August 2009

Nerd Schedule
Submitted Monday, August 31, 2009 - 5:37:53 PM by Klaitu

Well, I'm back at it again. I had nothing better to do today, so I went ahead and looked up when all the good shows are coming back. As a note to myself, and a note to my fellow nerd viewers, here's the data:

Stargate Universe - October 2 - Syfy

The new Stargate series looks like someone spilled BSG juice all over Stargate Atlantis. Either way, you'll be watching it because there aren't that many decent TV shows on.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan - October 27 - DVD

The cap movie for Battlestar is being released on DVD first, and is supposed to air on syfy "sometime in November".

Caprica - January 22 - Syfy

The Battlestar spinoff which won't be as good as Battlestar begins next year.

Castle - September 21 - ABC

Castle really is a suprising show. It stars Nathan Fillion, it's on ABC, it's good, and it was renewed for season 2. Usually ABC shows suck, and if they don't suck they get cancelled. ABC likes to have a good suck lineup. I guess they got that covered with Desperate Housewives.

The Big Bang Theory - September 21 - CBS

I am suprised this awesome show has lasted this long. The show was already renewed for 2 seasons, so it's not ending any time soon.

NCIS - September 22 - CBS

NCIS falls into the "I barely like it" category, but it does make great filler on my TiVo for those holiday weeks when everything is a repeat.

Defying Gravity - running - ABC

This weird show seems to be a LOST clone in space. It's alright, but the only reason I'm watching it is because Ron livingston is in it.

Heroes - September 21 - NBC

For all 5 people who didn't give up on Heroes comes Season 4! It's got a new writing staff, but who knows if that will save it. I would be very suprised if the show got renewed after this season.

LOST - "early 2010" - ABC

The ending to LOST is scheduled for 2010. Will it be any good? who cares? Millions of people will love it either way.

Scrubs - 2010 - ABC

Strangely, Scrubs has been renewed, but not the Scrubs that you know. It apparently features Dr. Cox and Turk as medical teachers.. How odd.

The End of Reading Rainbow
Submitted Saturday, August 29, 2009 - 4:32:54 PM by Klaitu

You may or may not have heard about the end of Reading Rainbow, the emmy award winning PBS show that taught kids the importance of reading. It ran for 26 years.

So, why was Reading Rainbow cancelled? That's another story entirely:

Linda Simensky, vice president for children’s programming at PBS explained that PBS felt that the mechanics of reading, not teaching the love of reading, should be the priority. “We’ve been able to identify the earliest steps that we need to take,” she said. “Now we know what we need to do first. Even just from five years ago, I think we all know so much more about how to use television to teach.”

Inglourious Basterds
Submitted Thursday, August 27, 2009 - 11:07:29 PM by Klaitu

A film with a title so misspelled that I had to copy and paste it.

Aside from the 4th grader title, this film was pretty good. For a movie called Inglourious Basterds containing an army team called "the Inglourious Basterds" it suprisingly does not feature them except for perhaps 30 minutes of the film.

The rest of the movie is comprised of women being intimidated by Nazis in conversations that have an obvious subtext that cancels out everything they are actually saying.

And Mike Meyers is in it.. you know, Austin Powers? That was suprising.

All that being said, it's not a bad movie, it's probably the most normal Tarintino movie ever made, which means it's also the best Tarintino movie ever made.. not that that's saying much.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Inflation and Eve Online
Submitted Thursday, August 27, 2009 - 5:31:26 PM by Klaitu

There are a lot of punks out there who like to whine about Eve Online.. and it seems that Eve Online is also a home to many punks.

Eve Online is probably the only MMORPG that has been able to affect the operations of the so called "Chinese Gold Farmers" which seem to plague every online game. Since Eve Online has an actual functioning in-game economy and is managed by an actual Real-life economist, the gold farmers cah have a particularly devastating impact on players.

The Eve Online team has done various technical things to combat them, but the most controversial thing that they did was they began to sell ISK on their own website at an unbeatable price, which was a serious blow to the ISK sellers.

This is where the whining began, the primary whine being "But.. RMT causes inflation, and inflation is bad!"

The people who are whining about this don't know what they are talking about, and reveal how ignorant they are whenever they say it. So, I'm gonna lay down some knowledge.. not that I expect stupid people to even read this much text.

Let's say that there's a country.. Klaitopia. Klaitopia's currency is the Klaitudollar. There are exactly 100 Klaitudollars in circulation right now.

Let's say that Klaitopia falls on hard times, and is in debt to another nation. In order to pay off this debt, Klaitopia prints another 100 Klaitudollars and gives them to the other nation.

Now there are 200 Klaitudollars in circulation, which means that if you had 1 Klaitudollar before the printing, it is now worth exactly half of what is was worth before.

The absolute value of Klaitopia stayed the same, but the number of currency units within that value doubled. This is inflation.

In Eve Online (or any online game) inflation happens when money is created from nothing. If you loot a monster, or mine an asteroid, or collect a bounty from the game you are getting money that previously did not exist.

Game economies balance this by making situations where you are forced to return money to the system. Housing maintainance is a popular way to do this in games. In Eve Online, the inflation is offset by sales tax on every purchase, as well as fuel costs for space stations and Jump drives and so forth.

When a gold seller farms in Eve Online, he adds more and more ISK into the economy, and then transfers that money to someone who intends on using it. If there were no gold seller, this ISK would remain in it's original form (be it asteroids or bounties) and would not enter the economy.

When you buy ISK from Eve Online itself, it's a different matter entirely. You are actually buying 60 days of game time for the normal subscription fee. You are then given an in-game item which allows you to apply this subscription time to your account, or sell the subscription time to someone else. When you sell it to someone else, then you've essentially paid real money for fake money.

But when you sell this extra subscription time, you are not creating inflation, you are in fact, combating inflation. The money that you are paid did not come from nowhere, it came from another player, so all that is happening is that X amount of money is changing hands. The amount of money in the economy is not changed.. actually, the sales tax on the exchange actually reduces the amount of money in the economy.

Buying Pilot License Extensions of Game Time Codes does not lead to inflation. Period.

The most effective means that Eve Online has used to combat the gold farmers is to ban their accounts. Sure, a gold farmer can create another account, but the money on that account is locked, and will never re-enter the economy. 75% of all the money in Eve Online is on inactive or banned accounts. That's a lot of money that has been removed from the economy.

District 9
Submitted Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - 10:43:55 PM by Klaitu

What did I think of District 9? Was it a cinematic masterpiece destined to change the future of cinema? Was it yet another blockbuster involving Peter Jackson?

Nope.

In fact, it was pretty lame.. and I was surprised it was such a bad movie considering all the rave reviews it's been getting. Actually, I'm feeling like this movie is the Dark Knight all over again. Everyone loves it.. except me.

Before I saw this movie I was told it was "so good" and "has a twist ending that I just can't spoil for you." Both of these comments turned out to be false.. and because I have zero respect for this movie, I'm going to spoil it all for you. Here's the plot:

The world's most boring office worker spills alien rocket fuel on himself and somehow this transforms him into the world's most boring alien.

From the second he spills the "fluid" on himself, you know exactly what's going to happen. The story is completely predictable and uninspired.. and since you've figured out the entire plot in the first 15 minutes of the film, you're basically just waiting for it all to unfold.

There are some good points to this movie. The special effects are impressive, and the alien design is great. They're some of the coolest aliens I've ever seen on a movie. The film was well directed.. it's just a shame there is no real reason to look at the film with the plot being heinously and inexcusably bad.

I kept hoping that the plot was following sci-fi cliche so that it could turn everything upside down in the climax, but even that didn't happen. There was no twist to the plot at all.

The main character spends most of his time running away from everything, even when he's in a giant alien battlesuit and is impervious to attackers.. and then suddenly he changes his mind and decides to be a hero, without any penultimate moment that develops his character.

Overall Score: 4 of 10

If it's on TV, and you're bored you might watch it. It's not worthy of any amount of money.

Gears of War 2
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:19:13 PM by Klaitu

What a difference 2 years makes.

The first Gears of War was fun with a friend, but pretty bland in every other respect.

Gears of War 2 might as well have been an expansion pack to Gears of War 1. Absolutely nothing changes in this game, it's just more of the same.. and that's good if you enjoyed the original.

Myself, I was hoping for something more.

Gears of War and Gears of War 2 are part of this weird, frat boy drunk testosterone gameplay which I just don't identify with in the least.

Overall Score: 5 of 10

Flatout: Ultimate Carnage
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:15:44 PM by Klaitu

Flatout is a demolition derby racing game, not unlike Demolition Derby 2 for the Ps1.

You race, you crash into things, you cause other people to crash into things. It's fun for about 6 hours, and then you're done. Though, the game does have a lot more than 6 hours of content in it, I just couldn't muster the energy to see it all.

Overall Score: 5 of 10

Rainbow Six: Vegas
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:13:57 PM by Klaitu

Here's an older game. I like the Rainbow Six series because it does away with the standard FPS rule where you have to empty like 10 clips into a guy before he even feels it. In Rainbow Six, one shot can kill.. and with a silencer, they might not even know where you shot them from.

In multiplayer, when you shoot someone, they don't respawn. They have to wait until the map is over to play again.. which adds a lot of caution to the gameplay. People don't just run around stupidly jumping and lobbing grenades like an idiot.

It's high praise for me to even like a FPS, well, I like Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

Streets of Rage 2 XBL
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:10:38 PM by Klaitu

This is a direct port of the Genesis game Streets of Rage 2.. and it's still completely awesome.

Everything's here, the great 90's music, the solid beat-em up action.. It's a great game, and it's still a great game to play with a friend.

Overall Score: 9 of 10

TMNT 1989 Arcade
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:09:13 PM by Klaitu

This is a direct port of the original 1989 TMNT arcade game. Classic graphics, classic gameplay, and deaths galore.

There's not much more I can say about it. It's an identical port. It's crazy fun with a group of friends.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

TMNT Turtles in Time Re-Shelled
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:07:28 PM by Klaitu

This is an xbox live arcade game that is a remake of the arcade and SNES games "Turtles in Time" or the Genesis game "The Hyperstone Heist"

the game features new 3d graphics and fluid gameplay. It sticks to the original game pretty well, but the 3d nature of the game, but 2d nature of the levels makes it hard to hit things accurately because now you can hit things diagonally.

Still, the game is a lot of fun with a party of friends.

Overall Score: 7 of 10

Marvel Vs Capcom 2 HD
Submitted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 5:04:21 PM by Klaitu

This particular version is the new remixed version available on xbox live and the PSN.

It's a faithful recreation of the arcade original. The game is still impossible to play against a CPU, which limits the fun factor.

A vast improvement made in this game is that all the characters start unlocked. There's no need to beat the game hundreds of times in order to unlock them.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

People Don't Explode
Submitted Tuesday, August 4, 2009 - 5:50:34 AM by Klaitu

As an aside to that Defying Gravity show, I feel compelled to point this out in bold letters:

PEOPLE DO NOT EXPLODE WHEN EXPOSED TO SPACE!

I don't know who started this stupid thing, but let's get real here, people don't explode. In fact, Humans are pretty robustly designed.

Why don't you explode? Your body contains things.. liquids, gasses, air. All of these things want to escape your body, but your body holds them in.. and it keeps holding them in while you're in space.

Your body is not like a balloon. It will not pop. It is dense and made of proteins that are all bound together.

Other things that don't happen:

You don't flash freeze. In fact, cooling is the least of your problems. Because there is no air, there is no good way for heat to leave your body except by radiating, which is the least effective way for heat to transfer. You are more likely to overheat than freeze, especially if you're exposed to sunlight in space.

On top of that, your body runs on chemical energy, some of which is expressed in heat.

Your blood will also not boil. Your skin, muscles, and other tissues will hold it in and keep it pressurized so that it does not reach boiling point.

However, liquids like saliva will begin to boil, since there is no air pressure to stop it from happening, and saliva is near the outside of your body.

Space does also not cause you to lose consciousness immediately. If you ever find yourself in space without a spacesuit, you can remain conscious for about 14 seconds. I recommending finding a better enviornment in those seconds.. it's time well spent.

How do we know? Because when the US first invented their spacesuits, they had to test them, and knowing what would happen to people in a vaccuum was a good idea. Some poor scientists had to test how animals survived in a vacuum.

Animals don't explode in space either, just FYI.

So now you know.

Defying Gravity
Submitted Monday, August 3, 2009 - 11:04:59 PM by Klaitu

This is a TV show on the ABC network about a group of astronauts who board a spacecraft which is starting on a 6 year tour of the solar system.

It's hard to tell where it's going, because it seems to take the LOST formula and copycat it. It likes to go into irrelevant flashbacks a lot, and there are occasionally BS mystery elements.

We'll see how it goes, it definately didn't suck.