The Spader's Bench

On Pre-ordering and the like...

2012-01-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I have a special place in my heart for gaming companies, but as of the last few years, I've being getting more and more disillusioned with the whole getup. There's the problems with the premise, the lack of quality in some areas(Although graphics seems to be uncompromising), and such... but there's one thing that gets me more then all of these: Pre-ordering.

Let me explain. Pre-ordering is one of those funny ducks when it comes to games, that I feel conflicted about. For large companies like Electronic Arts, it's evil, plain and simple. Usually these games are offered at a 20$ premium to thier standard price, and the extra content is... sad, at best. For a small company, I could understand how if you're struggling to get the resources off the ground(Like Mojang), it's vital... but when your game already has a multi-million dollar development budget, it's small beans... it's almost to the point of exploitation of the gaming public.

Let's look at a case example: Fallout New Vegas. I admit, I like to pick on this game for various reasons, some of them founded, some of them not. One of the boggest things I hate is the pre-order bundle. It's basically a cheat: You get one of five sets with your purchase that makes the early game drastically easier. For the same cost of the pre-order bundle, you can buy all five for the cost of what it would have sold for on pre-order on Live Marketplace.

It's things like this that make it seem like the companies are more serving their board of directors then their customers. I hope they all start to shape up.

A Troubling Trend...

2011-09-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

I've been noticing a troubling trend in customer service lately, and I thought I'd blog about it here. It seems to be spreading to all sectors, but I find it most prevelent in the Online Games Sector. I call it the "We Do Whatever We Want" Syndrome, and it has some troubling implications for the future of consumers everywhere.

It seems that a number of years ago, a near and dear company to my heart, Blizzard Entertainment, discovered that there may be potentially problems to their aging data centers. The easiest and simplest quick fix, in their eyes, was to amend the terms of use for their most played game, World of Warcraft. In short, the amendment made it so that they were not required to reimburse the player for any lost time in the game due to technical problems, or any problems of the type. This is from the Terms of Use document on the site:

THE GAME AND THE SERVICE ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS, AND BLIZZARD DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE GAME OR THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THE GAME OR THE SERVICE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. BLIZZARD EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Take a minute and read that over. It, in a nutshell, says that any warranties, stated or implied (Most provinces and states require sellers to have a 30, 60, or 90 day warranty period, with receipt of purchase) for malfunction or defect in the product. (Fun fact: This is the one way to get out of a cell phone contract; have a problem with the phone within 30 days.)

This is more of a global problem with gaming companies. Some game companies, like Kingdom of Loathing, don't have the active number of staff members needed to police the problems that arise from thier games, and as such, I have a personal patience for their responses, as most people who play their games do. Then there are other companies like Dovo Games.

It's cruel, but I have no respect for Dovo Games. Their techs are usually slow to respond, and don't respond with troubleshooting problems. Heck, this is the usual response from them:

Dear ******, we have filed your words and will submit to the related department for further check. Thank you so much for your support and patience. Wish you good luck.

This is not good customer service. It may be cruel, but I would rather have the guy who is fixing the problem respond to me rather then some automated "it's being dealt with" message. It's the same message that seems to happen every time, and I get angrier every time I see it. it makes me not want to submit bug reports, and instead exploit, exploit, exploit.

It seems like it's going to take a big case to get everyone back on track, and boy, I hope I'm not part of it.

BTO - Getting Started Hints and Tips

2011-09-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

Business Tycoon Online is one of the most popular web games on the internet - with good reason. It has a complexity that's second to none, and almost infinite expandability. The game however, is filled with potential pitfalls and traps for the new player, and although you can grow relatively fast without paying in, like many other games, most of your starting chest is spent on frivolous things. Here are some tips to help you get through this starting time:

1) Protect your Gratis Gold! Upgrades can wait!

You start the game with a almost unbelievable amount of gold, averaging 200 - 300 pieces to start with! While this may not sound like much, it's better to hold onto it and use it for Occult Training and Senior Training of highly skilled purple and red employees then to use it on finishing store upgrades faster. This is one of those lessons that it takes time and patience to learn though, so why it's number one on the list.

(Note: There are also other tings that gratis gold can be used for, such as some items in the shop and special prizes in the occasional updates. More then once you will kick yourself for spending hundreds of Gold or Gratis Gold when a event airs days later.)

2) The Factory is your lifeline to profit!

Factory goods will always beat out standard goods, so it's good to start getting your factory going early. Plan on making at least 1000 of each of the industries goods and selling them to the system for each device level, as the more you make and then sell, the higher amounts of raw materials you generate per day will be. Even a quality H good will provide enough of a bonus to make it worth while, although it's usually wise to balance between the number of goods you stock your store with, and the number you have for sale.

(Note: Want to figure out whether a good is worth purchasing? Take the daily base profit of your store, and multiply it by the good bonus that the said good gives. If the revenue(What you're left with) is more then the purchase price, you've made up the amounts!)

Another piece that should go into this same topic is oil wells. A oil well takes 1,000,000 TCN to explore for, and has a 50% chance of striking oil, however, even if one does not produce gas or diesel(bonuses to shops and production, respectfully), oil can usually be sold for upwards of 5,000 TCN a barrel in some cases, usually leading to a income gain for just drilling. There are some disadvantages however: You can only mine 500 barrels a day and the oil derrick takes 250,000 TCN worth of damage per day. Not horrible, but can sometimes be annoying.

3) Don't make your own guild; Join one!

The most damaging thing you can do as a newbie is to create a guild. On Kong-BTO, most older players poach employees from new guild leaders that are over the 3-day mark, as so many of them don't return. Your easiest solution is to join a already well established guild, of level 4 or above. Why?

You're protected from poaching attacks from rival players. It's common for guild mates to gang up and hit the offender with store disturbances, media attacks and the like.
You gain a revenue and Store Upgrade Bonus every day based on the level your guild is. The higher the level, the bigger the bonuses.
Often, you can gain free things from guild mates just for being allies, such as medals, cars, trips and the like.

Remember, though, you're one with this guild. Donate some everyday, and when you get to higher levels, buy a trip or two for your mates!

4)Train your employees daily!

So, why train your employees daily? For one, each session boosts their loyalty and skill. Second, after they reach 100% proficiency, they start earning points towards their execution and management skills. These bring bonuses to all activities that your employees attend, and maxing them out is the key to NPC Landmark.

Speaking of which...

5)NPC Landmark, Horse Train, and Funfain EVERY DAY!

I'm not kidding here. Once you can, max out the amount of times you can do each of these activities every day. The funfair is full of nice items that make your life easier, and having a high level horse earns you all sorts of nice goodies, like junior equips and other similar things. NPC landmark is a great place to get bricks, gold and diamond contracts, and sponsorship vouchers via Easter Eggs. If you play luck fragments twice a day, you'll get a luck cupon that can be exchanged for gold, as well as the NPC Landmark Certificates.

6) Watch the trade market.

The trade market can make your life simple and easy, if you watch it enough. Mis-priced goods, charitable old players and the occasional sale can propel you forward in business like you would not believe.

These are just some of the tricks I've learned over the past few months. If you need any other pointers or would like some help, leave a comment and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Ink: Why I hate and love this movie

2011-09-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

I've just tonight be introduced to what will be my most hated and loved movie: Ink. This movie is spectacular, the actors are great, and the visuals are awesome. It has a story, and it sticks to it until the end. It keeps you guessing, and the characters all have qualities that make them redeemable in the end.

"So, then why do you hate it?"

This movie revolves purely around the story of how the main character screws up his life. From first glance, it seems to be a chaotic mixture of the after life and the real world, and this one man who is having the worst time of his life. We enter the movie just as he makes his ultimate failure: He has a car crash and is knocked unconscious.

From there it's a nauseating flurry of flash backs, and we learn more about his family. His wife just recently passed on, and thanks to a alcohol problem from his high stakes job, he looses custody of his daughter. The visuals are spectacular, and the ending ties it all nicely together. This is a masterpiece that, although visibly low budget, is of a quality that has not been rivaled in Hollywood in many, many years.

So, why do I hate it?

This movie suffers from a syndrome that affects all great movies, called Self-Referential Bullshit, or SBD. There is so much symbolism, twists, plot points and turns that it's far too much to be stomached in one sitting. At the end, you feel like you've just eaten a black forest cake the size of a tire; Happy, somewhat fulfilled, and about to throw up.

This being said, I urge you to see this movie. It's produced by a indy company Double Edge Films, and I sincerely urge you to check it out. There's a lesson here for all of us, but be careful. Read a light book first or watch some Ren and Stimpy... you'll need as empty a mind as possible to take in all of the awesome.

Falling to Obsurity

2011-07-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

It makes me sad when one of the people that I used to love to watch just looses it.

For quite a while now, I've been a fan of Jason "LordKat" Pullara. He can be quite funny, and I loved to watch most of his shows quite a while ago for the humor and effort he put into them. It was enjoyable, and you could tell that he actually cared about his audience. For the last six months however, something's changed.

It started back when he cancelled his Until We Win series. The last episode is well worth watching, because this is the general feeling I've gotten from most of his productions since. It's a man who doesn't care, trying to get this done as quickly as possible. At least, that's how it's been until this article.

The article is nothing but a number of cheap shots at the community, fulled by his own frustration over the lack of understanding of the bill by the community. I understand his position, and I do side with his arguments on two fronts:

1. The copywrite holders have the final say on all of their copywrited works. That's the law.
2. The streaming video or LP of a game is definite copywrite infringement.

However, he goes about pushing his arguments through by belittling the community, calling them idiots and such. The actual content of the article, while containing some valuable information, is complete garbage. It's the slavering rantings of a deranged madman.

The trip downhill for this former net-celeb has been grinding down for a long time, and I hate to say it, I think I'm glad to finally see it hit rock bottom. He needs to take control of his site, and stop relying on the community to populate it with articles, or just give up and admit defeat. I, for one, am declaring him dead to me, and I urge the rest of you to do the same.

Game Development - Tokenizer

2011-07-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've started studying a bit about a very specific and somewhat nightmarish method of programming: Tokenizers

What is a tokenizer?

A Tokenizer is a piece of code that serches through a text document or data stream for different pre-set "tokens" and modifies the program as it reads. If it does not recieve a specific token, that part of the object is then set to a value standing for unused(In my case, 0).

So, Why bother?

Here's the interesting thing about tokenizers: They make your game infinitly moddable. Take dwarf fortress for example; everything in the game, from the material the earth is made up out of, to the structure and types of creatures, to even what foods and goods can be produced, are built from a token based system. This means that the end user can add and tinker with the game as they please, adding much more replayability to what may stagnate quickly.

I also want to build a tokenizer system for ease of content creation. I havent decided yet to waht extent the end user will be able to influence the world through token modification(There will be some things, such as overland geography, that will be locked out.)

Yeah, that's all well and good. Aren't you making a browser game though?

This is what really excites me about a tokenizer system. With the correct group of data tags, I can just import all the game data in from external, easy to mod sources. The framework is the only piece of the puzzle that will be time consuming, and once it's up and proven then the basic frame can be used in any number of projects.

It basically allows me to go from a full hard coded source to a engine, which is really exciting for reusability.

So... how would it work?

The basic idea is that you have a script(Probably in a flash file) that is retrieving a constant data stream from a server location. All of that information is just placed in a properly formated XML file, for example. The script goes through each character of the stream, looking for start and stop characters(eg. [ and ]).

Once the script has found a start character, it stores all the values between it and the stop character in a temporary string, which is then compared to all of the tolkens in the program. Once it finds the tolken it's looking for, it empties all of the information between the tags into a data appropriate container. It does this with all the information on the file in the preloading sequence.

Occasionally, the program will also update these tolkens and refresh the values stored in the engine, lets say once a hour.

(I have some more to add, but I'll do it later. Please pester me if I forget.)

Pockie Ninja - Basics - Simple Leveling Tips

2011-07-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

Pockie Ninja, like many other browser based games of the type, is a grind fest. There are few easy ways to earn XP, and those that you have are either dangerous, expensive, or both. I thought I'd write a simple guide to help people along who struggle with the low levels.

#1. Complete your quests

It's a simple truth of all games like this that quests give amssivly out of proportion floods of xp, versus what one would normally get from grinding. When you have a quest avalible, do it.

#2. Save those gift cupons

There are many things that one can spend gift cupons on, but the one thing that I seem to find gives the most bang is HP/Chakra carier bags. It works in Los Noches, which saves a tonne of trouble, and it means that you can easily join groups of players with far faster computers for Slots, which seems to give a large proportion of good equipment rewards.

#3. Get apprentices

A junior player with two apprentices can net over 8000 xp a day without even playing, and one who maximises thier availible apprentices can walk away with a extra 10,000 Xp. Something simple to think about.

#4. Use xp maks and fresh beer

Fresh beer(+1.25% xp) and xp marks(varies) are a essential to any slots group or monster grind. It dosen't seem like much at first, but the extra 100 or so xp per battle really adds up in the end.

#5. Level and equip your pet.

High skilled pets can be the difference between life and death in some matches, so make sure you have one with at least one attack skill equipped. I run a potato normally with suppression(stun + attack) and block on, and it has saved my butt more times then I can count. Higher skill = tougher monsters, more xp.

#6. ALWAYS do Los Noches.

Los Noches is simply pure xp. You don't get bonuses, but it also dosen't take movement power, and seems to be able to generate 1/10th of what you need to level up each day. It's worth it. Note: XP marks do not work in Los Noches.

#7. Always do Valhala

Even if you have to run the intro course, always do val. The items, xp and stones make it one of the best areas in the game to farm, and you will never, ever regret doing a instance.

#8. Run slots at least once a day

It's a silly thing and the xp is not worth it, but there are great rewards hidden...

Pockie Ninja - Basics - Synthesizing

2011-07-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd whip up a quick article about synthesizing, as this seems to be a question asked over and over on the game chat system.

Synthesizing in Pockie Ninja all goes about with the item value. Each item has it's own value rating, on a scale of 1 to 70. To understand the pure basics, this is a good general rule-

Tier 1(Grey suits and items) + 30 + 30 = Tier 2(Blue suit/item)
Tier 2(blue suits and 2 enchantment items) + 30 + 40 = Tier 3(orange suit/item)

Alright, that seems pretty simple... what's all this about 2s, 3s, 4s then?

#s is just a simple abreviation for the number of enchantments a item has. For example, if you have a sword that gives + 20 agility and +2% speed, it's a 2s sword.

So what about 2s and 3s recipies?

I... don't really like using enhanced equipment by it's enchantment rating. The synth rating is a much more even gague of what you're going to get.

Alright, I have a tier 2 suit, but it's not the one I want. What do I do?

Simple. If you synth a blue, orange or grey suit with 2 1s items as catalysts you will get a item of the same tier 100% of the time.

OOP gives me nightmares...

2011-03-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

Object Oriented Programming sucks.

I've been continuing my little quest to make my own game, and after many shoddy attempts, I decided to wise it up and follow a tutorial out of a book. I've never been one for any of the Centridge Learning products, as in the past I've found thier course material to be rather dry and unhelpful. But after a thorough flip-through of the book, i started getting excited.

I'm used to a linear style of programming, the "call this function, then that function in the loop" style. I've always seen some of the advanced concepts like classes to be painful, and never really gave them much thought. As such, I suck at OOP.

This is one of the few books I've seen though, that teaches OOP straight from the get go, and not in a ham handed manner. It's pretty good, but it starts getting a bit convoluted and wordy at the end.

Anyway... here's my latest failure ag game making!

Why I'm sick of "Canadian Justice"

2011-02-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

Why, as Canadians, can't we decide which camp we stand in? We have a revolving door system(everyone in canada knows it), yet no one is willing to do anything about it for fear of what might happen. It's like someone standing in a river, to damn scared to get out for fear of the ambient wildlife, but slowly freezing to death.

In Canada, we truly do have a revolving door system. Everyone says it, and it's true. Any rehabilitation that the inmates can take is completely volentary, and most of them end up leaving prison with more criminal contacts then they entered with.

Lets take a look at Angelo Douglas. Angelo Douglas was convicted of attempted robbery in Omaha after him and a friend attempted to hold up a Walgreens. One of the customers in store was armed, and pulled his firearm on the teenagers, and one was injured in the process.

What does this show? Ability. if he had the guts to try it once, he is going to most deffinatly going to try it again. Mind you, this is a US prison, but the theory is still the smae. While in prison, he will gain contact with many people of the criminal element that he would otherwise not have contact with. When he gets out, there is much less of a chance that he will stay on the straight and narrow.

What's my solution? Highly controversial, that's what.

Prisons are simply there to keep inmates put. You know what sector needs workers? Power generation. You heard me correctly, power generation. I can immagine more then a few ways we could put them to work. The old days oxen around a gear system comes to mind. Have them work off thier crimes in generated electricity. If they don't work, they don't get food. I know, all the bleeding hearts out there will cry that this is slavers... well, it is. I'm not making a exception for that.

But the way things are, they're getting a free ride. Honestly, if it wasn't for enjoying my freedome and having a family, I'd consider doing something minor to get myself in prison, just so that I could continue my education for free. Sure I'd be risking my life every day, but hey, who dosent?

Then again, I could just be in a misserable mood.

(tl;dr? System broken, put inmates to work. No work no food. I want free college.)

Dwarfishness - Fortress Planning

2011-01-16T15:25:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought I'd write a small post on fortress design...

As most of you know, I'm a feverent fan of dwarf fortress. I love the design abilities, and engeneering traps for my enemies. At times, I try and provoke the elves and the dwarves to attack early, just to start driving them through some of my setups.

Here's my generic main gate design. I build my entrances on flat ground in contrast to most dwarf fortress designers, who build thier fortress on mountainsides. It takes more effort to begin with, but it makes it easier to direct enemies to where you want them. I also always give the enemy at least two controlled options to enter my fortress, and different gate mechanisms to control the options available.

This is my medical tower and jail. I place these off to the side, and in a fully contained area that can only be accessed from sublevel 3. This has two purposes... firstly, this means that I can keep my prisoners near medical facilities, just in case. The second thing this means is that I can do this:

Added security, let's just say...

The final steps I add is a gate on each side(north, south, east and west), a large perimeter wall, a elevated entry walkway and a Hydra Lock. The theory behind the hydra lock is simple -- If I have any people escape he main bulk of my traps, I pull a lever and my main fortress is sealed off, and that entry way, the outer ring, is completely filled with water, drowning all opposition. The main part of this is easy, resettable traps... I'll work out a post on my Hydra Lock system next... it's simple, easy to control and makes defense easy.

Some Uploads

2011-01-15T00:18:00.001-08:00

I was messing around with some of my old files, and came across something I made with Finale ages ago. I thought it was neat, so I uploaded it. See it here:

There are times where I can't believe what I'm reading...

2011-01-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

I love my wife, more then anything. However, there are some things that she insists on doing that just rile me up. The biggest is her forums...

She frequents a "forums", which is fine and all, but it seems that there is a large collection of detrius that has made it's way on the internet and found a way to post messages. These people just boggle my mind.

The latest, and "finest" of these, was a woman who lived with her 40ish year old husband. He has a seventeen year old daughter, and she spends two days a week living with them. During those two days, her boyfriend comes over and basically lives with them. Loud, noisy sex, the whole kit.

She is expecting a baby any day now, and her husband wants his daughter to live with them. Niether of them stand up to this girl, and from all sounds of what was posted, she feels like she's walking on egg shells every time this girl is over because of her actions.

She dosen't want to stand up to the girl, and she dosen't want to push her husband to, which is fine and I can really understand that... untill we get into the problem she has with the girl. The only reason(and she admits it multiple times) that she really wants the girl gone is she wants the bedroom free.

This... makes me really rile. If your in a relationship, you need to take everything that comes with that, children and all. This means that if her husband is not taking authority, she should be. If she dosen't want the girl in thier life, she should bring it up to him and they should talk about it. The point is, someone needs to take controll. At the moment, though, the one in controll seems to be the daughter, and we all know how that will end.

It's just sad, really, and It's going to probably cause way more trouble then it should.

(Clarification: I don't mind the forums, I just hate the epic stupid that seems to spill forth. That's the problem with forums... most of the time, the people know what needs to be done, it's just thier too stupid/lazy to do anything about it.)

Junk the Debunk - Science still proven to many...

2011-01-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about a new report from the Chronicle Herald trying to debunk a study linking childhood vaccines to autism.

Here is an excerpt from their article:

Sadly, there's likely little hope that erroneous conviction will be much altered by last week's news that the 1998 study, which purported to link autism and the MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine has been declared a fraud by Britain's pre-eminent medical journal. The British medical Journal's condemnation of disgraced former Dr. Andrew Wakefield to work. First published in the Lancet (which last year finally retracted the article) couldn't have been more unequivocal.

The BMJ said that Mr. Wakefield had, in an unmistakably intentional way, altered the data to produce a result that wasn’t there.

Coming on the heels of the Lancet retraction, last year’s decisions by the British General Medical Council to declare Mr. Wakefield’s actions as bringing the medical profession into disrepute and also to strip the doctor of his licence to practise, the BMJ’s denunciation leaves the study’s — and Mr. Wakefield’s — credibility in shambles.

I like to interject here are a few things about the medical studies. There have been a lot of studies in the past that have been funded privately and by the government which have shown results that it's are not up to par with the original reasons for the study, for example, all of the tests that led to all the scandal over in Ontario and that whole groundwater fiasco.

The fact is, when you're doing a study you are taking a large selection of people, and those people it you assume have had no exposure to anything that wouldst weigh the study from one-way or the other. You're basically assuming that there is a Blank Slate.

Here's the steppingstone: the vaccines that it's are in question to use a mercury-base to help break down the virus so that it can be more easily administered. This basically supposed to weaken the virus so that it will not be able to gain a foothold in the body. The problem calms that that heavy metal is still eating inject into the body and the body cannot easily get rid of it in ads to unmount that may be gleaned from a natural environment for example from stock of fish or other wildlife that have been exposed to high mercury levels and other heavy metals that may already reside in the body.

Here's another excerpt for you:

Past investigations had already shown that Mr. Wakefield’s study received funding from lawyers suing vaccine manufacturers and that the researcher, who developed an alternative to the MMR shot, stood to gain financially if the accepted vaccine was dropped from use.

It will make it true that Mr. Wakefield may have received donations to its funding from lawyers who are looking to combat the vaccine manufacturers on behalf of their client and he does not pose that he altered the date and the actual suggestion here has no basis, unless the facts and where they believed that the data was altered was to be published along with this report, which they have not.

As the story goes on to say that no credible scientific study has ever been able to duplicate Mr. Wakefield results now this is this comes across to me as if their studies out there that are literally been discredited. Just because the result they came to not buy the science is used to come result, which is something you'd expect from the British constitution if they are discrediting the results because they do not match the status quo, then we have a bit of a problem.

The problem also stems from the problem that the British medical institution in the American medical institution and by extension, the Canadian medical institution has with the findings of this report the problem is with vaccine manufacturers that level mercury is well within the safe amounts that is the manufacturers are allowed to pull within products, that's highly publicized but we basically as consumers we are allowed to have a certain amount of heavy metal be ingested to products and be it fish in more any other food for that matter will be it any supplies like paint. Any aerosols or any other type both spring on product or by construction materials etc. etc.

The problem is is a combination of all of these factors. It literally means that you may be ingesting peel the lethal dose from two or three or four sources, plus a it's the assumptions made when they monitor. The product, whatever it may be that you're only going to have a short-term exposure to them may be you may use the product lets say(because I don't have exact numbers) once a month at best.

The assumptions made that you'll only be exposed to that product for that duration and only that product having the exposure through only that duration so for example, if the product being tested is a fish that have contamination of mercury in their suit and that you're only going to be eating that said product once a month for 12 months of the year. That basically means if you would eat in that product for a second time during that week you doubled your own allowed dosage for that amount of time, things like heavy metals... They don't break down easily.

No, not trying to scare tactic you hear into not eating fish or not painting, what I'm trying to do is trying to explain to the groundwork that they're working on for this. It's a problem because life is not sterilized lab, and you will not be exposed to one thing at a time... Usually you're exposed to multiple things at a time and you just crossing your fingers and hoping it works out for the best.

Here's the problem with what they're doing here. There is an alternative that does not use heavy metals. There is a healthy alternative that has been proven to work the problem is: it's expensive. It's literally a pennypinching effort, and what's really sad about this is these press releases and conferences are costing way more money than it would take to move the entire infrastructure from a mercury-based that we've been dealing with since the mid-30s and 40s to a more better and healthier type.

It'll just comes down to pennypinching. The truth of the matter is that this could be easily done, and the government does have the funds. However, most of the funds are being misappropriated to other projects that really don't matter such as, and people don't like me saying this, the Olympic bids. Things like that, appearing as the grand spectacle for the rest of world instead of fixing our problems is was getting us into these pits. I mean, look at Vancouver. But that's not a subject for right now.

In summary, I view this as an unfair discreditation. And if they really want people to take them seriously, they should release a facts.

Original Article

(Sorry if this is wierd, I just got Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 and I'm still training it. Work in progress!)

Review - Man in a Gap

2011-01-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, just a quick tidbit on another neat little game I found on Kongregate, Man in a gap.

This is a very simple puzzle game, where you need to guess where the opening is in a floor and a cieling piece, and position your character accordingly. The art direction is quite simple, but works quite well, and the animation is really smooth and fluid. The game responds nicely, and is quite good for a few minutes of entertainment.

Link: Man in a gap

(I'm trying to find a better way to link flash games, but this will have to do while I tinker...)

Review - I am an Insane Rogue AI

2011-01-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

This... this game is epic.

If you're not familiar with nerdook, I suggest you look them up on Kongregate. They are the masters of really simplistic, fun games. The art style of all of thier games is definatly unique, and quite refressing in comparison to the photorealistic art styles that most games are moving towards. It's nice, simple, and processor friendly!

The game is exactly what you would expect from the title. You play a insane, rogue AI, and your goal is to infect all computers and the server in each building. It's simplistic, but exceedingly fun. The units are simple, and each does one or two things to help hinder your process, but at the same time many of the units you can turn against the occupants of these labs, making your job easier. There's some nice references to popular science fiction, but it's enough that although the characters are recognisable, It's not really overpowering.

This game is a fun distraction, and is one of the better free puzzle games relesed recently. It's certainly worth a look if you have a few, free minutes.

Link: I am a insane, rogue AI on Kongregate

Review - Thief: Dark Project

2011-01-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Hardly anyone in the gaming community has not heard of the company Eidos. This company made a lot of my best remembered games from the late 90s, and produced the first game where I got to actively experience the new "espionage" genera.

Thief is the first game I played that wanted you to think in 3 dimensions, and was also the first game I played where background atmospheric dialog occurred at random intervals. It was a weird feeling to sneak up on a pair of guards who where just milling about, talking to each other.

The game simulated noise and light, which meant that the guards acted very intelligently for the age, with the exception that there were times where they would spot you... through a physical object. You had the ability to put out torches with water arrows(sigh), rope arrows to climb up to high alcoves, and the first game to cause a sneak attack to take out a guard instantly. It was also the first game I can remember that forced you to hide the body of guards.

If you want to take a look and see how far the genera has come, or some of the best early entries into the world of gaming, try out Thief: Dark Project.

Get it Here!

Reviews - Diablo II

2011-01-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

This is a game that in no way needs any introduction. If you have played RPGs in the past 20 years, there is no way that Blizzard Entertainment has not in one way or another changed your life. At the moment, they are best known for thier World of Warcraft online MMO. That was far from thier best game, though.

Enter the world of diablo, where demons and angels walk the earth, battling for the souls of men. What at first may sound like any number of fantasy books is made unique by the way the story is told, and by the immersivness of the enviroment. Harking back to the last Diablo, all enviroments are randomly generated, meaning every instance of the game is a different and unique expirience.

The game has 5 character classes, a level 80 cap that is nigh impossible to reach, and still one of the only online games from the late 90's that is still supported by blizard to this day. There are some annoyances, however. This is a fast game, and you need to be on your toes to click enemies as they appear, lest they overwhelm you. Second, some of the keymappings that may save you are not exactly well documented, so knowing that holding shift will make your character stop moving, which is very usefull, is something that one has to discover by trial and error.

This is the only game, other then diablo, that I have ever seen use a inventoy "size/slot" system. Each item may take up more then 1 slot, up to 10 for the biggest, and randomly vary from power, strength, durability, and enchantments. There are four different levels of enchantment, and many other types of magic that can be applied from gems to runic words.

All drops are random, and some of the best drops are the hardest to get. You could play through three times complete without ever completing a set of unique items, or you could get them all within the first three hours. All of your equipment is carried through each playthrough, as well as your level and expirience.

Even after 12 years, this game still suprises me. This is a must have game, and one of the diamonds from when the Epic companies still ruled the Gaming world.

Get it here!

On learning C++, Spagheti code, and Hostile Forum Goers

2011-01-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

So, time to talk about my little pet project. I'm in the process ot trying to learn C++. As you can imagine, this means alot of trial and error, and quite a bit more book reading. The fun part of learning C++ is the multitude of ways something can be done, and how none of them are apparently correct. It's "fun" to watch groups of people battle over the specific way a segment of code should be carried out, and as a complete newbie, it gives me a real feeling of being in the center of a war zone.

Everything, apparently, I code is incorrect. I use goto statements and lead them to loops. I nest if/elseif/else statements into one another, and I really don't comment my code much. I misuse functions, abuse pointers in ways that shouldn't happen, and generally mash things together until they work exactly the way that I want them to... which at times is not really that good from a technical aspect. To the user, it looks just fine.

I can understand to a point the level of Ass-hatery that happens from some of these people... I mean, these are guys who do this professional. The truth of it is, however, most of the material out there is really intimidating to the newbie.

I personally found this worst when I was learning about pointers and references. I had built a script that could load in a reference value, and then set it as the pointer. In theory, it worked. In practice, it didn't(it turned out to be a conflict from something else in my little program.) I posted on one of the many forums that I frequent the code, and got this snotty comment as a reply:

Never use cout. use printf. learn to program.

Now, beside my personal displeasure at this obvious trolling, it completely derailed the thread. It became about using cout to printf, the reasons why, and with a few(two) people actually commenting on the problem at hand.(one of these gentlemen actually explained the way the * and & symbols work, and I'd be completely lost without the help)

It's defeating as a newbie, to get this slung at you. If I wasn't so driven to learn, I really would have dropped the process right there. I don't know, I just feel like the community needs to shape up, and really define what standards ARE the standards. Possibly a project to look into in the future...

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T15:42:00.000-08:00

Well, it's almost 2011! Not much interesting in this blog post, I'd just like to wish you all a happy new year!

Is Apple the new Microsoft?

2010-12-30T15:40:00.000-08:00

You know what, we haven't given Microsoft enough credit. For years they have maintained a monopoly by providing and then denying services to it's users, questionable business and data collection policies, and utter ruthlessness towards competition. So it would only be natural that the biggest underdog would start emulating them.

From the Wall Street Journal

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--Apple Inc. (AAPL) and a handful of mobile app developers have been sued for allegedly transmitting user information to advertising networks without the consent of owners of its mobile products, like the iPhone and iPad.
In a complaint filed Thursday, Jonathan Lalo of Los Angeles County, Calif., said Apple and a group of mobile application developers were selling personal data, including his age, gender and location to ad networks. Read more here

This might as well been expected. Since the start of the internet, marketing firms and large companies have considered the user as more of a hassle then an actual customer, and nowhere else will you find as much customer disservice as with them.

Take a look at apple's business policy. They don't want the user to know that, with a little knowledge, they can fix their own computer. It makes sense as a hardware manufacturer, but you'd think it would just be easier to make all the port connections proprietary. I mean, it was good enough for Intel.

It just shows that nothing is free of catches anymore. It's depressing, really.

Reviews - Hugo 3

2010-12-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

As the third part in this little block of gaming nostalgia, I'm going to do a review of Hugo 3, the last of the series that was actually an adventure game.

Hugo 3 takes the story straight from Hugo 2, where after leaving the player becomes stranded on a island when thier plane crashes. Penelope gets bitten by a spider, and that starts a strange chain of events that... honestly, dosen't make alot of sense. The graphics are beautifull, and the animations are a nice change from the 5 pixel floating torch animations from the previous games.

The story starts with hugo getting stranded across a chasm from his plane while searching for a cure for Penelope. This is the first game, and last, that Mr. Grey decided that "let's make the game go into a no-win condition right from the start!". You need ot grab the sandwich, flask, bullion cubes and other things, or else you will loose. At first it prompts you to go back but you can proceed without grabing one of the items, that you really need!

The quest is along the veign of the waters of life, and it takes forever to get across a simple stream, get the water(which you can drink... hello unwinnable state #2) and get it back to penelope before you can leave. I think.

It's a nice little game, but don't expect it to ammuse you for more then a hour.

The Artifices of my youth…

2010-12-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been sorting through all the old posts on my ancient(and now defunct) personal blog, and I found all of my old art tiles. I had originally made these for a mod to a game I had been working on, but then either lost interest or got overloaded with life in general. I have hundereds of these, scattered all over my computer now. I’m not too sure exactly what I could do with them. Killer powerpoint presentations, maybe?

Any ideas?

Top 5 sources for goods to make money on Ebay

2010-12-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, thought I would post a fun little article on the rise and deadfall of making your own Mini-Ebay empire. At one time I was a Ebay'er, but I ended up leaving all the fun and thrills to... a place that ended up having no internet connection. Here are the top places I went to find goods to sell on the net.

1) Value Village

I'm probably going to recieve a little hate mail for this one, but one of my favorite places for retail items is Value Village. The mass quantity of neat things they get in there is unending, and the quantity and quality of goods change on a weekly basis. I used to specialize, for a time, in dishware and decanters. I still have a nice collection of antique decanters in storage at home, that I got for, at most, 5$/a piece. If you're good, and do your research, you can turn that 5$ purchase into a 20$ sale.

2)Dollarama

Dollarama is... a strange store. It's one of the few stores that still has things for a dollar a piece, and the quality of most of the goods is not quite bad. If you get food from there, sometimes it's hit or miss, but the glassware, plates, and most everything else is spot on. It's a great place to shop to save money.

3) Costco

Yeah, I know. Costco is not worth it for 75% of it's goods, but sometimes... sometimes you can find electronics there for pennies on the dollar, and they're really good if you're looking for bulk... anything.

4)Craigslist/Kijiji

Yeah, I know it's kind of cheap, but it's true. For the ammount of free stuff that people could most honestly make some true money on, that they simply want to get away, is astounding. I'm still amazed by the amount of free stuf we've got from people who just want it "out of there".

5)Rummage Sales

The true place of bartering. If you're good and have some surplus of a little of everything at home, you can sometimes make trades with people for items they don't want, but you know that you can sell easily. It depends on your creativity, and also the amount you can reasonably push to get a good deal.

(Under no circumstances invest in clothes. Never, ever, ever, ever.)

Well, I hope this has given you some entrepreneurial ideas... so go out there, and sell1

Reviews - Hugo 2

2010-12-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

The second chapter of my gaming youth was with, ironically, the second chapter of the Hugo story, Hugo Two - Whodunnit? It was a realatively good detective mystery for the time, really strange and with more ways to die then I can care to count. When I say this game was hard, it was REALLY hard.

It contains one of the hardest puzzles of my youth. The venus flytrap maze. If you move a pixel too far to the left or right, you die. And the controlls aren't really made for pixel perfect precision.

The game follows the story that Hugo and Pennelope(The victim from the last game) have gone on a honeymoon to visit her uncle. While visiting, hugo gets abducted and while searching for him, she witnesses the murder of her uncle. Then it's a wander around and try and open, close, push, pull and generally irritate everything untill you get to the end.(including a baby).

There are some puzzles that have solutions that you would never guess, or are just plain cheap. For example, the genie. To get across one specific puzzle, you need to cross a hidden ledge, that you wouldn't figureif you didn't try EVERYTHING else.

This is also one of those games where if you aren't paying attention and taking notes throughout the game, it really screws you in the end. At the end, you need to point out the murderer. If you fail, it's game over. If you don't fail... it's a slightly better game over. This is just another case of one of those games where the developer kinda gave up.

If you're into murder mysteries, this is a fun game. I won't spoil who did it to you, but it makes sense in the end.

(I only realized after I forgot to add one thing to my Hugo review. In the original game, there was a command line option that would play thrugh the game, so that you could see how to get past the areas that messed up. I believe the command was hugo.exe -hhh)