January 2008

The Many Faces of EvE Online
Submitted Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 3:12:15 AM by Klaitu

Recently, I read about Eve Online's latest expansion. Supposedly the game was vastly improved. I played Eve about 3 years ago, when it was first around. My impression was that I wanted a game that I could actually play, and not a game I had to wait for to play itself.

My situation has changed, a game that plays itself while I am at work, where I progress by doing nothing at all? That might actually work while I'm AT work.

Eve's new graphics upgrade is impressive, but this isn't a review. It's an opportunity for me to share something cool I found out. When you create a character, you design what he or she looks like, and then you're represented by an icon taken from that snapshot.. BUT you can generate a high quality portrait of any character in the game, and when I say High Quality, I mean pretty awesome high Quality. Here are a few examples I've met of people in the game (click on them for the maximum resolution):

Azura





Branwen Caine





Carsalion





Kazola





Randal





Klaitu(Yours Truly)

But, there is one portrait that takes the cake as the awesomest I have seen in Eve, behold!



Backdoor Bandit
Leader of the Minmatar Gay Rights League



Tremble in fear.

Cloverfield
Submitted Friday, January 18, 2008 - 7:32:05 PM by Klaitu

Cloverfield is a Godzilla-style monster movie by JJ Abrams.

Why is it called Cloverfield? I don't know. Just forget it's called cloverfield and call it "The JJ Abrams Godzilla movie"

I'm not going to spoil anything in this movie for you. It's shot like it's on a handheld camcorder. There is no music, its entirely from the perspective of one camera.

That doesn't sound like it would be particularly interesting, but it's really well done.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Pimp your Nerd
Submitted Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 2:51:50 PM by Klaitu

I've recently come across some awesome nerd stuff that I thought I would share with you all, in case you were interested!

openDNS

The first thing is opendns. OpenDNS is a free DNS server that does nothing but DNS, so if you're like me and you're on Cox HSI (which is a great service, BTW) your DNS servers might be slow. Mt otherwise excellent cable service was often lagged by dns lookups, probably because the cox DNS servers were overloaded. OpenDNS doesn't have that problem, because all they do is DNS.

Let me back up a minute for you non-nerds out there. DNS means Domain Name Server. It's like a phonebook that lets your computer change an IP address (like 203.134.12.45) into a domain name (like whatever.com), or the reverse. Without DNS your computer doesn't know where to go when you punch in "google.com". The longer it takes for your computer to get the address, the longer your browser sits there and does nothing.

I highly recommend it. It also does things like content filtering if you want it to. Also, if you mis-type google.com and put like google.cmo, it will redirect that to the .com site. Tres cool

Check it out, http://opendns.com

Windows Update

If you haven't yet, and you're reading this.. go ahead and run your windows update. Don't wait to do it, go ahead and do it now. In the near future there's going to be another internet worm running around.

You might remember the last internet worm, the one that infected computers and told them to shut down every 5 minutes? Yeah.

You can make yourself immune by updating your windows, so make sure you do that. If you have automatic updates turned on, you probably already have the update.

Soul Calibur 4
Submitted Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 2:31:47 PM by Klaitu

This trailer for Soul Calibur 4 has a twist ending that I think is awesome!

Check it out, I won't spoil it for you:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29550.html

Mom! Not my Nuclear Reactor!
Submitted Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 2:27:11 PM by Klaitu

This from Texas:

ROCKWALL, Texas -- The FBI said it does not plan to file criminal charges against a Rockwall man who tried to build a small version of a nuclear reactor in his house

The man's experiment drew the attention of federal nuclear investigators. Federal investigators searched his home, but said there was no cause for concern.

The man's family asked NBC 5 not to use his name.

The man is an out-of-work computer whiz who redesigns video games. He said he started studying physics around the eighth grade. He said he is a science buff who is fascinated by nuclear reactions and radiation.

"These things are in your tap water, you know, in the dirt," he said. "You could hold a Geiger counter up to a banana and get a count off of it."

He said he has always been curious about how things work and likes to do his own experiments.

The man decided to create a small-scale nuclear reaction in the same room he plays his video games as his latest experiment.

"People do it in universities all the time," he said. "It's just not usual that somebody does it outside of a university."

Someone alerted federal investigators after he blogged about possessing uranium and wrote that the background radiation in his home had doubled.

Rockwall police, the FBI, and officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission showed up unannounced at his home early Friday morning.

"They're just doing their job," the man said. "That's their job to come and check on stuff like that. When they left, it had been deemed that, you know, everything was within reason."

He said he doesn't plan on doing any more similar experiments.

"I think I'll keep it cool for awhile," he said.

Federal investigators said they found slightly elevated levels of radiation in the house but nothing considered dangerous. They removed the man's experiment at his parents' request.

The FBI said the agency considers the case closed.

Paradox Example
Submitted Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 2:53:47 PM by Klaitu

Okay, the article below this one contains information about paradoxes. Some folks have trouble understanding paradoxes, so I have an example for you:

http://paradoxpuffs.ytmnd.com/

There you are.

Deja Vu
Submitted Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 2:09:01 PM by Klaitu

Deja Vu is a movie about a terrorist bombing in New Orleans, it stars Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer.

Let me explain this plot a little bit, and I'm totally going to spoil it for you, so if you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading.

At the first of the movie, a terrorist puts a car bomb on board a ferry that is packed with navy people, women and children. It explodes and kills a bunch of people.

Denzel is called out to help investigate, he's with the ATF. In the aftermath a dead body washes up on shore. The body looks like it was killed in the explosion, but forensic evidence shows that the body was in the water 2 hours before the explosion. So, whoever dumped the body knew the explosion would happen, because they dressed the body as if it had been in an explosion.

Denzel figures if you solve the woman's murder case, you solve the terrorism case too. His superiors are impressed when he makes his dramatic Denzel-speech explaining all of this. Val Kilmer is in attendance, he's an FBI agent who recruits Denzel into a top secret project withthe FBI.

Val Kilmer's got a wormhole that you can look through. The wormhole always shows what happened 4 days and 6 hours ago. They can manipulate the wormhole to look at anything, anywhere, so long as it's within a certain distance of New Orleans.

They use the wormhole to investigate what happened days ago, with Denzel directing them based on his investigation of the dead woman who wasn't killed in the explosion.

The movie then turns into Denzel trying to change history, because it's possible that you can send things back into the past. Denzel sends a note back into the past to himself, and tries to get himself to investigate before the bomb explodes, but his partner picks up the note instead. The partner finds the culprit, but is killed in the process. In the gunfight, the partner shoots up the terrorist's truck, which means he needs a new one, and the murder victim (the one Denzel has been investigating) happens to have a large truck. That's how she came into the whole story. It was her truck that exploded on the ferry.

Hit the pause button on this for a minute, because I need to talk about something else.. Linear time.

There are two ways that movies can do time travel. The first is where time is unchangeable. Things that happened in the past are static and cannot be changed. The second is more dynamic. Events in the past can be changed, resulting in an alternate future. The second is much more common in movies.

Myself, I'm a fan of the first method, but nevertheless, once the movie establishes itself as one or the other, I can go with it. Deja Vu, however, has problems. It thinks it is the first kind of time travel, but actually it's the second. The result is a bunch of confusing nonsense which wrecks the plot.

and now we continue.

Denzel decides he needs to go back into the past to change things around. He wants to save the girl's life, and also stop the bombing. They explain that it's dangerous, etc.. but he goes anyways. When he's back in the past, a lot of the cluse that the movie has been hinting about are revealed to have been done by Denzel himself.

In the process Denzel does save the girl, and does stop the bomb.. which leads me to a little word I like to call PARADOX! Let me explain it:

Denzel, while investigating this woman's death becomes obsessed with her. He also wants to stop the bombing. Then, at one point he travels into the past.

Now we have 2 Denzels. We have the one that time travelled, and the Denzel who is already there naturally. The natural Denzel will become time-travelling Denzel in exactly 4 days and 6 hours.

Time-traveling Denzel saves the girl and he Stops the Bombing. Now, natural Denzel will never become Time Travelling Denzel because he has no reason to go back in time. He can't go back in time to stop a bombing that never happened, or a murder that never took place.

Because natural Denzel will never time travel, time travelling Denzel cannot exist, which means that he wasn't there to stop the bombing, OR save the girl, which means that he WILL time travel.

I'm sure you can see that we're going in circles here, and that's the paradox.

Time Travelling Denzel does some stupid other things as well. He gets shot in the past, and bandages himself at murder-girl's house. He rearranges the magnetic letters on her fridge to say "you can save her". He also leaves bloody towels all over the place.

Denzel has already seen these things, because he investigated her house because she was dead. He didn't know whose blood it was, and didn't know who left the message. Since we know that it was Time-travelling Denzel, we can prove that time-travelling Denzel was there, and if time travelling Denzel was there, then he must have saved the girl and stopped the bomb.. but the very reason that normal Denzel is there is because he is investigating an explosion and a murder.

In other words, the two timelines cannot coexist, but the movie tries to force them to, poorly.

Maybe time travel is too complicated for the "general public" to understand or something. The movie pokes fun at the head scientist of the wormhole program for trying to rationally explain how the system works. It's almost like the movie doesn't want you to pay attention to how and why things are going on. At one point Denzel tells the scientist to shut up, even though Denzel just asked him a question. Then Denzel asks for the same answer again until he hears what he wants.

Anyways, this movie is pretty good until they get to the time travel parts. Then it blows.

Overall Score: 4 of 10

William Shatner - Has Been
Submitted Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 1:38:22 PM by Klaitu

This is an album.

Yes, a musical album, by William Shatner.

You know what? It's pretty freaking good, and I'm not just saying that. It's actually really pretty good. He's sort of got a new Johnny Cash style, and he's not doing what he did in those priceline commercials.

If you ever see William Shatner's Has Been, pick it up. It's amusing!

William Shatner thinks you should!

The "First of the Year" Post
Submitted Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 2:18:03 PM by Klaitu

Oh yeah, It's actually the 3rd, but I'm told that I simply must make a post about he first of the year. Also, that I'm supposed to not post stuff about nerd things and stuff.

I'm told I'm supposed to put down "What's happening" in my life, as if people care. So, just so they stop nagging me, I guess I will. I'm letting you all know this so that you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to.

Because I am a nerd, I will organize my thoughts by topic.

Work Life:

Work is about the same as it's always been. I've got 7 bosses, I'm expected to know magical things that nobody has ever told me, and I deal with angry people every single day. My job blows.

Then again, all jobs blow. There are times when I think of quitting my job, but then I decide I am too lazy to do anything about it. That's part of the genius.. use one detriment against another. Take that!

I almost got a promotion. They do that by crunching your stats down into a point value. I got a 12.00, but to be promoted I need aa 12.68, so you can say I was 0.68 of a point from being promoted. Those points came from those days that I was out for Bell's Palsy.

So, remember, you can't get sick on workdays, you'll be punished!

Still, they gave me a raise! 6 bucks a week! Why, that's almost 30 bucks a month. How special. The killer part is that if I had a perfect score, I would have earned a whopping 9 bucks a week more! wow!

So, I get to learn new levels of contentment as I grind my life away in a job that I hate. I found something strange about my job, though..

The people who sit around me are fascinating. It's sort of like being in a zoo of people, and each of them has a different upbringing and outlook on life. at age 29, I'm pretty much clocking in as the oldest person.

I learn a lot by listening to these folks talk and horse around. They come up with things that I wouldn't ever some up with.

So, it seems that at work, everything but my actual work is worthwhile. I don't know, I've given myself an ultimatim, if things don't improve by May 1, it's going to be sayonara, Hertz.

Home Life:

What little is left of my home life is going pretty well. This Christmas was the busiest Christmas ever at work, so I missed the opportunity to really savor it. It seems like everyone was moving a million miles per hour.

I did get to spend some time with my family, but it wasn't the usual. Christmas is usually about hanging out and relaxing, and this time there wasn't much of that. I hope next year is better.

New Years was pretty much the same as it always was. I'm not much of a party person, but since I was up anyways, I went ahead and observed the occasion with a game of Civilization 4. I also chatted with a couple friends online.

For the new year, I've created for myself the "2008 Save up for crap" plan. I plan to save 2000 bucks by May, and if all goes well, another 5000 after that. I want to get my money into some kinda stable investment so that my money will start working for me, instead of me for my money.

I've also worked the math and I still plan on getting a new car, but not at least until May. That way I can determine if I'll be working with Hertz or someone else. At the moment, I could quit Hertz and resolve my debts with money left over, but a car would prevent me from doing that. It's a freedom I'm not yet willing to give up.

In other news, Carde and I have started the 2008 Women of Roleplay Calendar for Ultima Online. I think it's pretty neat, myself.

The Ladies:

Not much happening in the ladies department. Ladies continue to be not interested. I have made an interesting observation, though..

I know women who stay with their man who beats them, or who drinks a lot and is never at home. There are plenty of women who hang with men who just plain stress them out all the time. Women who hang with men that they acknowledge that they don't even love.

I can't help but put myself into the equation for experimental purposes just to see how I stack up. I don't beat people, I don't drink, and I like to stay at home. These complaints that I hear from women all the time aren't workin out for me.

Logic often doesn't apply to people, particularly women people, so I've got to ask: Is it true? The adage that women love to be treated like crap? Their mouths are telling me one thing, and their actions are telling me another. Which should I believe?

Is it something simpler? Perhaps women just love drama. They read novels about it, watch TV shows about it, and they talk about it.. a lot. They talk about how much it sucks to have all this crap going on, but do little to resolve the situation. Is it laziness, or a subconscious desire to see it continue?

I know better than to think I can "figure out" women. I guess it doesn't really matter if women want to be treated like crap or not, I wouldn't do it either way. Apparently, this puts me in "just friends" zone.

Whatever the reason, I've tried to learn to be content in the just friends zone, but I don't know that I'll ever succeed. The only alternative is to get out, which is dependant upon another party. So, I guess I'm stuck with the learning to live with it thing.

Anyways, I hope this fulfills my obligation to be a "blog that people read" about "personal stuff". I don't find it particularly interesting myself, so stay tuned more about.. anything else!

You Look Like a Real Jerk!
Submitted Wednesday, January 2, 2008 - 4:22:01 PM by Klaitu

You know, I don't usually post a lot of youtube on here..

But for this particular video, I make an exception:

Wings of Silver, Nerves of Steel
Submitted Wednesday, January 2, 2008 - 4:03:00 PM by Klaitu

Why are all the good 80's shows either unavailable or expensive?

I mean, Jem for 800 bucks? Ouch!