So the Western world is crying for mercy. Sure they are.
Zoellick said history shows "beggar thy neighbor" policies don't work
I'm not sure if that is the case. What about the time when China was known as 东亚病夫（Sick man of Asia)? Everyone else got wealthier then, right? Even the US got something out of the Unequal Treaties.
"Beggar thy neighbour" in economics refers to how a country solves its own economic problems at the expense of another country. Maybe there is a more specific description that is more accurate but I don't know that.
The only difference between this definition and the example I quoted is that those powers that took from China back then didn't have major economic problems to deal with. They just took because it's there.
Like I have said a long time ago, rules protect you only from those who play by the same rules. This is actually from a book but I can't remember which.
The Western world is crying for mercy. Time to brush up my Chinese.
I never thought that Burger King had such a troubled history. I've always felt they have better products than McDonald's but the latter just has a better marketing department. For example, BK's grilled chicken burger is over 9000 times better than McChicken, one of the bestselling burgers of McDonald's, at least in Singapore.
Also, IMO the Whopper Double completely pwns the Mega Mac. McDonald's beef patties tend to be much drier and tasteless than BK's. Having 4 patties in a burger doesn't make the meat better, only more. Adding more compost to a compost pile doesn't make a diamond, only a lot of compost. I was actually going to say something similar to compost but I thought this is slightly more relevant due to the recent news about SengKang.
Anyway, BK apparently has been suffering from a series of problems involving poor management and leadership for decades now and it's only in the 21st century that the new owners actually did anything successful in saving the brand.
Like I've said on multiple occasions in the past, I wish they'd come up with the idea of starting a delivery service in my lifetime. I'll probably never order McDonald's ever again except for breakfast. The current BK breakfast menu just doesn't have anything as epic as the Big Breakfast Deluxe. The BBD is basically a normal Big Breakfast plus a set of Hotcakes minus a piece of Hotcake. A pretty good deal if you're ordering breakfast for two, unless one of the two is me.
What's stopping them from providing the home delivery service anyway? Not enough BK stores around Singapore to cover the entire island? But that's exactly why I want the delivery service!
Personally I like delivery because the delivery charge is usually close to the transport fares. I always order for my family, so even if we all take the bus to the closest fast food restaurant which is McDonald's at Singapore Polytechnic, the total bus fare would be about $2. The delivery charge of McDonald's is $3. Plus if it's breakfast, I feel that the extra dollar is still cheaper than the trouble of having to change in the morning, go out to squeeze in a crowded restaurant and get disturbed regularly by that noisy kid at the corner throughout the meal.
At home during weekends I can enjoy a BBD slowly while watching a movie in my room which is still cool from having the air conditioner switched on the entire night. This alone is worth $3.
Another quote from this website (used to be at Twitter but he upgraded):
"You don't have to be good to succeed. You just gotta be the least shitty option. Example: We're eating at The Olive Garden."
Words of wisdom.
What did I type in the last rant that was so interesting? I'm again surprised by the stats. 19 views for Rant 638 while the Zalgo rant only had less than 10 views in the last 24 hours?
Or is it because it's Friday? If so, why only that rant?
Also, I noticed that a lot of you visit this blog at around 3pm Singapore time and only today, which is a Friday. Stop slacking in the office just because this is the last weekday. XD
Singapore is on the front page of Reuters? Wow!
Friday, 8 October 2010
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Rant 638 / Minor Nuisances
This is weird. I'm getting better pings on the EU Empires server than the US server.
US server - 300ms
EU (UK) server- 250ms
Wat?
Did Starhub just upgrade their lines or acquired some bandwidth on a cable that goes between Europe and Asia?
Fallout: New Vegas coming in less than 2 weeks!
From the developers' blog:
Occasionally it’s okay to stop trying to complete every one of the over 70 side quests, and 90 free quests and sit a spell to marvel at the sunsets and check out the gleaming spire of The Strip.
Fallout 3 had 17 side quests, 20 unmarked quests and 16 repeatable quests.
Just found out how bad the design and workmanship of my bathroom shelf was when one end was dislodged all of a sudden, dropping all my soap bottles as a result.
Below is what I realized was screwed to my wall.
And below is how I believe the dislodged end was "fixed" to these things.
It was merely hanging by a little screw, and when the metals of the screw and the C-shape thing got rusty and began to wear off, the screw couldn't hang on any longer and fell off when I pressed my soap bottle for soap.
The other end is still secure but how the heck am I supposed to use this now?
I have no choice but to re-watch MacGuyver episodes and try to learn something from him. Not serious about watching MacGuyver shows but I'll probably do something similar to what he did all the time.
First, I should unscrew the secure end to see how that side was fixed to the wall.
...
Hmm... I was slightly wrong. It is worse than I thought. The second picture depicting the screw used to hand the shelf to the wall was more accurate in describing the secure end. The actual design is below:
So when the screw is tightened, both of the screw and the bottom knob-thing were pushing on the C-shape fixture screwed to the wall. The secured end had a large screw so it was well-tightened to force the screw and the lower knob-thing to act as a clamp on the C-shape thing screwed to the wall.
However, the loosened end was not done this way. Below is how it looks:
Only a tiny baby screw was used such that even when tightened to the max only a tiny bit of its tip was exposed. Basically it had been hanging on by a fingernail from the beginning.
This was not done by some random contractor. When our flat was upgraded by HDB, all bathrooms were renovated and they provided their own contractors to do it.
There are other fixtures that they placed in our bathrooms that I've always been unsatisfied about but they have yet to give me problems.
Anyway, are screws that expensive??
Played a bit of L4D2 again on Garena after being reminded of it yesterday. Checked my bro's server list and consulted him since he had bought L4D2 some time ago to play with his gf. Conclusion was to say no to the sale.
I actually tried to buy it this morning before consulting him but my transaction just couldn't get through because "your credit card information was denied by your credit card company". So I called the number for Service Enquiry at the back of my card and after a lengthy discussion, the final result was that the merchant (Steam) was unable to "capture your security code" for some reason.
This reason, I believe, is due to their server overloading, causing problems with their store. So I scanned through the Steam forum and I was right because I was not the only one encountering this problem. Makes sense because there has been a lot of talk about this sale. The viral marketing definitely worked.
After sending a ticket to inform Steam of this problem, I then went over to ask my bro.
Apparently L4D2 isn't very popular among Singaporeans, at least the legit version. So the servers aren't as popular and you should have friends to play with you to fill up the server. Even when there are players they are frequently not from Singapore, hence having lag and sucking. Having a bad teammate in L4D2 is a liability since there is a major focus on teamwork.
FYI playing with the AI is not fun at all because it's retarded. Seriously you'll find children with Down's more intelligent and use the medkits at more suitable times. I think.
Even now I never see my bro play L4D2. Then again, maybe he bought it solely because his gf did. As for me, few of my friends play L4D2 at home anyway. Almost nobody plays legit L4D2 in Singapore. D:
As for the game, I lost a bit of what little edge I used to have. 33% accuracy in one of the two games; the other was shut down before I could see the stats.
Also realized that I was no longer really appreciating the game. All I did was run quickly through each round for the adrenaline rush. I used to stop around to look at the graffiti and the bodies (some of them are covered by blankets, makes one think that maybe there's a story related to the writings on the walls).
Now I just run forward alone like a hot knife through butter. Hunters or jockeys? Just time your melee. Smokers? Just snipe it immediately regardless of whether I'm being hit by common zombies. Boomers? Huge targets, low HP. Witches? Just run around them. Charger? Just watch where it's charging and get out of the way. Tanks? Don't even bother shooting. If your HP is green you have a chance of outrunning it and let your other teammates draw its attention accidentally. If not, use pills/adrenaline. The trick is to listen to it. When you hear it stop, try to run around a pillar to place it between you and it because the Tank only stops when it's about to throw concrete at you.
Common zombies are easy to handle if you run so fast that the AI Director has difficulty spawning zombies in front of you and slow down your allies at the same time. If you get downed by a horde while running far ahead of your team, that means the rest of your team should have an easier time. If they die, you should be running like the wind. The Director can only handle so much at a time.
It is entirely possible to run like mad through each map solo before camping in the safe room watching the zombies banging on the door, while the other guys trudge slowly through the hordes the normal way.
This is the most exciting way of playing L4D2.
1990 was 20 years ago.
US server - 300ms
EU (UK) server- 250ms
Wat?
Did Starhub just upgrade their lines or acquired some bandwidth on a cable that goes between Europe and Asia?
Fallout: New Vegas coming in less than 2 weeks!
From the developers' blog:
Occasionally it’s okay to stop trying to complete every one of the over 70 side quests, and 90 free quests and sit a spell to marvel at the sunsets and check out the gleaming spire of The Strip.
Fallout 3 had 17 side quests, 20 unmarked quests and 16 repeatable quests.
Just found out how bad the design and workmanship of my bathroom shelf was when one end was dislodged all of a sudden, dropping all my soap bottles as a result.
Below is what I realized was screwed to my wall.
And below is how I believe the dislodged end was "fixed" to these things.
It was merely hanging by a little screw, and when the metals of the screw and the C-shape thing got rusty and began to wear off, the screw couldn't hang on any longer and fell off when I pressed my soap bottle for soap.The other end is still secure but how the heck am I supposed to use this now?
I have no choice but to re-watch MacGuyver episodes and try to learn something from him. Not serious about watching MacGuyver shows but I'll probably do something similar to what he did all the time.
First, I should unscrew the secure end to see how that side was fixed to the wall.
...
Hmm... I was slightly wrong. It is worse than I thought. The second picture depicting the screw used to hand the shelf to the wall was more accurate in describing the secure end. The actual design is below:
So when the screw is tightened, both of the screw and the bottom knob-thing were pushing on the C-shape fixture screwed to the wall. The secured end had a large screw so it was well-tightened to force the screw and the lower knob-thing to act as a clamp on the C-shape thing screwed to the wall.However, the loosened end was not done this way. Below is how it looks:
Only a tiny baby screw was used such that even when tightened to the max only a tiny bit of its tip was exposed. Basically it had been hanging on by a fingernail from the beginning.
This was not done by some random contractor. When our flat was upgraded by HDB, all bathrooms were renovated and they provided their own contractors to do it.
There are other fixtures that they placed in our bathrooms that I've always been unsatisfied about but they have yet to give me problems.
Anyway, are screws that expensive??
Played a bit of L4D2 again on Garena after being reminded of it yesterday. Checked my bro's server list and consulted him since he had bought L4D2 some time ago to play with his gf. Conclusion was to say no to the sale.
I actually tried to buy it this morning before consulting him but my transaction just couldn't get through because "your credit card information was denied by your credit card company". So I called the number for Service Enquiry at the back of my card and after a lengthy discussion, the final result was that the merchant (Steam) was unable to "capture your security code" for some reason.
This reason, I believe, is due to their server overloading, causing problems with their store. So I scanned through the Steam forum and I was right because I was not the only one encountering this problem. Makes sense because there has been a lot of talk about this sale. The viral marketing definitely worked.
After sending a ticket to inform Steam of this problem, I then went over to ask my bro.
Apparently L4D2 isn't very popular among Singaporeans, at least the legit version. So the servers aren't as popular and you should have friends to play with you to fill up the server. Even when there are players they are frequently not from Singapore, hence having lag and sucking. Having a bad teammate in L4D2 is a liability since there is a major focus on teamwork.
FYI playing with the AI is not fun at all because it's retarded. Seriously you'll find children with Down's more intelligent and use the medkits at more suitable times. I think.
Even now I never see my bro play L4D2. Then again, maybe he bought it solely because his gf did. As for me, few of my friends play L4D2 at home anyway. Almost nobody plays legit L4D2 in Singapore. D:
As for the game, I lost a bit of what little edge I used to have. 33% accuracy in one of the two games; the other was shut down before I could see the stats.
Also realized that I was no longer really appreciating the game. All I did was run quickly through each round for the adrenaline rush. I used to stop around to look at the graffiti and the bodies (some of them are covered by blankets, makes one think that maybe there's a story related to the writings on the walls).
Now I just run forward alone like a hot knife through butter. Hunters or jockeys? Just time your melee. Smokers? Just snipe it immediately regardless of whether I'm being hit by common zombies. Boomers? Huge targets, low HP. Witches? Just run around them. Charger? Just watch where it's charging and get out of the way. Tanks? Don't even bother shooting. If your HP is green you have a chance of outrunning it and let your other teammates draw its attention accidentally. If not, use pills/adrenaline. The trick is to listen to it. When you hear it stop, try to run around a pillar to place it between you and it because the Tank only stops when it's about to throw concrete at you.
Common zombies are easy to handle if you run so fast that the AI Director has difficulty spawning zombies in front of you and slow down your allies at the same time. If you get downed by a horde while running far ahead of your team, that means the rest of your team should have an easier time. If they die, you should be running like the wind. The Director can only handle so much at a time.
It is entirely possible to run like mad through each map solo before camping in the safe room watching the zombies banging on the door, while the other guys trudge slowly through the hordes the normal way.
This is the most exciting way of playing L4D2.
1990 was 20 years ago.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Rant 637 / L4D2 Less Than S$10?!
Sometimes it's interesting to see where the visitors come from. For example, I've never met anyone from Trinidad and Tobago. Reminds me of how I've also never met any Africans online other than South Africans (met one but technically he was just an Indian Sikh working there) and Nigerians (via spam emails).
So I've finally recognized the flavour of basil. It took 2 meals, tasting my chicken burgers each time, to allow me to figure out that the other flavour in the chicken patties was from the basil I added.
I guess I don't recognize it because it's so common I just assumed it's from the meat or something. One of the things you just skip over and take for granted.
This is interesting. China's move to support Greece by buying Greek bonds in bulk has been obvious from the start to be motivated by motives other than to strengthen international relationships. I just didn't know why.
Apparently, this article says that this is to stop the euro from weakening further. First, a weaker euro means less money to buy Chinese goods. Second, strengthening the euro against the USD can't be bad for China.
Furthermore, in exchange for the massive inflow of funds into Greece, the Greek government has allowed China to lease two main terminals in the major Greek port of Piraeus, and for 35 years no less.
From another article linked in the quote:
As Cosco took control of Pier Two, the Greek state-owned Pireaus Port Authority was left with Pier One – which is smaller and shallower, thus unable to accommodate the larger ships.
Cosco is short for China Ocean Shipping Company. For those who, like me, didn't know the significance of this, Piraeus is a one of the largest ports in Europe ranking 47th worldwide in cargo traffic.
From one of the links above:
China's state-owned shipping giant Cosco last month took control of Pier Two in a £2.8 billion deal to lease the pier for the next 35 years, investing £470 million in upgrading the port facilities, building a new Pier Three and almost tripling the volume of cargo it can handle.
The container port, just next door to the Piraeus ferry harbour that is the tourist gateway to the Greek islands, can currently load and unload 1.8 million containers a year - meaning 5,000 come and go each day.
No wonder they call it the new Silk Road. China basically took that port's cargo-handling facilities (those that matter anyway) and upgraded them for its own use. And by protecting the purchasing power of the Europeans, they make sure these ports get used a lot.
As for the exchange rates of the RMB, it is now being described as a "currency war", with the US being the losing side. If so, is this WWIII? We've got the Western world vs the PRC, with many other countries, eg Japan, now actively controlling their currencies to save their own economies or about to do so.
Personally I've never tried WoW in a RP (role-playing) server before, so when I saw these I realized how lucky I was to have missed that feature of WoW.
This looks like Second Life but in a fantasy setting. And yes, Second Life does have adult features. You can even have virtual sexual intercourse there.
Wow gaming industry politics? The boss of Valve, Gabe Newell, calls the 360 "a train Wreck" and sells L4D and L4D2 at US$6.79 each or US$10 for both plus a new DLC (downloadable content ie expansion) free of charge. Holy crap! This new DLC alone costs US$7 on the XBox360.
If you haven't bought it and have been considering, you may want to get your credit card out now because this sale is just for today!
It was fun for only a while and then it got boring. There are new maps, yes, but they are being released too slowly to hold my attention. The slowness, in turn, is caused by the difficulty in making a new map.
It's just like a map in Empires. You need to know the game inside out to make a good map. You need to create good chokepoints, good hiding spots, good event locations and the environment cannot be boring and must be varied.
Still, it's like S$9.50 at most. Hmm.....
And I have no idea what the heck is going on with the HTML of this rant because for some reason, halfway through my rant every sentence got surrounded by this "<.p>" and "<./p>". Every time I hit Enter it doesn't just go to the next line but also creates a "<.p><./p>". Remove the "." in between, added in to make sure they don't get interpreted as actual HTML code by the blog.
What the heck do those mean anyway?
It's fine with I'm typing this in HTML mode but when I go to the Compose mode which I usually use it starts all over again and gives the keys a weird behaviour.
:\
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Rant 636 / Conducive
UWO is fun atm. Sailing gets kind of boring but it's fine when I have something else to do/play. Game is free with a cash shop which NetMarble claims won't have any items that will seriously affect gameplay. Cash shop isn't open yet.
There are 3 main ways to play the game - trading, adventuring and fighting.
There are many kinds of trading and you won't want to master everything unless you're seriously hardcore. For example there are livestock trading, alcohol trading and textile trading. Livestock and textile trading is slightly related because you can get materials for textile from livestock, eg wool.
As for adventuring, it has some fighting involved too since you may encounter hostile humans when you explore unknown lands. The entire world is open (well, atm there's only Europe, part of Asia, the Americas and Oceania open) so there are plenty of places to explore. Again, there are many types of things to discover, like biological discoveries and, of course, artifacts of foreign civilizations.
Soldiering is another way to make money later in the game. You can protect ships or you can rob them. Early game is hard in this trade because there is limited prey and the rewards aren't much, but later when you have big enough ships you can try to take on large wealthy merchant ships. Assuming you can handle their guards and their battle-avoidance abilities, that is. Making money is never easy.
Fighting comes in 2 forms - sea battle and melee. Melee is obvious and it can happen in 2 ways - on land and when a ship gets boarded by another. Sea battles are common enough even for newbies. There are plenty of NPC pirates all around the world to make sure all players are experienced in such battles.
Single ships are easy to handle, but fleets can have tactics. For example, 5 barcas (basically boats) can take on a galleon by using a tactic which involves 1 barca boarding the galleon to stop it from moving (it's suicidal since a galleon is excellent at melee battles) and the other 4 bombarding it non-stop at its weaker sides.
Each of the three classes have access to the skills of the other classes but it takes longer to raise the level of a skill that isn't inherent to your class. For example, a merchant will always suck at fighting but a pirate will never be able to get as much discounts as a merchant.
In addition, players can build ships, cook food (useful for regaining energy spent on abilities) and even complete quests together. Even now there are players who are offering to construct ships at 70% of the prices offered by NPCs because they can afford to build them for 60% of the NPC prices. As for cooking, almost everyone cooks.
Today I encountered something that was kind of sad. I was in UWO and some Singaporean guy was saying on a public "School" channel he wanted to join a company (UWO's version of clan/guild) where company members can "enjoy each other".
Immediately I responded with "No I don't want to join a company where we enjoy each other." I was really quite serious in its literal meaning.
Apparently no one seemed to get what I was saying. In fact he then replied that there was no fun in that and I might as well play solo.
In case even you didn't get it, the right way to say it is to "enjoy each other's company". To enjoy each other sounds like something much more intimate.
It has arrived! Glasses-free 3D TV!
Kinect + 3D TV =
Of course, at this rate I'm most likely going to wait till the next generation of controller-free consoles that work well together 3D TVs. I'm guessing that's going to take 5 years. Won't be hard to wait some more. Been waiting for over 20 years for something of the sort; 5 is nothing compared to that.
I think it's obvious what the electronics industry will come up with next, now that we are going to have such a combination.
No, not a controller-free 3D MMORPG. The one after that. The one that is as different to that controller-free 3D combo as that combo is to the consoles of our present generation.
It will be interesting to see a remake of Matrix Online then.
Graphene, a material formed by 1 layer of Carbon atoms, made from graphite. Stronger than diamond and highly conductive.
As much as I hope this will give rise to another generation of computers that are insanely fast compared to today's PCs, there are just too many possibilities out there. Remember quantum computing?
Still, this raises the question of whether other elements will behave just as differently when arranged into a 2D sheet.
There are 3 main ways to play the game - trading, adventuring and fighting.
There are many kinds of trading and you won't want to master everything unless you're seriously hardcore. For example there are livestock trading, alcohol trading and textile trading. Livestock and textile trading is slightly related because you can get materials for textile from livestock, eg wool.
As for adventuring, it has some fighting involved too since you may encounter hostile humans when you explore unknown lands. The entire world is open (well, atm there's only Europe, part of Asia, the Americas and Oceania open) so there are plenty of places to explore. Again, there are many types of things to discover, like biological discoveries and, of course, artifacts of foreign civilizations.
Soldiering is another way to make money later in the game. You can protect ships or you can rob them. Early game is hard in this trade because there is limited prey and the rewards aren't much, but later when you have big enough ships you can try to take on large wealthy merchant ships. Assuming you can handle their guards and their battle-avoidance abilities, that is. Making money is never easy.
Fighting comes in 2 forms - sea battle and melee. Melee is obvious and it can happen in 2 ways - on land and when a ship gets boarded by another. Sea battles are common enough even for newbies. There are plenty of NPC pirates all around the world to make sure all players are experienced in such battles.
Single ships are easy to handle, but fleets can have tactics. For example, 5 barcas (basically boats) can take on a galleon by using a tactic which involves 1 barca boarding the galleon to stop it from moving (it's suicidal since a galleon is excellent at melee battles) and the other 4 bombarding it non-stop at its weaker sides.
Each of the three classes have access to the skills of the other classes but it takes longer to raise the level of a skill that isn't inherent to your class. For example, a merchant will always suck at fighting but a pirate will never be able to get as much discounts as a merchant.
In addition, players can build ships, cook food (useful for regaining energy spent on abilities) and even complete quests together. Even now there are players who are offering to construct ships at 70% of the prices offered by NPCs because they can afford to build them for 60% of the NPC prices. As for cooking, almost everyone cooks.
Today I encountered something that was kind of sad. I was in UWO and some Singaporean guy was saying on a public "School" channel he wanted to join a company (UWO's version of clan/guild) where company members can "enjoy each other".
Immediately I responded with "No I don't want to join a company where we enjoy each other." I was really quite serious in its literal meaning.
Apparently no one seemed to get what I was saying. In fact he then replied that there was no fun in that and I might as well play solo.
In case even you didn't get it, the right way to say it is to "enjoy each other's company". To enjoy each other sounds like something much more intimate.
It has arrived! Glasses-free 3D TV!
Kinect + 3D TV =
Of course, at this rate I'm most likely going to wait till the next generation of controller-free consoles that work well together 3D TVs. I'm guessing that's going to take 5 years. Won't be hard to wait some more. Been waiting for over 20 years for something of the sort; 5 is nothing compared to that.
I think it's obvious what the electronics industry will come up with next, now that we are going to have such a combination.
No, not a controller-free 3D MMORPG. The one after that. The one that is as different to that controller-free 3D combo as that combo is to the consoles of our present generation.
It will be interesting to see a remake of Matrix Online then.
Graphene, a material formed by 1 layer of Carbon atoms, made from graphite. Stronger than diamond and highly conductive.
As much as I hope this will give rise to another generation of computers that are insanely fast compared to today's PCs, there are just too many possibilities out there. Remember quantum computing?
Still, this raises the question of whether other elements will behave just as differently when arranged into a 2D sheet.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Rant 635 / 兒化與輕聲
Fake subtitles but really well-planned to make them look real, especially at the end when it zooms out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNUlZwGEygM&feature=related
Interesting video on the DPRK but I'm not too certain about the rice paddy scene being proof of the hardship. We have no idea which season this was recorded in and we don't know if they have the habit of leaving their fields to lie fallow for part of each year.
Still, the DPRK relying so heavily on China's food aid (I know I haven't seen that. In fact I can't prove it either) and that the need armed guards on the border between the PRC and DPRK show that the video isn't exactly lying.
While the American pornographers try to make high budget porno films, the Japanese seem to be inclined towards actual "normal" movies using porn actresses in the cast. I think this shows a difference between the philosophies/views behind the porn industries of the two countries.
Anyway this has nothing to do with dragons. It's just a bad zombie/black magic movie designed to squeeze money out of the fans of the actresses. Kinda like Advent's Children, only worse.
The reason why many BW pros did not participate in the TG-Intel Open is because
1) it's still new and may not last
2) WCG is happening now
In fact today is the WCG's BW finals, and Flash is in it after beating Jaedong.
I think Jaedong just couldn't recover after not practising as much for years while in the military (South Korea has their version of NS too and theirs definitely has to be pretty harsh compared to ours since they're technically still at war with North Korea.)
Anyway some of the BW pros may be too old to re-learn a new game, but who knows? The money is now in SC2 after all, so it may be incentive enough for them to try.
Prizes for BW in WCG are:
1st: $7,000 + Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ, Samsung Netbook
2nd: $3,000 + Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ
3rd: $1,000 + Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ
Really just a pittance compared to the insane 100mil KRW top prize. 100KRW is definitely more money to him than to most of us due to differences in costs of living.
If a Fruit Dealer wins a few more TG-Intel tournaments he'll be able to stop worrying about retirement and just work to support his daily life, assuming he invests his winnings intelligently. Maybe he can just inherit his family business and actually sell fruits without worries about the long-term financial consequences of that occupation.
I think I just found a really simple and good recipe.
Ingredients:
- 6 pieces of chicken breasts
- all the leaves from 1 stalk of sage
- salt and pepper (1 teaspoon of each should be enough)
- butter/margarine/oil, just enough to make the chicken breasts feel oily, maybe half a tablespoon (I used 2 packets of McDonald's margarine)
1) Chop sage leaves coarsely. I chopped them 2-3mm wide.
2) Mix butter/margarine/oil, the seasoning and the sage with the chicken breasts. Marination is optional but probably good.
3) Preheat oven to 100 degrees Celsius.
4) Meanwhile, pour the mix onto half of a large piece of aluminium foil and let it marinate for a min or two. Also, arrange the chicken breasts on the foil so that they don't cover each other and get undercooked.
5) Fold the foil over and seal the sides by folding them. Leave a small hole to allow excess steam to escape.
6) Bake for 20-25 minutes.
7) Serve immediately because once you open the foil, the hot chicken meat dries up very quickly.
Obviously this was derived from the other recipe I tried the other day involving sage, parma ham and chicken breasts. I found out that day that parma ham tastes 100X better raw so I left it out of my next try, resulting in this.
This is actually the same as cooking them in a claypot but I don't have one. It's just cooking chicken in a sealed casing to steam the meat in its own juices. This recipe is suitable for people who like plain chicken breasts. The sage doesn't cover the chicken's flavour, only enhances it.
Less sage could have been used, I believe, if the leaves were chopped more finely and the mix was left to marinate for a few hours. But I can only find sage in the form of packets that contain 3 stalks each at Cold Storage (S$1.95), hence this. I still have 1 stalk left and damn, this herb can stay fresh for a long time. The last time I had fresh basil in my fridge it wilted the next day.
When making lemon tea, never put the lemon slices into hot tea.
Oh wow a Microsoft employee gets caught for groping a girl on a train. Japan is a dangerous place for girls.
Watched Taken just now. At first I thought Liam Neeson's voice sounded familiar, then I remembered who he sounded like. For a moment it felt as if it was dubbed and that James was his voice actor.
Liam Neeson is the voice actor of James, the father of the protagonist in Fallout 3.
This is kind of worrying. The wealthy are buying gold by the ton. Both George Soros and Warren Buffett have warned that this may be a gold bubble but gold has a reputation for stability and is widely seen as a safety net.
So who's right? Is it still the best insurance or has it become the "ultimate bubble"? Because if it's the latter, the world economy has lost yet another pillar that supports it.
Saturday, 2 October 2010
Rant 634 / a Fruit Dealer Is Overpowered. Nerf Him Please.
Watching finals on both GOMTV and another stream now. The other stream is so packed (over 9k viewers atm) it's actually laggy. So I'm not watching it even though it's HQ and instead watching the free-of-charge SQ stream on GOMTV.
They actually interviewed their mothers before the game. Right is the actual GOM stream on SQ (low quality, free of charge) which is slower. That's a Fruit Dealer's mother in black (the elder Fruit Dealer) telling HopeTorture not to bother to try to beat her son. Also, notice there are already over 5k viewers before the games started.
Let the battle of the alpha nerds begin! Oh wait...
Got to show the prizes first. 100 mil Wons is supposedly 85k USD. Second prize is 25k USD according to the commentators.
...
Excellent first game. This time both went for long macro game where they turtle till they have huge armies.
HopeTorture made some mistakes, wasted some units on harassment that was not very effective. a Fruit Dealer won this first game.
I'm typing this in the 5min advertisement break, waiting for the second game.
The first game was exciting...
FUCK MY GOMPLAYER JUST CRASHED! WHAT THE FUCK?!
NOOO!! I CAN'T FIX IT! RESTARTING IS USELESS!!
No choice but to watch the spiky stream. At least it's on the premium HQ that some guy paid for. Nice guy. Don't want to get him banned or something since I think they don't allow people to re-stream their games, so I'm not going to mention names.
...
Over 9k viewers by the second game.
Second game. Missed quite a bit of the game trying to find a decent stream. a Fruit Dealer steamrolled over HopeTorture. Both sides did drops and both sides did make a few not-very-successful attacks but in the end, a Fruit Dealer dealt some serious fruits with his baneling drops on HopeTorture's main army of siege tanks, and together with his epic use of Roaches and Infestors, wiped out the Terran forces pretty quickly.
Another break now so I'm typing this.
Somehow a Fruit Dealer always wins without sticking to a certain strategy. He always does something different in every game and it doesn't feel like he's gambling despite using different strategies.
It's like he really does understand the game that well that he can switch to any strategy and adapt it according to the situation. Or come up with new ones on the spot. Who knows? In the first game he built a Greater Spire to trick HopeTorture into building anti-air units for nothing and wasted his resources. Was it planned or impromptu?
This is the stream I settled on. Only 5k viewers because this is the actual Korean stream with no English commentary from Tasteless and Artosis. The guy is playing Kpop videos during the break. Cool is another nick a Fruit Dealer used to use and Rainbow is short for IntotheRainbow which was the original nick for HopeTorture during his Brood War days.
...
Third game was short. a Fruit Dealer did a fast expand to the gold minerals north of his base, made an early Nydus Canal and successfully sent one Canal into HopeTorture's main and almost wiped out the main with Zerglings while covering the exit with a few Roaches. All the SCVs got wiped but the Command Center managed to fly to the mineral patch directly north that was blocked by destroyable rocks.
HopeTorture did spot the early expand and tried to kill it with an early siege tank/marine drop on the high ground next to the Hatchery but a Fruit Dealer spotted it with an Overlord (still called Overlord right?) and tried to kill the tank with Roaches. HopeTorture managed to save the team but was prevented from landing them to harass the Hatchery any further. Didn't even matter what his build was supposed to be because he did not kill the Nydus Canal in time.
In the end, HopeTorture could not save the situation even though his CC was protected by the rocks because a Fruit Dealer just sent his whole army to hit the rocks. There was nothing else to distract him after all. GG.
Notice a Fruit Dealer never used the same strategy in every game? He's the God of Zerg, without a doubt. At the moment anyway. A lot of Brood War pros haven't moved on to SC2 yet, so we may see some even better players in the future. Especially since no BW tournament offers this much money.
Needs best 4 out of 7 to win. 3 wins already, just 1 more to go. HopeTorture is going to need 4 straight wins to beat a Fruit Dealer.
...
Fourth game. Big stunner. HopeTorture wins. a Fruit Dealer tried to go for Hydralisks while HopeTorture still stuck to his siege tanks/marines/Thor army. I guess Hydralisks suck in SC2. Seriously, a Fruit Dealer's Hydralisk armies were practically useless.
Also HopeTorture's excellent control of his siege tanks really helped and killed a lot of the Banelings which otherwise would have really damaged his tanks.
But he is merely delaying the inevitable.
...
Wow! No break this time! Fifth game now!
...
Final game. a Fruit Dealer won as expected. HopeTorture actually made the first move by having a proxy rax near FD's base in the beginning, followed by Reapers! But it was spotted soon after and FD immediately built the Spawn Pool (he was trying to expand first) and the first 4 Zerglings spawned just when the Reaper killed the second Drone (I think). The Reaper almost died but escaped. More Reapers were built but they were held back by the Zerglings despite HopeTorture's formidable micro skills. Reaper + epic micro = holy crap. Still not enough against FD though. I believe they only killed 3 Drones.
Roaches came later and together with the Zerglings, killed the proxy raxes.
FD went for Muta after that but could not do much because HT had turrets everywhere plus a Thor in the expansion on the island between their mains.
Banelings and Infestors came after and Muta production was stopped, leaving only a small squad of about 9 Mutas for harassment. With a drop of a large force of Banelings and Zerglings, he overwhelmed that island's Thor (barely killed it with all the Banelings, shows FD really calculated the damage just right) and wiped out the rest with the 6 remaining Zerglings.
The CC in that expansion lifted and backup came in the form of Medivacs with marines and some other infantry, which cleaned up the Zerglings. FD tried to retaliate with this Muta squad but the marines prevented that from happening and HT continued to hold the island.
After that, it was just Banelings + Infestors + Zerglings all the way. Zerglings and Infestors left on the ground while Overlords lifted the Banelings (lots of them) right into the mass of siege tanks already in siege mode. That combo is FD's staple part of his armies now IMO.
Overlords charged first, and when they were almost onto the tanks, the Zerglings and Infestors arrived. This made the tanks attack the Zerglings while the Banelings exploded in their midst. Infestors, meanwhile, spread their green stuff (plague?) everywhere.
GG. Entire army of HT wiped right there.
I think when they find out a way to stop FD's Banelings, he'll be fucked. I notice he really depends on them a lot in every game. Btw this is just a noob's comment. Don't take my judgements seriously.
So... I heard Zergs are underpowered?
They actually interviewed their mothers before the game. Right is the actual GOM stream on SQ (low quality, free of charge) which is slower. That's a Fruit Dealer's mother in black (the elder Fruit Dealer) telling HopeTorture not to bother to try to beat her son. Also, notice there are already over 5k viewers before the games started.
Let the battle of the alpha nerds begin! Oh wait...
Got to show the prizes first. 100 mil Wons is supposedly 85k USD. Second prize is 25k USD according to the commentators.
...
Excellent first game. This time both went for long macro game where they turtle till they have huge armies.
HopeTorture made some mistakes, wasted some units on harassment that was not very effective. a Fruit Dealer won this first game.
I'm typing this in the 5min advertisement break, waiting for the second game.
The first game was exciting...
FUCK MY GOMPLAYER JUST CRASHED! WHAT THE FUCK?!
NOOO!! I CAN'T FIX IT! RESTARTING IS USELESS!!
No choice but to watch the spiky stream. At least it's on the premium HQ that some guy paid for. Nice guy. Don't want to get him banned or something since I think they don't allow people to re-stream their games, so I'm not going to mention names.
...
Over 9k viewers by the second game.
Second game. Missed quite a bit of the game trying to find a decent stream. a Fruit Dealer steamrolled over HopeTorture. Both sides did drops and both sides did make a few not-very-successful attacks but in the end, a Fruit Dealer dealt some serious fruits with his baneling drops on HopeTorture's main army of siege tanks, and together with his epic use of Roaches and Infestors, wiped out the Terran forces pretty quickly.
Another break now so I'm typing this.
Somehow a Fruit Dealer always wins without sticking to a certain strategy. He always does something different in every game and it doesn't feel like he's gambling despite using different strategies.
It's like he really does understand the game that well that he can switch to any strategy and adapt it according to the situation. Or come up with new ones on the spot. Who knows? In the first game he built a Greater Spire to trick HopeTorture into building anti-air units for nothing and wasted his resources. Was it planned or impromptu?
This is the stream I settled on. Only 5k viewers because this is the actual Korean stream with no English commentary from Tasteless and Artosis. The guy is playing Kpop videos during the break. Cool is another nick a Fruit Dealer used to use and Rainbow is short for IntotheRainbow which was the original nick for HopeTorture during his Brood War days....
Third game was short. a Fruit Dealer did a fast expand to the gold minerals north of his base, made an early Nydus Canal and successfully sent one Canal into HopeTorture's main and almost wiped out the main with Zerglings while covering the exit with a few Roaches. All the SCVs got wiped but the Command Center managed to fly to the mineral patch directly north that was blocked by destroyable rocks.
HopeTorture did spot the early expand and tried to kill it with an early siege tank/marine drop on the high ground next to the Hatchery but a Fruit Dealer spotted it with an Overlord (still called Overlord right?) and tried to kill the tank with Roaches. HopeTorture managed to save the team but was prevented from landing them to harass the Hatchery any further. Didn't even matter what his build was supposed to be because he did not kill the Nydus Canal in time.
In the end, HopeTorture could not save the situation even though his CC was protected by the rocks because a Fruit Dealer just sent his whole army to hit the rocks. There was nothing else to distract him after all. GG.
Notice a Fruit Dealer never used the same strategy in every game? He's the God of Zerg, without a doubt. At the moment anyway. A lot of Brood War pros haven't moved on to SC2 yet, so we may see some even better players in the future. Especially since no BW tournament offers this much money.
Needs best 4 out of 7 to win. 3 wins already, just 1 more to go. HopeTorture is going to need 4 straight wins to beat a Fruit Dealer....
Fourth game. Big stunner. HopeTorture wins. a Fruit Dealer tried to go for Hydralisks while HopeTorture still stuck to his siege tanks/marines/Thor army. I guess Hydralisks suck in SC2. Seriously, a Fruit Dealer's Hydralisk armies were practically useless.
Also HopeTorture's excellent control of his siege tanks really helped and killed a lot of the Banelings which otherwise would have really damaged his tanks.
But he is merely delaying the inevitable.
...
Wow! No break this time! Fifth game now!
...
Final game. a Fruit Dealer won as expected. HopeTorture actually made the first move by having a proxy rax near FD's base in the beginning, followed by Reapers! But it was spotted soon after and FD immediately built the Spawn Pool (he was trying to expand first) and the first 4 Zerglings spawned just when the Reaper killed the second Drone (I think). The Reaper almost died but escaped. More Reapers were built but they were held back by the Zerglings despite HopeTorture's formidable micro skills. Reaper + epic micro = holy crap. Still not enough against FD though. I believe they only killed 3 Drones.
Roaches came later and together with the Zerglings, killed the proxy raxes.
FD went for Muta after that but could not do much because HT had turrets everywhere plus a Thor in the expansion on the island between their mains.
Banelings and Infestors came after and Muta production was stopped, leaving only a small squad of about 9 Mutas for harassment. With a drop of a large force of Banelings and Zerglings, he overwhelmed that island's Thor (barely killed it with all the Banelings, shows FD really calculated the damage just right) and wiped out the rest with the 6 remaining Zerglings.
The CC in that expansion lifted and backup came in the form of Medivacs with marines and some other infantry, which cleaned up the Zerglings. FD tried to retaliate with this Muta squad but the marines prevented that from happening and HT continued to hold the island.
After that, it was just Banelings + Infestors + Zerglings all the way. Zerglings and Infestors left on the ground while Overlords lifted the Banelings (lots of them) right into the mass of siege tanks already in siege mode. That combo is FD's staple part of his armies now IMO.
Overlords charged first, and when they were almost onto the tanks, the Zerglings and Infestors arrived. This made the tanks attack the Zerglings while the Banelings exploded in their midst. Infestors, meanwhile, spread their green stuff (plague?) everywhere.
GG. Entire army of HT wiped right there.
I think when they find out a way to stop FD's Banelings, he'll be fucked. I notice he really depends on them a lot in every game. Btw this is just a noob's comment. Don't take my judgements seriously.
So... I heard Zergs are underpowered?
Friday, 1 October 2010
Rant 633 / Virtual Traffic
The Managing Personal Finances assignment was hard. I never thought calculating CPF contributions and tax rebates could be so complicated. Accountants must probably be trained to have huge mental spreadsheets to contain all the details and categories. And I'm not even going to describe what you need to do to calculate your required retirement funds. All the math it involves, I left Mech Engineering to escape that shit.
Seriously, I liked doing the Chinese Linguistics assignment yesterday more than this today.
This particular assignment took me eleven hours to complete, though the first three were spent figuring out the first question because I had forgotten completely what was taught in the lecture covering that topic.
The reason why it's so hard is because it is basically my exam since it covers 70% of my final grade of this module. My lecturer has guaranteed that everyone will pass, but merely passing isn't exactly my goal.
I had to miss my Chinese Linguistics class today because this assignment was unexpectedly hard. I could finish all my assignments in 3-4 hours, so I thought 8 would be more than enough. When I hit 6 hours and found myself only halfway through the paper, I realized I was fucked. Of course, I was also only barely awake for an hour or so in the beginning, but that's only 90mins at most.
Another unexpected thing is that I actually realized I wanted to go for the Chinese Linguistics class. It is entirely possible I may be insane now.
Anyway I'm still worried about the Chinese exam. I relied so much on my dictionary yesterday and I cannot bring one to the exam. The only way I can improve the situation is to do better in my assignments since, together, they cover 50% of the total grade. It's still not easy even with my dictionary though.
Also changed my music player because I thought the Youtube videos looked too bulky. Got the player from XL's blog but obviously didn't pick the same player skin. Furthermore, I removed some of the HTML (by guesswork) to get rid of the links and ads which were supposed to appear at the bottom.
Added a few older tracks. Seems that all the tracks found on the website for this player are from Youtube, but the skin I picked does not display the video.
Been checking my traffic recently. Apparently some of you go through Vic's blog to find this blog. Traffic from his blog spiked a bit in the last 48 hours. His blog is probably the search engine for the BC's blogs. Well, except Ivan's since his blog isn't his. More like hers.
Strangely, I'm also getting traffic from Facebook and some German game website although I have no idea how they got directed to my blog. I couldn't find any links to my blog, so the people from Facebook probably somehow got the link by searching through the web results.
Another trend is that people are getting to this blog by searching words like "fruit dealer". I didn't know people would visit blogs to read about him. I thought they can easily find out more from Liquipedia II, which is a wiki for Starcraft II.
And as usual, Zalgo tops the view count ranks. Does it ever die?
Installed Uncharted Waters Online. Servers have been up since this afternoon, so I'll try it later. Should be good. Not much hype about it though. Still, I'm a UW fan so I'll play it for a while at least.
But the final match between a Fruit Dealer and HopeTorture is about to begin later this evening (4am atm)! Can't wait!
EDIT: I left to take a piss after publishing this rant and when I came back, there had been 2 views for this very rant. That means someone or 2 individuals clicked on this rant's title to read it specifically within the last 3mins. Frankly I'm surprised and a little shocked.
Seriously, I liked doing the Chinese Linguistics assignment yesterday more than this today.
This particular assignment took me eleven hours to complete, though the first three were spent figuring out the first question because I had forgotten completely what was taught in the lecture covering that topic.
The reason why it's so hard is because it is basically my exam since it covers 70% of my final grade of this module. My lecturer has guaranteed that everyone will pass, but merely passing isn't exactly my goal.
I had to miss my Chinese Linguistics class today because this assignment was unexpectedly hard. I could finish all my assignments in 3-4 hours, so I thought 8 would be more than enough. When I hit 6 hours and found myself only halfway through the paper, I realized I was fucked. Of course, I was also only barely awake for an hour or so in the beginning, but that's only 90mins at most.
Another unexpected thing is that I actually realized I wanted to go for the Chinese Linguistics class. It is entirely possible I may be insane now.
Anyway I'm still worried about the Chinese exam. I relied so much on my dictionary yesterday and I cannot bring one to the exam. The only way I can improve the situation is to do better in my assignments since, together, they cover 50% of the total grade. It's still not easy even with my dictionary though.
Also changed my music player because I thought the Youtube videos looked too bulky. Got the player from XL's blog but obviously didn't pick the same player skin. Furthermore, I removed some of the HTML (by guesswork) to get rid of the links and ads which were supposed to appear at the bottom.
Added a few older tracks. Seems that all the tracks found on the website for this player are from Youtube, but the skin I picked does not display the video.
Been checking my traffic recently. Apparently some of you go through Vic's blog to find this blog. Traffic from his blog spiked a bit in the last 48 hours. His blog is probably the search engine for the BC's blogs. Well, except Ivan's since his blog isn't his. More like hers.
Strangely, I'm also getting traffic from Facebook and some German game website although I have no idea how they got directed to my blog. I couldn't find any links to my blog, so the people from Facebook probably somehow got the link by searching through the web results.
Another trend is that people are getting to this blog by searching words like "fruit dealer". I didn't know people would visit blogs to read about him. I thought they can easily find out more from Liquipedia II, which is a wiki for Starcraft II.
And as usual, Zalgo tops the view count ranks. Does it ever die?
Installed Uncharted Waters Online. Servers have been up since this afternoon, so I'll try it later. Should be good. Not much hype about it though. Still, I'm a UW fan so I'll play it for a while at least.
But the final match between a Fruit Dealer and HopeTorture is about to begin later this evening (4am atm)! Can't wait!
EDIT: I left to take a piss after publishing this rant and when I came back, there had been 2 views for this very rant. That means someone or 2 individuals clicked on this rant's title to read it specifically within the last 3mins. Frankly I'm surprised and a little shocked.
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