Rant 396 / Scant

The Phantom of the Opera Overture. Did I ever post it here?












Just a few days of not visiting 4chan and suddenly, more internet drama!

According to the 4chan status blog, 4chan was temporarily blocked by AT&T, a well-known ISP in the US. For some time, AT&T users couldn't access 4chan, leading to confusion, frustration and eventually to the point of the users contemplating a full-scale DDOS attack (among other things) on the ISP.

Such an attack would have been nothing short of catastrophic for both clients and service provider. Fortunately AT&T removed the block before the volcano erupted to full force, to the relief of everyone matured enough to understand the consequences.

However, 4chan is still under the unending DDOS attack, believed by many 4chan users to be made by a rival forum's userbase. Now the underground war continues on the Internet...

Copypasta explanation by the hackers:










Tried Lady Grey tea for the first time. It's similar to Earl Grey tea, except with a stronger citrus smell and flavour. More fruity, which is due to the addition of lemon oil and orange oil from another type of orange. Earl Grey has only oil from the rind of bergamot, a type of orange, giving it a distinct flavour that I'd never associated with fruits until recently. Lady Grey was extremely obvious.

Personally I find that it's one of the few Western teas that aren't compatible with milk. Instead, it tastes much better with just a little sugar (I use a packet of sugar for a mug of this tea). Milk almost nullifies the fruity flavour, though it makes it smoother in the process. Sugar on the other hand, enhances it.








My Rogue is now lv47! 3 more levels to max and I've received a few invitations from some guilds. So far I've rejected them all.

The more they ask, the less likely I would join. The worst are those who use the game's invitation system to invite me before they even speak to me. Inviting indiscriminately only shows how low their standards are and implies what sort of members they have.

Rant 395 / Spin

They're going to make a movie out of WoW. Why am I not surprised? Why am I so excited by the news? =D








Bin Laden son... isn't that bin bin Laden? Or bin Osama? As in Sa'ad bin Osama? Why Sa'ad bin Laden? It sounds like a very confusing incestuous story here (I know, all incest stories are confusing), where Osama and Sa'ad are both from the same father, except Sa'ad's father is also Osama. Wait I'm getting confused here. THIS ISN'T MAKING ANY SENSE!

Seriously, those Americunts...










Really, I have no idea how fantastic those parents have to be to raise such unhappy children. That these kids would insult me for helping newbies kill boss monsters is something quite beyond my comprehension.

You see, for the past 2 days, I've been going to the 2 low-level zones to help the lowbies kill bosses that they would otherwise have to form groups for. On the first night, I was unable to sleep so I played on to 6am. Between 3-6am I was doing nothing but killing low-level bosses for them. It was easy and my level 41 Rogue/39 Priest was practically impervious to anything in those 2 regions.

Then while I was asking in Zone Chat if anyone needed help, one person described me as annoying. That really annoyed me. In fact, I was quite ready to leave before I noticed that it was just that bitter little antisocial nerd saying that. And here, "antisocial" is being used quite appropriately to mean that not only does he have difficulty making friends (unless by friends you mean other antisocial nerds) but also, he repels other people quite naturally.

Well, it didn't stop me from going on because he didn't say anything after that. I pity people like him though. I mean, you'd have to be very unhappy to do things like that.

On the second night, I slept from 5 to 5. 5pm to 5am. Went back to do the same thing and again, one person taunted me again for what I did.

This time, this guy whispered (aka sent private message) to me about wanting to take my furnitures (they give experience bonus in this game). At first I thought it was a very new newbie, then when he repeated his request I realized he was just mocking me. For his second and third messages, I just replied with "lol". Let him figure out what that means, because I don't know. =P











Jaedong LOST! Well, at least it was at the Round of 8, unlike previous seasons. Still, he's NOT supposed to lose the way that he did in the second round versus Effort. Losing to a lousy Zergling rush, of all things! His Spawning Pool wasn't even up when the attack came. That was incredibly bad.

On the other hand, Flash was simply amazing in his match against July in the Round of 4. He was outnumbered and out-expanded in one round and still managed to win. Simply put, July was outclassed. I think Flash is the clear winner of this season, which isn't surprising since he was at 2nd place last season when he lost to Bisu at the final match.

Also, Flash's match against Shuttle was epic. For the first game, in Tasteless words, "This game is more awesome than a Tyrannosaurus Rex flying a jet." The balance of the game was like a see-saw throughout, swinging to and fro between the two players until eventually one of them conceded, though it wasn't because his base was about to be destroyed.

I was hoping for an epic Jaedong vs Flash match in the finals, but... oh well, too bad.

And in the Round of 8, the match between Berserker vs Tempest was pretty good too. The first game was particularly outstanding because Berserker won despite Tempest having the upper hand for most of that round. In fact for most of the game till near the end, I expected Berserker to lose. It was an amazing comeback, also partially aided by Tempest's complete lack of any Templars (which is widely considered a necessity in any long games)

The third game was disappointing though.

Btw Blizzard is joining in as a sponsor for this tournament, which already has the largest prize in Korea. As shown below, the total prize money was increased from 52k USD to 92k USD. Blizzard alone practically doubled the total prizes!


Also, the top prize was raised from US$32k to US$40k!!


Here's the explanation about the "Accumulated Total Money Received":

Anyone who gets into the Round of 16 automatically gets $2000 (thanks to Blizzard). Those among these 16 who win their way into the top 4 places get that $2000 and an extra $3000 just for entering the Round of 4 (thanks to Blizzard again). The 2 losers of the Round of 4, aka the 3rd and 4th place winners receive another $8000 for losing at this stage.

The 2nd prize winner gets his US$15k in addition to the previous $5k while the champion gets US$40k instead of US$15k. Hence,

Total top prize = $45,000 (previously only $32,000)
Runner-up prize = $20,000 (previously only $12,000)
3rd and 4th prize = $12,000 each
5th-16th = $2000 each

About the $2000 + $3000 + $8000 = $12,000, it's not an error. All the numbers are actually converted from the Korean Won into the US Dollar so that the international community can understand it more easily, therefore they're all estimates.

Basically Blizzard is sponsoring all the consolation prizes and not actually encouraging the top winners. What I think it means is that instead of supporting elitism among the best players, it's trying to encourage new players to try to get into the tournament. Even if they don't get to the top, they can still win some money if they don't suck.

In my opinion, anyone who gets into the Round of 16 qualifies as a "good player" already. I mean, you have to remember it started from the Round of 128. The top 16 is also the top 12.5% (aka top eighth) of all the contestants (all of whom are professional players) in this tournament.








The Onion News Network has been sold to the Chinese... or so the story goes. Now all the stories are written in an obviously biased way. Even the latest video was made with the American sterotype of the Chinese in mind.







How undereducated we are about AIDS! Or at least, me. Remember the rant about the taxi driver who hated/feared homosexuals because of HIV and his example of how others could get infect if his saliva lands on your belongings?

This is nonsense.

In order to infect a human, there needs to be a significant quantity of the virus entering the body. Saliva can contain the virus, but it is in such tiny amounts that even if you kiss mouth-to-mouth with a person with it, you cannot be infected.

In this scenario, the uninfected person would have to have open wounds in the mouth or seriously bleeding gums to get enough of the virus. In such a situation, why would that person kiss anyone in the first place?

Same with sneezing or swimming in the same pool. The incredibly tiny dose in saliva is practically negligible, ie it's close to impossible for HIV+ saliva to infect healthy people. Hence even if a HIV+ person sneezes towards your face, it is highly unlikely that you'll get the virus.

Blood on the other hand is a very good source of the virus, so if that person is coughing/sneezing blood, it is advisable to take certain precautions.

There was a story of an American child born HIV+ who was banned from his local swimming pool when the town learnt of his condition. Eventually this story caused outrage on 4chan, where members turned it into a meme.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Pool%27s_Closed

In the middle of the above page is the story behind the meme, Pool's Closed Due To AIDS, that turned into the Great Habbo Raid of 2006 in which certain bored people (except me) made Habbo characters that are black, wearing black suits and sporting Afros blocking the way to swimming pools, all the while repeating the meme.


I like their causes; I just dislike their methods.









Finally reached Ravenfell, the highest level zone in Runes of Magic. It's definitely more colourful than Dust Devil Canyon where I had been leveling at between lv39-44. Now I can safely say my character has a high level.

Joined a raid group to kill the Binpikes at Ystra just now. A raid group is an enlarged group that can contain up to 6 normal groups which consist of 6 players max. The raid was a failure.

The Binpike brothers are two lvl 50 Epic bosses (Epic refers to its status which is superior to normal bosses) that are insanely huge and incredibly strong, and meant to be fought one by one. Once the battle begins, everyone in the raid gets damaged every 2 seconds, the damage depending on the personal stats. For me, I took 282 damage per tick (while my Regeneration spell only healed 220 hp every 2 second). Meanwhile the main tank would try to get all the agro while all the healers just concentrate on healing him.

To even have a chance of surviving the fight, the main tank must have at least 10k hp and everyone in the raid group must be at least lv45 (I'm lv46). It wasn't easy but we managed to find one such tank. This is necessary because there have been accounts of tanks being hit for 10k damage. The average lv50 tank with no very special gear only has 4-6k hp.

In the end the 24-man group still couldn't do it. All I got from the run was 90k exp debt from the deaths. =(

Rant 394 / Back

Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) has recently launched a free-to-play (ftp) server on a trial basis, aka closed beta. I've just tried the game, but after reading some of the conversations in the game, I learnt that everything in this beta will be wiped after it ends in early August, except for any stuff bought with cash.

So now I've lost interest in this game. I will probably try the game again after the beta, but for now I'll just leave the game in my computer to rot.

The graphics are pretty old, comparable to Morrowind's. Much better, but it somehow resemble Morrowind's more than, say, Neverwinter Nights 2.

So now I'm going back to Runes of Magic.













In the future, everyone would eat yeast and mushrooms. Why yeast? Because they grow everywhere, even in vaginas. Why mushrooms? Because they can grow in anything, even in dung.

Though food scarcity is going to motivate scientists to make more advances in food technologies, each acre of land can only contain so much nutrition. Even if they can create a miraculous crop that practically sucks the life out of the land and produce obscenely huge harvests in the process, they are still going to need a lot of fertilizers.

Even now, various farming methods have been found to be destroying the land and making it less arable. In response to this, we have to create even more farmland by deforestation. In this month's Nat Geo magazine, an article describes how farmers in some parts of the world are suffering from an increasing rate of cancer due to the heavy use of chemicals and fertilizers. Even if they don't eat their own crops, they still have to drink from the same river that washes away excess pesticides, herbicides and etc.

At worst, Soylent Green will become an instructional manual instead of just a sci-fi novel. In the world of Soylent Green, only the wealthiest can afford real food and frozen beef is a delicacy even for them. If you didn't read the book, you can always download the movie (download because I'm quite sure there isn't a CD or DVD commercially available today). The part where the detective and his father ate the small cut of beef and a few sticks of vegetables like they were caviar is something that I can't forget.

Or else, if medical technologies allow, people can also inject nutrients into themselves instead of eat. Lunchtime? Where's my food syringe? Lives would be so much more efficient. Everyone would have their stomaches surgically reduced, if not removed, so that they could swallow a few crackers to feel full and rely on the nutrient injections to survive. No on would ever get fat. Tooth aches? Don't need them, so pull them out and give me dentures. Mealtimes would be obsolete because injections only take seconds. No more junk food and all the bad cholestrol and trans-fats.

Best of all, farms would be much reduced to grow only certain crops to extract different nutrients.












Some guy who doesn't seem very familiar with the Internet thinks he can sue it. A certain business owner found out an unhappy customer was describing his troubles with his company and got seriously pissed.

Basically, this was what happened:

1) Dude orders a monitor from the company on Ebay.

2) After 2 weeks, he still hasn't received a tracking number despite numerous ignored/dodged phone calls to the company. Actual description from the since-deleted post:

Some guy answers and I calmly ask him why my e-mail hasn't been replied to, to which he replies that he shouldn't even be speaking to me and if his boss finds out he was talking on the phone to a customer about an eBay purchase he'd get fired. So okay, I just tell him I'll send another e-mail in case it got sent to their spam box. He tells me not to do that, and to cut him a break, they can only do so much work in an 8 hour day and they were on vacation so they're still catching up.


3) Customer gets very frustrated. He emails the company using understandably foul language in response to the poor service he is getting.

4) Company owner sees this as harassment. He demands an apology and threatens him with lawsuits just because of the expletives included in the email. Actual email:

You need to immediatley [sic] apologize for the unacceptable name you called us. We can and will delay this refund as long as possible and report you for written harassment for you use of the expletivie, which is completely unacceptable.

I told you we would look at this. Things happen and we were on vacation. You gave less than 24 hours to respond. That's not enough time.

AGAIN - APOLOGY DEMANDED IMMEDIATELY. I have 3 attorneys in my family and would be happy to show your email to them as well as the authorities for harassing, threatning and offensive language.

5) Customer sees no other way out, gives a meek apology and whines at SomethingAwful.com. Consequently, this story spreads to digg.com and 4chan /b/, causing a major wave of unity as lots of bored forum users overcome their differences to harass and slander him together.

6) Company owner forks out 10USD or so to register an account at SomethingAwful.com and posts replies filled with outrage and raving madness. Meanwhile, another person does the same at /b/ claiming to be him (it might really have been him, but no one can confirm that). Normally, such complaints on the net are ignored, but because the owner actually took the shit so seriously, everyone else got serious too.

7) Company owner, overwhelmed by the power of anonymous unity, goes to his local police station to file a report. The police tells the customer not to contact the owner anymore, which is normal in such situations in which either it isn't clear whether a crime has been commited, or the crime is very insignificant compared to the amount of work required to investigate.

8) Company owner thinks this means the police is siding with him and believes that he was right all along. He also appears to believe that the police is willing and capable of tracking down every single bored basement-dwelling retard who slandered him online anonymously.

9) And yes, he sued SomethingAwful.com. =/



A SA user actually called him to record the entire conversation as a joke. I found the phone call hilarious in that the guy actually believed the retards would actually kill him and rape his mother.

Subsequently this user was banned for posting this file at SA.

By now, the harassment has been going on for a while. This is what has been done so far (copypasta from ED):

1. Constant phone calls to his home, cell, and place of business.
2. Black Fax copies that have successfully murdered his home and business fax ink.
3. The shutting down of his personal website.
4. The Provider of his website being shut down.
5. Misc. Porn mags delivered to his home.
6. Dead animals being thrown at his house.
7. Male strippers being ordered to his home.
8. His Myspace account being hacked.
9. Local pizza parlors delivering unwanted pizzas constantly.
10. At least 25,000 UPS boxes ordered to his home and place of business for the next 4-12 weeks.
11. 2000 sq ft of maple hardwood samples sent to his home.
12. Condoms & Lube delivered for the next 4 - 6 weeks.
13. Bibles and Korans delivered to his house as well as Jehovas Witnesses scheduled to come by his office.
14. Various free samples/products/literature/brochures sent to his home.
15. Year-long subscriptions to Gay Newsletters.
16. Constant harassment and billing charges due to excessive cell phone messages.

FYI, "black fax" is a method of harassment. It makes the fax machine print completely dark pages, wasting ink, electricity and paper.

If he had ignored all the initial bs, nothing would have happened. On the net, the best reaction is always no reaction. Any reaction, good or bad, would spread the story.

Internet drama is always funny, as long as I'm not involved.


Also, from the ED page, I found his company services to be, to put it in a mild manner, eye-popping.

Here are some of his services, and what he charges:

• Virus OR Spyware Removal - $199.00 - Includes removal of either viruses or spyware from your computer. If your computer is infected with both, there will be an additional charge of $49.00. Operating System Updates are included at no extra change. On-going Virus/Spyware protection software NOT INCLUDED.

• Wireless Network Configuration - $149.00 - Includes setting up your wireless router/access point, configuring wireless security, and enabling file and print sharing on up to 2 computers. Additional computers are $49.00 each. Hardware/Software NOT INCLUDED.

• Software Installation - $99.00 - Includes installing software to one computer, testing, and applying updates if necessary. Additional computers are $49.00/each. Hardware/Software NOT INCLUDED.

My eyes popped. Your eyes should too. For 200USD the company removes viruses and spywares from your computer. TWO HUNDRED! US$250 if they have to remove both types. Seriously, half an hour of googling would solve any virus/spyware problems. I'm surprised they don't charge for OS updates. Why the hell not??

US$150 for network configuration for up to 2 computers. Extra US$50 for each additional PC. Shit, what have I been doing? I should be getting out there and making myself filthy rich!

The best of the 3: 100 bucks for software installation. Like the step-by-step instructions in any retail software isn't clear enough. That someone would pay US$100 for someone to click "OK" and "Finish" is quite amazing in this day and age.









So after a day or so of selling my 1.6m gold for diamonds in RoM, I've finally saved up 193 diamonds in total (the game company sells 200 diamonds for $9.49 T.T). 33 from selling gold before I first left the game, 20 from the recent event that gave 20 diamonds on each server that contains a character lvl 10 or more belonging to me, and 140 from selling my gold at 12k gold per diamond.

Unfortunately I'm still short of 6 diamonds and missed the weekend sale in which 3 really nice mounts that usually sells for 395 diamonds were sold at 199 diamonds. Oh well, that means I'm going to have to wait for the next sale, whenever that may be. No way am I going to buy with diamonds anything that isn't on sale.

Rant 393 / BRB

It is amazing how I'm reaching the 400th rant despite having an abysmal readership. I've seen many blogs that died way before that. They say that persistence will eventually lead to success and I'm here to prove that wrong.

Within another 4 years I should be hitting my 1000th rant. My prediction is simple: this blog will not receive regular comments and responses even by then.

My blog is the pinnacle of obscurity, a webpage that exists and is not going to end in the foreseeable future but will remain unknown throughout its existence. It is exactly like the hermit living the depths of the Amazon jungle - is there one?

So while I sip this foamy watered-down coffee-of-some-unknown-variety from McCafe, trying to phrase my words in a less Singlish way, I do it knowing that typing secrets here is only slightly less safe than announcing it on 4chan /b/.

To prove it, I'll type my credit card number right here:

Just kidding. I don't have a credit card. Don't need one.

Rant 392 / Derp

A simulated Mars mission.

But since the experiment was based in a Moscow suburb, the participants did not experience zero gravity, ate controlled quantities of normal food - not the toothpaste-style tubes used in space - and knew they could leave in an emergency.
Kinda pointless, isn't it? In a real mission, they're going to know, throughout the long journey, that if something goes horribly wrong no one can save them. This knowledge is going to be a major issue that must affect their mental states.

This is like trying to get a feel of what it's like to swim in the ocean by going to a swimming pool.














During a recent conversation between some server admins and other players about the swastika, I learnt that this symbol had a very long history of being something peaceful in Europe. In fact, it was once popular as a good luck charm. In Finland, its military air force used to have the swastika as its logo, which explains why the profile picture of one of the Finnish players contains it.

Many people thought he was some sort of Neo-Nazi and other players had to explain to the "Americunts" (and unknowingly to an Asian) about it.

The swastika's image was ruined by the Hitler's Nazi Party when they used it as their symbol. Today, swastika = Nazi to most people, including me before they explained it. Even though many Finnish people know its history (the Germanic and Finnish people have been using it since pre-Christian times when it was used in their pagan religions), the Finnish air force still changed its logo, probably to avoid having ignorant people from misunderstanding it.










If you're an MS Office user, beware. Hackers love to attack popular stuff, so it isn't surprising at all.


I love these anti-Mac pics.

Rant 391 / "Pass Motion" Is An Asian Term

New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time












I have never tried to kill one of those giant worm things in Mass Effect with a sniper rifle. Until today, that is. I was toying with it by trimming its HP down to a pixel's width with my Mako's machine gun while dodging its attacks when I decided to try it. I've always noticed how I gain much more experience and loot if I kill certain things with my guns instead of the tank's, but I didn't know what I would get if I do the same with the giant worms.

So when I got it down to the barest minimum HP, I tried to trim it even more by tapping my mouse button to shoot a little more with my tank's machine gun. This was because I thought my rifle couldn't kill it with a single shot even if it still had a pixel's width of HP. Miraculously, it was still alive when I just managed to get it's health bar to nothing. Yep, no red colour left but still alive. I smiled and got out of my tank immediately after dodging the next shot.

1 shot, 1 kill.

Reward: 7000 credits and 862 exp.

You don't get that killing it with a tank. From now on, my tank kills absolutely nothing. I've already been killing Geth Armatures and etc with my sniping skills. Now, even these worms will die by my rifle bullets.

In case you don't know, you can trim the enemies' HP with your tank's cannon at first, then machine gun when it's going to be killed by one more cannon shot. Most enemies are ready to be killed by a single shot when they have a pixel's width of HP left.

Actually, killing everything with my rifle is the only way I can keep a full inventory of grenades. I use a lot of grenades in difficult situations and they can't be bought from stores. Only by killing tough enemies do I get them. In addition, I get extra loots too.

Update: Woot! Did it again and got 11000 credits and 1000 exp this time!








I have to admit, I suck at shooting in FPS. It's hard to deny it when the recorded stats are there. I can barely push my k/d rate above 0.7, even though my headshot rate has risen to almost 0.1 per kill.













Obama spends more money in a desperate attempt to appease the general public as the unemployment rate in the US rise to 9.5% in June and showing no signs of stopping in July. 787 billion USD can't be anything but desperation.

10% unemployment rate. Every one in ten people. This isn't a recession; it's looking more like a breakdown. Their economy doesn't need more fuel, but a major overhaul.








Now they say Dick Cheney had a secret programme after the 9/11 incident that he didn't disclose even to his Congress. Oh yes, they claim it was cancelled before it even got started, but somehow I doubt that. If they had lied about this programme's existence since 2001, I don't see how lying about its status is beyond anyone involved.

It is still a secret programme, so no details of it can be found in the Reuters report.

Cheney is a Republican and Republicans are supposed to be more "conservative" and religious. Despite that Democrats are supposed to be the "liberal" ones, here we have Obama stopping the tortures on terrorist suspects that Cheney supported.

I guess a conservative person these days means the sort who doesn't want to stop the interrogation practices of the last 2 world wars, and being religious doesn't stop anyone from supporting torture.












Was playing Natural Selection when I accidentally stepped on something soft. While it's totally normal for me to shift my feet while gaming, it is totally abnormal for me to step on something squishy. My room is clean enough not to have ants, which have already infested my kitchen and part of the living room (and for some reason, invading my bathroom). I show no mercy when I see them - in my bathroom, I wash every single ant I see away with my shower head; in the kitchen I burn them up using the lighter aka mini-flamethrower.

Anyway, the moment I stepped on it and felt its softness, I looked under the desk right away, expecting to see a trace of food that I had somehow managed to leave under there. No, it was a bug. In the darkness of my desk's silhouette, it was a long (about 2cm) grey bug.

I stood up right away and turned on the lights to get a better view of it. It was not grey, but glossy green. Long, glossy green... dragonfly!

To make a long story short, I captured it with a clear plastic microwave-safe container. I tried to identify it but my Entomologist skill is only at Level One due to my character's City Dweller build. The best idea I could come up with was that it was not a spider and was probably a dragonfly.

6 legs, segmented body with 3 parts, 2 long antennae that can curl, glossy green body, 3mm-long curved pincers and 2 small wings. It had lost 2 left legs, so it is also likely it had started life with 4 wings and lost 2 of the larger ones.

It doesn't seem to be able to fly, which supports my theory that it had more wings originally, but it is also quite likely it is too weak to fly. The latter might have been caused by the same incident that took its legs or by my foot. Either way, I had to search for it on Google.

Googling "singapore dragonflies" gave me one website that had a very limited gallery of local dragonflies. I then used words like green, insect, wings, glossy, long and asian in various combinations, only to end up with vague ideas of what it is.

First, it was no dragonfly. Dragonflies have long thin bodies and huge wings. Second, it was very likely to be a wasp. It still gives me goosebumps now to think I had accidentally stepped on a fucking wasp with my bare foot. Seriously, even if it didn't have that sting, the pincers are still pretty scary.

I tried to take some photos of it to ask experts to identify, but now I'm quite sure it's a wasp. I know it's racism, but now that I know it's a wasp, I don't care what type of wasp it is. Of the 20 shots I took, only this photo is clear.

It's so glossy and not very dangerous-looking from the top, but from the bottom the pincers are visible. I'm surprised it didn't use it on my foot. It was probably very frightened by my presence, but not scared enough to bite.


I'm not quite sure what to do with it. It's going to die whether I throw it out or leave it here to starve. Upon closer inspection, I managed to observe its sting while it passed motion. Not exactly a comforting sight, seeing the 1mm long and, frankly, very sharp-looking thing poking out of its ass.

I'm going to throw it into the rubbish chute tomorrow.

Rant 390 / This Is Sewious!

I wonder if most laptop users know that there is a combination of keys that switches off their monitors. For my Acer laptop it is Fn+F6 while my bro's ASUS laptop uses Fn+F7. Doesn't matter how many watts the laptop monitor consumes because there is absolutely no reason to leave it on when you're not around. At least for the lights, you can leave them on because you dislike the dark.









How does one dispose of one's dead pet cat when it dies of old age? I heard cat meat is even more tender than venison, but the meat from an old cat might be tougher. This can probably be solved by slow cooking it in garlic, beer and cream soup.

I've no idea why there are people who find eating cats and dogs revolting. No one finds hare meat disgusting though.

Nor ducks.

Makes no sense!










http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE56901O20090710

The survey found nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84 percent of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that.


I bet the two thirds of the American public believes that God made the Earth in seven days. As for global warming, it is possible that this is not solely Man's fault. Global warming has occurred many times in Earth's history and this is just one of the worst instances. I mean, it's like I get flu dozens of times in my entire life, but if one of these turns into pneumonia, I can't say that it is definitely because some will or force worsened the flu. For all I know it can be because this strain of flu is particularly lethal or drug-resistant, something entirely natural and random.

What I'm sure of is that it is happening and we have to find ways to deal with it. Doing stuff to stop it merely soothes our conscience (for those who blame humanity for it) and gives us a sense of security. So what if it can be stopped? Can you imagine the momentum it took to bring the atmosphere to what it is today? All the devotion our forefathers had in supporting and spreading the use of fossil fuels ever since the Industrial Revolution in Britain must have amounted to something that cannot be stopped in our lifetime.

Hence, I don't agree with putting all our efforts into stopping it. This is not sustainable. Changing temperatures and climates = less food as sensitive crops are unable to adapt. Food is the foundation of all civilization. Less food = less money. Less money = less interest in stopping global warming.

My conclusion is that part of the world's resources needs to be put into finding a way to increase food supplies, either by genetic modifications to produce incredibly weather-resistant crops or by making the world waste less food.

While I'm ranting on food I might as well touch on another food-related topic. I find it quite incredible that a lot of people cannot eat good food while tonnes of expired food are thrown into trash bins daily. It's like society would rather throw these food than give it to them.

When I was in the army my platoon used to have a lot of extra food because the officer in charge thought that this was "welfare". He'd always order rations for 1-2 more people than we had. Due to our lack of manpower we could not have our meals at the mess hall, so we had to send one guy to bring the food to us. In addition, we'd have to take turns to eat. This means by the 2nd guy's turn, all the food (usually rice) would have become soggy and cold.

Cold food wasn't a problem because we had a microwave oven, but no one liked to eat fried chicken and potato wedges soaked in condensed water from the cooling rice. The solution we had was to go the another canteen, during each of our turn, to buy our own food. We still had to bring the rations to us because apparently (and theoretically) all soldiers must eat rations provided by the government.

So all the cold rations would be left in our rest lounge where it was placed on the table and ignored until it was time to take out the trash. This changed after one of the janitors learnt of it. Everyday she would take our rations and bring it to the janitor's rest lounge. At first we came to the same conclusion that you did. No one said anything because we were having a lighter bag to lug to the trash collection point.

It was only weeks later that she told us that the janitors weren't eating the extra food. They merely kept the boxes till after work before bringing it with them. About halfway to the bus stop, they would pass by some foreign labourers working there as construction workers and according to them, these men were very happy to receive the free food from them. I imagine it was like some sort of daily Christmas to them.

This true story is an example of how poorly the world's food is distributed. Yes the poor may not be able to afford most food, but what about the food that the rich don't want and the poor cannot buy? Really, it doesn't make sense that we have starving people and beggars while we throw away large amounts of food everyday.

Here's an article from the UK that is saying the same thing, except they have colourful pictures to back their words.













Recently found an Uncyclopedia article on our SAF. Generally speaking the Uncyclopedia, a parody of Wikipedia, is more of an American creation. This article, though, is unique in that it's definitely typed by Singaporeans.