenaries to fight for you. You have to pay them everyday, but they also offer long-term contracts that last up to a fortnight. Each merc has his or her specialty (Fox was an ex-nurse so she had pretty good medical skills), but some are more like jack-of-all trades that are slightly better at some things.
I estimate at least 20 mercenaries on the list, but I could only hire so many. I'm currently trying to play with 4 cheap mercenaries, all with 1-week contracts. Just those 4 almost bankrupt me, reducing my starting capital of $35k to $3.5k. I'll have to find some income soon, the how of which I am currently trying to find out.
As far as I can tell, I get revenue by controlling the mines in the resource-rich country the game is set in. I can also control the towns and train people but I have no idea how yet. Neither do I know how to control a mine.
I'm on my second attempt already, the first was horrible and I didn't know how to advance. It took the second try for me to find out by chance that I was supposed to give a letter written for a rebel leader to this civilian woman in the starting map. I thought she was there just for flavour, as decoration. It's not like she was unique or anything, because I met lots of other NPCs like her later.
It's either getting warm at night or the lack of exercise does affect my perception of temperature. I remember the time before I went for RT when I had to switch on my air-con every night, a habit I almost got rid of by the time my RT was finished. Now I'm getting close to switching it on every night again.
Or is it just getting warmer at night now? That's possible too. Since my RT began in Dec when it's the coolest part of the year, it makes sense too.
I wish there's some way to generate electricity. My household spends over $170 a month on the electricity bills and the tariff was recently raised at the beginning of this month by 0.69cents to 23.56cents per kWh, so I'll probably see a $4-6 rise in my bills. Not a lot, true, but it's the little things like this that make my household electricity bill reach $160-180 with only 3 person living here.
On the other hand, with 771kWh used last month, there aren't many things I can that can make a dent in that number short of covering all my windows with solar panels. That's like an average of 1.07kW.
I've never really considered why people become vegetarians or vegans (vegans avoid dairy products and eggs, vegetarians don't) until I read this article. I just assume that people stop eating meat either because their parents have always been on that sort of diet or that they are in need of the health benefits of such foods.
It's interesting to know that some avoid meat for ethical reasons. I don't mean the view that killing animals for food is wrong because that reason is complete nonsense. However I do understand how it feels wrong to cage animals for their entire lives only to end it with a quick death. To make things worse, we dump a lot of it into the trash.
Seriously, the animals led meaningless lives that were given a purpose only in death. Wasting meat is therefore very wrong, almost monstrous. Not only is that a waste of resources, but is also an insult to the lives that were given for no reason other than to be our food.
So if you think wasting rice is bad, think about wasting meat, fish and eggs too. In fact eggs are even worse if you think about it because those are animals that never even knew life. Every egg wasted is similar to an abortion, a potentially perfectly healthy lifeform thrown away for the sake of convenience.
Anyway the article does make a good point about why vegetarians should not avoid oysters. If it's true that oyster farms do little damage to the environment, then it is no more ethical to stay away from it than to eat vegetables. In fact most if not all shellfish can be consumed by vegetarians if the methods of farming them are environmentally friendly.
As for me, I'm a carnivore who hates oyster, rather like the opposite of the writer of that article.
But if you're Arab and have a Muslim name, even one sniff of smoke coming from the cubicle you're in can cause White House aides to rush to the US President to inform him of a possible terrorist.
Paranoia? No, it's just caution... right?
Just found this little gem of a game called Jagged Alliance 2. I've only tried a bit of it but it looks good so far. Played for a few hours but trying to figure out the controls is giving me quite a bit of frustration. Googling for forums that discuss this gave me little, but the manual turned out to be easier to find than I thought.
Jagged Alliance 2 is a tactical RPG in which you control hired mercenaries to fight for you. You have to pay them everyday, but they also offer long-term contracts that last up to a fortnight. Each merc has his or her specialty (Fox was an ex-nurse so she had pretty good medical skills), but some are more like jack-of-all trades that are slightly better at some things.
I estimate at least 20 mercenaries on the list, but I could only hire so many. I'm currently trying to play with 4 cheap mercenaries, all with 1-week contracts. Just those 4 almost bankrupt me, reducing my starting capital of $35k to $3.5k. I'll have to find some income soon, the how of which I am currently trying to find out.
As far as I can tell, I get revenue by controlling the mines in the resource-rich country the game is set in. I can also control the towns and train people but I have no idea how yet. Neither do I know how to control a mine.
I'm on my second attempt already, the first was horrible and I didn't know how to advance. It took the second try for me to find out by chance that I was supposed to give a letter written for a rebel leader to this civilian woman in the starting map. I thought she was there just for flavour, as decoration. It's not like she was unique or anything, because I met lots of other NPCs like her later.
It's either getting warm at night or the lack of exercise does affect my perception of temperature. I remember the time before I went for RT when I had to switch on my air-con every night, a habit I almost got rid of by the time my RT was finished. Now I'm getting close to switching it on every night again.
Or is it just getting warmer at night now? That's possible too. Since my RT began in Dec when it's the coolest part of the year, it makes sense too.
I wish there's some way to generate electricity. My household spends over $170 a month on the electricity bills and the tariff was recently raised at the beginning of this month by 0.69cents to 23.56cents per kWh, so I'll probably see a $4-6 rise in my bills. Not a lot, true, but it's the little things like this that make my household electricity bill reach $160-180 with only 3 person living here.
On the other hand, with 771kWh used last month, there aren't many things I can that can make a dent in that number short of covering all my windows with solar panels. That's like an average of 1.07kW.
I've never really considered why people become vegetarians or vegans (vegans avoid dairy products and eggs, vegetarians don't) until I read this article. I just assume that people stop eating meat either because their parents have always been on that sort of diet or that they are in need of the health benefits of such foods.
It's interesting to know that some avoid meat for ethical reasons. I don't mean the view that killing animals for food is wrong because that reason is complete nonsense. However I do understand how it feels wrong to cage animals for their entire lives only to end it with a quick death. To make things worse, we dump a lot of it into the trash.
Seriously, the animals led meaningless lives that were given a purpose only in death. Wasting meat is therefore very wrong, almost monstrous. Not only is that a waste of resources, but is also an insult to the lives that were given for no reason other than to be our food.
So if you think wasting rice is bad, think about wasting meat, fish and eggs too. In fact eggs are even worse if you think about it because those are animals that never even knew life. Every egg wasted is similar to an abortion, a potentially perfectly healthy lifeform thrown away for the sake of convenience.
Anyway the article does make a good point about why vegetarians should not avoid oysters. If it's true that oyster farms do little damage to the environment, then it is no more ethical to stay away from it than to eat vegetables. In fact most if not all shellfish can be consumed by vegetarians if the methods of farming them are environmentally friendly.
As for me, I'm a carnivore who hates oyster, rather like the opposite of the writer of that article.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Rant 522 / Another Once-In-A-Blue-Moon Extra Long Rant
Where lies the limit that separates men from women? If a man has to look like a woman to look good, is Man a man no more?
What, then, is the difference between a good-looking man and a transvestite?
If Mr Christ ever existed, he was one heck of a chameleon. A fact people have to remember is that according to the stories, he was born in the Middle East. Take into account how large the world was in those days, especially with the main form of public transport being animal-powered wooden boxes (most likely without government subsidies and student discounts), the probability of having a mixed racial heritage was highly unlikely.
Due to the constant movement of Earth's tectonic plates, it's also uncertain where the Middle East was over two millennia ago. Hence, we have a significant amount of confusion as to which racial group Jesus belonged to.
First we have our most popular candidate. The majority of Christians are white, the Pope is white, hence Jesus was white, maybe even Nordic according to the Nazis (Viking Jesus?).
Since the Middle East is full of Arabs, Jesus was more likely to be one of them. Jesus being an Arab could have been true. After all, there are quite a few Arab Christians in the Middle East today.
Or he could have been this sort of Middle Eastern: less tanned and slightly more Jewish-looking.
Then again, he could have been of African descent. I mean, Egypt is just next to the Middle East. Who can say his "dad" didn't have a liking for "black booty"? Or it could have been that Hollywood was actually right in hiring Morgan Freeman to portray the Christian God accurately?
Or maybe Mary was Chinese. With it being a virgin birth, it didn't matter what race the father was. The Chinese have been known to travel to many parts of the world, especially for trade. The Romans themselves had been great fans of Chinese silk, so it's not an impossibility if some Chinese had settled in Bethlehem and whoever/whatever impregnated her turned out to have some sort of Asian fetish, if he wasn't Chinese himself in the first place.
Therefore, Jesus could have been Chinese. Not to mention that the continents have been moving quite a bit over time, so who knows?
Coming next: Was Siddhartha Ghautama an Indian or an Indian?
From http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/It's as if other countries have any say in that. Anyway I voted no. Rape simulation games are part of the Japanese culture, albeit a small bit of it. It's not like they're even trying hard to spread the love of such games outside Japan.
Don't get me wrong, I avoid that stuff like the plague. But if there are people who like this sort of thing, why stop them? It's not like they are actually raping women on the trains. The Japanese economy sucks, their young men are mostly suicidal and their women are generally fugly. To deprive them of 3D virtual interactive sex would be pure evil.
It is true that they have access to all kinds of kinky sex toys already, but there is a big difference between sticking the phallus into lubricated foam (onacup) and doing the same thing while staring at a voluptuous woman with perfect, oiled skin.
I say let them do whatever they want, as long as real people aren't involved in the actual act. Or else, what's the point of buying fantastic high-end video cards? Gaming? LOL!
Oh wait, I do that...
I don't know about everyone else, but IMO as long as something isn't real, you can have as much of it as you want. When the day comes that people can no longer differentiate between 3D sex from the actual thing, there will be peace. After all, sex is a major motivation for most humans in many things, including the struggle for success. Where there is competition, there is conflict.
This brings us to the question of whether the virtual world in the Matrix was really wrong. Really, is it? If all five of your senses tell you that it's real, why insist that it is fake? Lots of people have settled for much, much less! In such a world, every person can live like kings and none will ever know the difference. Or they can just remain in a dreamless sleep permanently, but there's nothing to discuss in that situation.
What I have in mind is a cross between the Matrix and the pods used by Dr Stanislaus Braun in Fallout 3. In the game, Dr Braun and a few families assigned to his command were basically immortalised by living in a virtual simulation in which he had complete control of his surroundings. Theoretically speaking, if humans can have a surplus of everything, there would be no conflict.
If every single soul is happy and no one is fighting, is it really that bad? What if, say, all participants are given the choice of leaving the simulations upon reaching adulthood (babies are grown in pods like in the movie)?
Fact is, most people are willing to trade freedom for peace, as Law has proven. If everyone is given the choice to renounce all ties with reality for perfect peace in a completely realistic simulation where there is no hunger, war or disease, I'd say it would be a tough choice for most. Don't forget, billions of people around the globe are working their entire lives to enter a world exactly like that in the afterlife. An alternative like that would be as good as a shortcut to an inferior version of Heaven.
The original video for Benny Benasi's Satisfaction
Looks weird. I'll have to agree with the 12 million views that the following song suits the video much better. I get the meaning behind the whole concept but the idea of the slowly changing faces and posture just feels fundamentally incompatible with the tone of the music.
Music is Holy Ghost by 009 Sound System. If they could remove all those words associated with the original Satisfaction and extend the video to suit the length of Holy Ghost it would be even better. Too bad they can't. Original music below.
If not for my phone's inability to produce bass beats, I'd use Holy Ghost as my ringtone.
(How to pronounce Machiavelli: mech - ee - uh - valley)
Re-reading Machiavelli's The Prince (Il Prince in Italian), I find it a very honest book because of the introduction, where the degree of desperation the author had in trying to suck up to Lorenzo de' Medici is shown. Imagine, a high level diplomat and politician being exiled to a rural village for the rest of his life. Makes perfect sense that he would do anything just to get into Lorenzo's good books.
To me, Machiavelli was condensing everything he had into that little book in his attempt to regain some sort of dignity and power. Not only that, but he also repeatedly discredited the previous head of state whom Lorenzo had overthrown, the very same guy Machiavelli worked for in the previous 18 years.
Here's a short summary of the politics in Florentine, the then-city-state where he lived:
1494: Niccolo Machiavelli began working for the Florentine government as a clerk and ambassador. Later in the same year, the ruling Medici family was expelled and the Republic of Florence was formed, headed by Piero Soderini.
1509: The home-grown militia army raised by Machiavelli successfully conquers Pisa.
1512: The Medici returns with the help of the Pope and Spanish mercenaries, defeating the Florentine army. Soderini was exiled to Dalmatia while Machiavelli was tortured before also getting exiled to a village in the middle of nowhere.
I think it is obvious how badly he would want to return to some form of glory he used to have. The introduction might have been normal in those days between a commoner and a member of royalty (the Medici family were as good as royalty), but it also feels like it's brimming with ass-kissing.
Instead of making a joke, her popularity became the joke. "... I mean like internet bullies shouldn't do something like that because it's not professional at all."
I shed tears because it's Miss Singapore.
Point 1:
I think she meant to say "matured" instead of "professional".
Point 2:
Internet bullies can neither be matured nor professional. If they are matured, they wouldn't be bullies in the first place. If they're professional... whoever has heard of a professional bully?
Point 3:
Singapore internet bullies are MILD. Spamming insults and opening a Facebook group to piss her off can cause her to be "badly affected"? What if someone decides to find out her address before spamming it on Facebook/Twitter with fake accounts? Someone has already tried to molest her, so a stalker is really quite possible. It just depends on how internet-savvy that pervert is.
The mean thing by doing that isn't that it makes her address known to the public, but what can done with this bit of data.
I'm not familiar with the local gossip news but from the comments I can tell that this isn't the first of her failed attempts at gaining some positive attention. I'm not going to say that she should give up on regaining her fame, but her notoriety makes it necessary for her to rethink her strategy and next move. I believe it is apparent that she needs to be much more matured from now on if she is to remain in public view.
What do you get if you have an easily moddable game, and combine it with a playerbase of mainly young men?
Easy, you get a virtual porn studio.
This is what is happening with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Despite the incredibly disgusting skin textures and character models provided by the original creators of the game, it now has enough mods to turn your characters into beautiful goddesses or kawaii catgirls. To make it even more amazing, there are nude mods that work with many of these.
These looks NOTHING like the original!!
Topping it all are the sex mods which makes the characters commit very indecent acts of lust. These mods can be used together with pose mods which direct the characters to make certain poses. Softcore and hardcore.
Yes, I am surprised. No other PC game has been twisted to such an extent that anyone can make virtual porn with just a few clicks. Not even Fallout 3. Well Fallout 3 does have sex mods but the characters lack the large number of texture/model mods that Oblivion modders have created.
The screenshot below is from my version of Oblivion. When I saw the screenshots on 4chan of course I got curious as to what these mods can do. Due to my laziness I did not bother to browse through all of them. At the moment I'm using only a handful of mods including HGEC, Kunoichi Armour Set and Montana's Sexy Companion mod. It should be obvious to any Oblivion player how incredible the difference is compared to the vanilla (aka un-modded) version.
If not for the user interface (aka UI, which is the collective term for the HP/MP/Stam bars, compass and etc at the bottom) , it would have been easy for you to believe that this is from yet another Japanese hentai game. It might still have been photoshopped, but you'll have to take my word for it when I say it isn't.
They could have taken it towards another direction, eg make all sorts of movies (aka machinima) but no, they had to make a veritable sex game out of it. By the way there is only 1 website that I know of that has all possible mods for this game and it has a Fallout 3 counterpart too. Interestingly, TES Nexus is so full of adult-oriented mods they have a Top 100 list just for them, in addition to the original Top 100 mods list.
I'm not exactly unhappy about the way it has turned out (all heterosexual men must like what are in the screenshots), but I am somewhat disappointed. Bethesda has given us what might as well be a virtual Hollywood with enormous potential. If the armour set above can be made, then think of what sort of characters can be formed. It can be even more fantastic than those in the Final Fantasy games.
The truth is that reality is never as nice as that. This is what the modding community decided to make of it. I guess this just proves that men, especially younger men, think with their little heads more frequently than the one located between the shoulders.
In case anyone is interested, here is a list of console commands (enter console by hitting ~ which is next to your 1 and ! key) and a tutorial for them. These are necessary to go into 3rd-person view, activate god mode and teleport to anywhere. Teleportation is important because some mods can screw up your game's scripts, causing your characters to get stuck in some parts of the game including the beginning where you're waiting for the guards to open the cell gate.
Answer to the riddle at the end of the previous rant is "language".
The iPad was hacked within 3 days in such a way that it gives the hacker root access to the operating system (OS). Root access = root admin = complete control of the entire device, including the ability to install anything (as long as it can work on the iPad) and tweak the system.
3 days. What will Apple do next?
ROFL! The Americans killed their own reporters in Iraq too! Reuters is NOT happy about this and has the article with the photo on the front page with a nice "Come on, let us shoot" quote as the headline. The report includes a comment from the editor-in-chief saying that "if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong".
The article, though somewhat mildly phrased, is actually slightly biased as usual (I think a lot of journalists are good at that, making subtle changes to the way everything is portrayed by adding a little more details here and taking away some details there), in that they did not mention who the others were in the group their ex-colleagues were with.
They also did not explicitly state that the rest of the group were armed, except at the end where they said the military spokesman said they had released documents showing "weapons on the scene". Notice that there is no mention of whether these belonged to the group? A subtle omission there to make that statement weigh less.
In addition, they only stated that their own journalist was identified, albeit mistakenly, with a RPG launcher which was in fact his camera. To add fuel to the flame, they included the immaturely-phrased request from one of the soldiers in the helicopter, "Come on, let us shoot."
Finally to firm up the opinion in the readers that the soldiers are really just children with guns, they have their editor-in-chief say something really direct, just in case some readers were still unsure about what to think.
"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said. The fliers in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents, he said."
When people hear about the dangers of war journalism, they think of the poor guy who got beheaded with a blunt knife on TV. This is probably something new to think about.
"Yeah, right through the windshield!"
2 children were at the front seat.
"... I don't know how the children were hurt."
"Serves them right for bringing children to the battle."
The Pope vows to bring paedophilia down to a more acceptable levels.
"This is absolutely unacceptable," Pope Benedict said. "It seems a weakening of faith in God has prevented our priests from exercising moderation when sexually abusing helpless minors."
"And let me remind our clergy of the holy vows they all took when they entered the priesthood," he continued. "They should know that they're only allowed one small child every other month."
The pope said he was deeply disappointed to learn that the number of children sexually abused by priests was almost 10 times beyond the allowable limit clearly outlined in church doctrine.
Okay, I guess that works too. Moderation in everything, right? Or is it "No Child Left Behind"?
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Rant 521 / GRY
Replaying Planescape: Torment, this time as a real Mage. In my first run 2 years ago, I thought I was a mage because I had learnt all the spells from the Gith companion. It was somewhere last year that I learnt that you can actually change your class to Mage from the original Fighter.
So now I'm an actual Mage but for some reason my graphics get really screwed up by the spell's animations. I think it's because the software isn't compatible with my modern video driver, hence even causing occasional crashes.
Fortunately I have learnt patience, especially when my computer responds. What I mean is if either the cursor or keyboard (Numlock/Capslock usually) responds, I'm willing to wait for about 10mins. This is always enough time for my computer to recover on its own and show me the error message. Only when neither respond do I wait only a minute or so before shutting it down.
Anyway the graphics lag is pretty bad in some parts of the game, so I'm cautious about spamming spells. Not a bad idea since I have few spells available to cast. I did try to do what I did before, as recorded in my blog (I used the Google searchbox in my blog to find it), but it didn't have the same effect. My guess is that it worked for the 32-bit Vista in my laptop, but doesn't do the same for my 64-bit version in this desktop. No idea why.
As I read Machiavelli's book Il Prince, I start to feel as if I'm reading into the reasoning behind all the actions of the Singapore Government. I'm not kidding man, it's like LKY and LHL is using Il Prince as their instruction manual!
For example in the latest chapter I'm at, it discusses the virtues of generosity - it has none for an established ruler. All rulers who have their positions held firmly must be stingy, while generosity is only useful for people who are striving to become rulers. Why?
Generosity is good for gaining popularity, but it makes the person spend a lot. Once a ruler is known to be generous, he is going to have a hard time saying no to anyone who asks for his help. If he says no, he will incur hatred towards himself (eg it would feel like he's bias against that guy). One of the most basic rules stated by Machiavelli is that rulers must not be hated. Dislike is fine, hate is a big no-no.
A miserly ruler is only disliked. The people would merely be annoyed by his policies in regards to the monetary issues. The important thing is that no one would rage at him for not spending a lot of money.
Imagine a boss who usually gives you off-days for various reasons, then one day stops giving you off-days when you are used to getting them all the time. Compare it to a boss who rarely gives you off-days and never changes that habit, and you get the idea. Even if both in the same year gives you the same number of off-days, you're going to be more unhappy with the first boss.
And if the ruler remains generous, he's basically asking for trouble. A country can only collect so much taxes, but there are always more people asking for money. A generous government is a bankrupt government unless they're so amazing they can maintain it indefinitely(eg UK and US, both of which has numerous assets to support their own welfare policies).
Stinginess is one of the best known characteristics of the Singapore Government. I still remember the day I had to go to CMPB to pay back S$11 because the army paid me a little too much. The transport costed me more than the amount I had to return. =\
Same with how they hire contractors. Everyone makes a secret bid and they pick the cheapest choice. This makes the contractors bid as low as they think they can afford to or risk making the price too high.
These may sound bad but, according to Machiavelli, all are necessary. The government has to be wise with its money; generosity is not an option in most situations.
Another chapter in the book discusses how a ruler should only listen to the ministers he appoints, and only when he asks for it. To make this successful, he must appoint the best people for the ministerial posts. If anyone else gives him advise, he should not listen. This is because he cannot listen to everyone, and if you ask two powerful men for their opinions there will always be disagreement. Without unanimity, the ruler will either appear indecisive or piss off one of them.
But he must listen to somebody. A ruler who never listens to anyone is also screwing himself up. The trick is that when he takes the advices into consideration, he must also question them as much as he can.
I think I can see why the government really doesn't care about the opinions of the general public. The famous Speakers' Corner is one prominent example. Ever heard of LHL/LKY being anywhere in the visible range of that piece of stone?
That's because they cannot. They only listen to the ministers, whose salaries make sure they are the best (better pay, more competition). Listen to the best, nothing else; I think that's the gist of this chapter. Whether LHL questions what he hears, we will never know.
The top guys in Singapore Government are following so strictly to Machiavelli's teachings, it's... uncanny. Kind of reminds me of how the UK government uses 1984 as their instruction manual.
Disclaimer: The above is only my interpretation of a few chapters in the book Il Prince. I'm not studying anything related to Political Science, so I may sound noobish to anyone with even the slightest bit of proficiency in that field.
Think of words that end with "-GRY". "Hungry" and "angry" are two such words. There are three words in the English language. What is the third word? This word is something everyone uses everyday. If you have listened carefully I have already told you the answer.
There are many versions of this riddle, but I took this (and edited a little) from Planescape: Torment. Even in its written form, the answer isn't obvious.
Answer coming in the next rant, but you can also google this. I could also make a spoiler tag that "censors" words and type the answer here, but I have to add a lot of codes in the layout HTML, which means I'll have to do it again if I ever change my layout. In conclusion, screw that.
So now I'm an actual Mage but for some reason my graphics get really screwed up by the spell's animations. I think it's because the software isn't compatible with my modern video driver, hence even causing occasional crashes.
Fortunately I have learnt patience, especially when my computer responds. What I mean is if either the cursor or keyboard (Numlock/Capslock usually) responds, I'm willing to wait for about 10mins. This is always enough time for my computer to recover on its own and show me the error message. Only when neither respond do I wait only a minute or so before shutting it down.
Anyway the graphics lag is pretty bad in some parts of the game, so I'm cautious about spamming spells. Not a bad idea since I have few spells available to cast. I did try to do what I did before, as recorded in my blog (I used the Google searchbox in my blog to find it), but it didn't have the same effect. My guess is that it worked for the 32-bit Vista in my laptop, but doesn't do the same for my 64-bit version in this desktop. No idea why.
As I read Machiavelli's book Il Prince, I start to feel as if I'm reading into the reasoning behind all the actions of the Singapore Government. I'm not kidding man, it's like LKY and LHL is using Il Prince as their instruction manual!
For example in the latest chapter I'm at, it discusses the virtues of generosity - it has none for an established ruler. All rulers who have their positions held firmly must be stingy, while generosity is only useful for people who are striving to become rulers. Why?
Generosity is good for gaining popularity, but it makes the person spend a lot. Once a ruler is known to be generous, he is going to have a hard time saying no to anyone who asks for his help. If he says no, he will incur hatred towards himself (eg it would feel like he's bias against that guy). One of the most basic rules stated by Machiavelli is that rulers must not be hated. Dislike is fine, hate is a big no-no.
A miserly ruler is only disliked. The people would merely be annoyed by his policies in regards to the monetary issues. The important thing is that no one would rage at him for not spending a lot of money.
Imagine a boss who usually gives you off-days for various reasons, then one day stops giving you off-days when you are used to getting them all the time. Compare it to a boss who rarely gives you off-days and never changes that habit, and you get the idea. Even if both in the same year gives you the same number of off-days, you're going to be more unhappy with the first boss.
And if the ruler remains generous, he's basically asking for trouble. A country can only collect so much taxes, but there are always more people asking for money. A generous government is a bankrupt government unless they're so amazing they can maintain it indefinitely(eg UK and US, both of which has numerous assets to support their own welfare policies).
Stinginess is one of the best known characteristics of the Singapore Government. I still remember the day I had to go to CMPB to pay back S$11 because the army paid me a little too much. The transport costed me more than the amount I had to return. =\
Same with how they hire contractors. Everyone makes a secret bid and they pick the cheapest choice. This makes the contractors bid as low as they think they can afford to or risk making the price too high.
These may sound bad but, according to Machiavelli, all are necessary. The government has to be wise with its money; generosity is not an option in most situations.
Another chapter in the book discusses how a ruler should only listen to the ministers he appoints, and only when he asks for it. To make this successful, he must appoint the best people for the ministerial posts. If anyone else gives him advise, he should not listen. This is because he cannot listen to everyone, and if you ask two powerful men for their opinions there will always be disagreement. Without unanimity, the ruler will either appear indecisive or piss off one of them.
But he must listen to somebody. A ruler who never listens to anyone is also screwing himself up. The trick is that when he takes the advices into consideration, he must also question them as much as he can.
I think I can see why the government really doesn't care about the opinions of the general public. The famous Speakers' Corner is one prominent example. Ever heard of LHL/LKY being anywhere in the visible range of that piece of stone?
That's because they cannot. They only listen to the ministers, whose salaries make sure they are the best (better pay, more competition). Listen to the best, nothing else; I think that's the gist of this chapter. Whether LHL questions what he hears, we will never know.
The top guys in Singapore Government are following so strictly to Machiavelli's teachings, it's... uncanny. Kind of reminds me of how the UK government uses 1984 as their instruction manual.
Disclaimer: The above is only my interpretation of a few chapters in the book Il Prince. I'm not studying anything related to Political Science, so I may sound noobish to anyone with even the slightest bit of proficiency in that field.
Think of words that end with "-GRY". "Hungry" and "angry" are two such words. There are three words in the English language. What is the third word? This word is something everyone uses everyday. If you have listened carefully I have already told you the answer.
There are many versions of this riddle, but I took this (and edited a little) from Planescape: Torment. Even in its written form, the answer isn't obvious.
Answer coming in the next rant, but you can also google this. I could also make a spoiler tag that "censors" words and type the answer here, but I have to add a lot of codes in the layout HTML, which means I'll have to do it again if I ever change my layout. In conclusion, screw that.
Rant 520 / Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby
Those American lawyers are merciless. They want to pull the Pope into the mess too? What are they trying to accomplish by attempting that anyway? It's obviously unlikely the Church would allow that, just like the way Japan did not allow their Emperor to be sent to trial in the aftermath of WWII. The Pope is the Catholics' most direct connection to Jesus, lots of people are probably willing to die for him.
Every time I throw trash into the chute, I always get this sudden fear of having dumped something that isn't rubbish. I'd panic a little and try to recall everything I placed in the bags, even though I'd feel nothing before I open the chute. It's probably because it's like shift-deleting stuff. Actually I have less worries about shift-deleting since there are programmes that can recover even those data.
Alternatively, I can do what my mum does and leave the trash on the kitchen floor till morning, but they would fill my home with a stench and attract ants. She doesn't mind, but I do. So I either throw the trash and suffer the slight panic attack or close my door when I sleep. Usually the latter unless I go out to get water and get my nose invaded by the sour foulness of leftover breakfast/lunch/dinner.
Apparently my bro's gf's place is even filthier. I don't think I'll really want to visit them if and when they get married and move out. Both of them do not help with household chores at all, so there is no guarantee they can handle it if and when they get married and move out. At least they are better students than me, so they'll probably hire an aesthetically challenged domestic helper who'll keep their new home clean and fugly.
4chan embedded this song in the video-game-trolling section, /v/, and the damned song got stuck in my head together with the smirking baby image. The pic is fine, the song isn't.
K-pop, of all things. K-POP! I feel... I feel like a certain Calvin I know... This is 4chan's April Fools' Day prank - get a gay song stuck in everyone's head. The pic is a very common reaction pic so it's not surprising or anything.
Every time I throw trash into the chute, I always get this sudden fear of having dumped something that isn't rubbish. I'd panic a little and try to recall everything I placed in the bags, even though I'd feel nothing before I open the chute. It's probably because it's like shift-deleting stuff. Actually I have less worries about shift-deleting since there are programmes that can recover even those data.
Alternatively, I can do what my mum does and leave the trash on the kitchen floor till morning, but they would fill my home with a stench and attract ants. She doesn't mind, but I do. So I either throw the trash and suffer the slight panic attack or close my door when I sleep. Usually the latter unless I go out to get water and get my nose invaded by the sour foulness of leftover breakfast/lunch/dinner.
Apparently my bro's gf's place is even filthier. I don't think I'll really want to visit them if and when they get married and move out. Both of them do not help with household chores at all, so there is no guarantee they can handle it if and when they get married and move out. At least they are better students than me, so they'll probably hire an aesthetically challenged domestic helper who'll keep their new home clean and fugly.
4chan embedded this song in the video-game-trolling section, /v/, and the damned song got stuck in my head together with the smirking baby image. The pic is fine, the song isn't.
K-pop, of all things. K-POP! I feel... I feel like a certain Calvin I know... This is 4chan's April Fools' Day prank - get a gay song stuck in everyone's head. The pic is a very common reaction pic so it's not surprising or anything.
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yes..very true. I and my friends…go spanking at home school etc and we all turned out to be bullies and now we bully our neighbors, colleagues etc.
Surprisingly they are still loves us very much and very close to us. ANd that too … we ended up being successful in our careers. I just cant figure that out.
Those who didn’t get whooped, are so good now that they smoke the earth friendly green stuffs, make friends with everyone and have “friendly” fights and issues.. Yet for some reason..people don’t like them. And they are not into becoming successful.. and that way helping us bullies be there.
Research is very right.. no spanking guys.
Yo Bro -”Frederik Joelving” Its nice to post some article picked from a trash can to get some attention.. Now research on the “drinking cow urine” to fight cancer..(No kidding.. there is another one of those scientist who claims that.)
That maybe maybe your next big Article!
Idle mind devils den.