Karuji

Portal 2, what wut!?

2011-05-17T22:03:00.001+02:00

Ok, I finally got the monkey off my shoulder and finished Portal 2

Now the entire time that I was playing the game I thought "Well it's good, hell some parts are better than Portal, but there is just no way it could ever be better." And then I got to the end. And all I could say is ". . .", and then my brain decided that it would work again and it was "Ok I take it back it was amazing"

It is rather hard to describe how Portal 2 surpasses the original without spoilers. So to keep it short. The puzzle mechanics have increased tremendously it differs very much now, and eliminates most of those reflex orientated puzzles.

The area where Portal 2 truly shines is story. Portal never had much in terms of a story -although I enjoyed it greatly- Portal 2 explores areas that we never knew existed, and wondering how it factors into the Half-Life universe as a whole is puzzling. But that just leaves me wanting more from Valve.

Oh yes the ending of Portal 2 is far better than the original, except the theme song. I don't believe there can be a better song than Still Alive.

PS: In retrospect I realise that I could sum everything up by simply saying. Portal 2 is a most worthy sequel to Portal.

UPCON 2011, awesome here we come.

2011-04-26T19:28:00.001+02:00

So the long adventure is drawing to a close. And by that I mean we're about to hit the longest stretch. With just under 2 weeks to go I'm starting to become a hermit, and by that I mean running around and yelling, actually politely speaking, to many many people.

The fact that UPCON is happening this year is actually close to a miracle, since there have been a substantial list of problems Old blog post on UPCON problems but in the end we managed to sort most of the problems out. Keeping in mind that post was back from January, so would be correct in assuming that at least a few more bugs came around for squashing.

So now all that is left to do is pull off an awesome con, and some stuff along the way.

Now I'll blather about some people who deserve more praise than can ever be said.

Firstly Herman and Shaun, our MTG and Wargaming reps respectively. These guys have been organising some massive stuff. We are hosting the Magic pre-lease at UPCON so that adds a lot to the Magic organisation. And this year we have had the largest registration for WH40K, ever! So big that we will in all likelihood have to find a larger venue for next years UPCON.

Marie for her continual tracking of module writers for the con, oh ye module blurbs here.

Grant for his continual support of gaming, UPCON, and general geek culture in South Africa. Ashley our treasurer for running around and pricing everything, as well as doing our shopping and making sure we have what we need.

Gordon and Mellisa, for their continual help and support of crazy ideas and help in keeping the TKV running.

Last but not least is Dina, she is very much the life blood of UPCON, if we renamed it to DinaCON I don't think anyone who has worked with the con for the past decade or so would mind. She has always come through and helped pulling us out of the dark and making sure the con happens, and happens correctly. This is especially so this year with the bugs that we have encountered.

And those who I surely have not forgotten, our dedicated and new UPCON goers. They, and very potentially YOU, are the reason we run around like loons, go prematurely grey, and various other weird and horrid things that happen to us. It is all for them and we think they rock.

To those who have and do contribute to UPCON, but have been omitted, from this post I offer my sincere apologies. But if you get in contact with me I shall make sure you are included when I do my next post about the con.

Thank You :)

UPCON 2011 RP Blurbs

2011-04-26T18:38:00.003+02:00

Ok so here are the Blurbs for UPCON 2011. Please excuse them being on my blog, UPCON has kept me substantially busy to set up a proper website for the TKV. Also these are not all the blurbs, module writers are fickle, and untimely, creatures. But we love them :3

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The Reef City:

By DD Mullany

Sometimes fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. This is perhaps more true than you would like to admit, adrift in time, thousands of years in the Past. The one benefit of this whole situation is that you now know why it is that you have never been able to detect any sign of your comrade Math Cuchen, these last five years. Somehow, he has been stranded in aeons past for all this time.

Still, his existence all these thousands of years before your present day is sending out ripples in the time/space realm and all of you must return before these very ripples become disastrous for the future that is your own. As it is, all of the warnings from the Agents of the Veil of Time that has sent you on this journey have been dire indeed.

But your Bard is a slippery customer and someone that falls foul of all manner of chance. Finding him is one thing, getting all of you back safely might be another thing entirely… Still, all of you are inventive, successful and experienced adventurers, what could possibly go wrong? A Greyhawk Module written for 3.x D&D Fantasy rules, using a modified D20 lite system for ease of play, for 4 or 5 experienced players of TPL 80.

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The Veil of Time:

By DD Mullany

It has been a slow year in Dullstrand, the stark dusty hills and valleys soaking in the light rains that now seems something to depend on. The winds have dropped their relentless year-round onslaught and people are busy being… people.

Into this season of pleasant surprises, It seems nothing could spoil it for anyone… except something has. An old friend of yours, one Arlan Verba has come forth with a fairly remarkable tale, one so impossible as to be unbelievable. While you have often suspected Arlan Verba of being someone’s spy, all you have known up until now about this delicate subject is that Alan has never denied this.

So, not only does Arlan Verba drop a bombshell on you by finally revealing who he does report to, he also asks for assistance on a very private diplomatic matter, one which affects all of you and the whole of Dullstrand. After hearing what it is, never mind the Dullstrand Diplomats… this is personal!

The 4 or 5 experienced level PC’s will play in the Greyhawk World using a modified T20 system for D&D V3.x with a TPL of 70.

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Ses van die Bestes 3 – Slag van Kuduvlei

Date/Time:

System: Pokethulhu (D12)

Players: 5 - 6

Author: Jacques “Gork” de Jager

Thanks to the heroic actions of the Ses van die Bestes the world is safe once more! Now three years have passed since the end of the EGO wars. Mega corporations and governments have joined forces to battle the effects of the nuclear fallout that is ravaging the planet. Also new superheroes are being trained to thwart any new super villains and to prevent all out war from happening again!

But deep beneath the surface of the world slumbers a great evil and a mysterious group of people are moving in the shadows to awaken it. Only one man has discovered the truth of what is going to happen... And how to use the Ses van die Bestes for his own diabolical schemes. Will the Ses van die Bestes prevail once more? Find out in this exciting episode of Ses van die Bestes!

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Complex 8472

By Gregg

System: Gamaworld 4E

Blurb:

Life’s been hard enough since the great disaster. No one knows exactly how or why it happened, but reality fractured, suddenly overlapping thousands of parallel universes all onto one. The result was “messy” to say the least, but you’ve been eking a living off what little talents you have had since the change. Now, to make matters worse, some nutcase in a giantrobot showed up and scooped you into his servo claw, cackling manically whilst ranting about some grand master design. Oh well, it could be worse. At least he hasn’t shoved you in some bizarre underground facility with five other mutants…

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A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises

By Leslie Longman

“Blessed Celestial Hierophant, the power of Kiamast has swept away the shroud of Kasdual over the Valley of Narguz and the Eye of our Divine Master Surastrid can and has now revealed to us what transpired there.”

“Yes, Watcher?”

“Narguz perverted the usual Midsummer ritual and virtually all the people of the Valley died to fuel his ascent to godhood. Narguz has been removed from this plane by Kiamast and adventurers have slain Kasdual’s servant, the lich Lirgan, whose phylactery seems to have been destroyed. But there are some survivors who are being held by other worshippers of Kasdual for some fell purpose.”

“They must be rescued! It is only the second night after Midsummer and all six moons have waned little from their fullness. Alert the temple’s Brethren of the Moons and send them to Hadruun immediately.”

“As you command, Celestial Hierophant.”

A D&D 4ed module for six player characters (paragon tier).

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It Takes One to Gnoll One.

by Rodney Sloan

It just takes one bad element to move into the village and the whole vale goes to the gnolls!

The sleepy town of Willowton never gets visitors, and they like it that way. So when a family move in from out of town and livestock starts disappearing, it doesn't take much of Mrs Lottie's rumor mongering to raise suspicions that the new comers are in fact gnolls. That begs the question... what the dark is a gnoll?

Play the part of would-be-heroes in a town where nothing ever happens, and then suddenly decides to. A slightly quirkier Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition game for one GM and 6 not so serious players.

Not here . . .

2011-03-15T22:16:00.000+02:00

I normally don't do the personal blog post. While I post my opinion, I don't do the introspective post. But this is different.

I just found out that a friend of mine has passed on. He was one of the few people who earned my complete respect and more. He seemed to know everything yet never was arrogant about it. He was kind and gentle and gave an ear and comfort. His death is truly one I mourn. And it would be at this time that I find the right words are not to be found.

Humanity has lost one of its greats, and it never even knew he was there.

So much has been lost with his passing. And nothing gained.

A tear spilled is too many
Men weep as nations
The light has ceased
They cannot see

Forget not time
No name in sands
Nor whisper of winds

Eternal are your rights
Moment our existence
But yours a moment
Too soon

Magicka Review

2011-03-09T17:30:00.000+02:00

Magicka is one of those satirical RPG games. Or something. Well in short it is awesome and I have never had so much fun and laughter from dying.

Magicka is as you could guess about the magical spell that one has at their disposal, these are earth, fire, water, ice, lightning, arcane, healing, and shield. These spells can be combined to give you other spells. So I could shoot a boulder at someone by using earth or I can shoot a molten piece of rock that explodes.

The controls are simply complex. And by that I mean they are simple but have a lot of depth to them. You cast a spell by clicking a corresponding key, fire is f, then you can use your right mouse button to cast it. But. You can hold shift and right click to do and aoe around you, you can shift and left click to charge it into your sword, or if your character has learnt a spell of awesome™ you can press spacebar to unleash it.

The audio provides a rather pleasant listening experience, and all the characters speak in a sort of simlish language leaving you to read speech bubbles.

Graphically the game looks great and the spells make you smile when they go of, and you feel the sheen of polish to the appearance to the game that just makes enjoyable.

The best part of the game, second to throwing "balls of magick™" is the story. And in case you didn't read the first line, it's satirical. The opening line of Magicka makes light of two of more of the most popular and influential RPGs to have existed, this continues with the meme reffence throughout the game and makes the inner nerd most happy

My only gripe is the saving, which would be the lack their of. When you reach a check point it doesn't save you there, so if you leave the game you start at the beginning of the chapter.

Oh and it's only $10 on Steam and a 700mb download. So have fun.

Moving Forward. Why do we need money? And some more patent bashing.

2011-02-23T11:18:00.000+02:00

I believe money is only a tool. Those who seek to increase their financial wealth gain nothing of value. Since money is only a man made concept. We could use shiny pebbles instead. In time your possessions will be outdate, your art collections fallen into utter obscurity, and your memory forgotten once your patent has died out. Information should be open.

I firmly believe that information should be open. Although everyone is entitled to their secret, and I like my privacy, as should you. But why should the latest scientific discoveries only be available to those with millions of dollars to spend, when it can help so many.

I pose the question what if information was like open-source software? In a world where people band together communally and work to bring about an advancement of humanity. Perhaps this is just my inner Marxist speaking again. But money and material objects are not all there is. What remains once we are dead is our legacy. Perhaps only in some obscure manner but most people find inspiration in such manner. Find me a mathematician who does not know the names Euler, Gauss, Descartes. Or a game designer who doesn’t know about McGonigal, Carmack , Shigeru, Roper, or Newell. They are all nieces, but then so do we all exist in such.

We are a macrocosm of microcosms. All of which link in various ways to form new microcosm which are part of greater macrocosms, and all of them add up to the megacosm which is humanity. For instance, Indie Game Designer -> Game Designer -> IT People -> People. Or within your community that you live you find people that fall into varying professions, and lives. Now you have a microcosm that is your community, but the members of the community each belong to another microcosm.

Ok now what is the point of my boiling into social structures. Simple. People have hobbies things they really like doing. Take for instance someone who likes gardening. What if instead of a boring secretary job they planted crops to feed their community. Now someone comes up with a great idea of how to increase productivity amongst these people, shares the information and everyone benefits.

Thus by an advance of a microcosm of gardeners have helped various microcosm communities. Now this eventually spreads. And your children learn of the Kempner farming method of increased productivity. But if Kempner patented the farming method, and only he got rich off it what happened to him in the end?

As much as we value money it is essentially worthless due to it constantly changing. What was a dollar 10 years ago are now 20. Imagine Hitler had conquered the planet. And it had been fixed since then that a loaf of bread was one frank. That means you could perfectly plan for retirement and made sure you had enough money.

I’m not saying let’s all go commi - and also not saying go Hitler, - but let’s start being less douche about how we live. Draw inspiration from your fellow man, and say “How can I make it better, and how can I make it better for everyone”

Oh and one more thing against patents. “The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed a patent on it is horrifying” –John Carmack.

And just for fun, if Einstein patented E=MC^2 we might not have nuclear reactors. Or if Newton patented his 3 laws of physics, we might have . . . well anything we have today. Just think about the number of scientific equations that if were allowed to be patented would have caused many of the things we love not to exist. Now think of what patents are currently denying existence.

Game Cloning.

2011-02-08T09:58:00.001+02:00

When it comes to cloning video games I am firmly against it, just as I think that censorship and piracy are bad things that we can do without. But bad things do exist, such is a basic premise of life.

But why is cloning a video game wrong? Here is the fun part, legally it isn’t, morally I’m aligning a cloner somewhere between a thief and a rapist. First it isn’t legally wrong due to the fact that cloners steal the idea behind a game, and replicate it in a format using different code. If they ripped off the code then you would have a legal case. Or if you patented some software technique in it and they used it you could sue. But I’m against software patenting, but that’s for another day.

Secondly, why I equate them to somewhere between a thief and a rapist. Some might say being a thief isn’t so bad. I disagree. If I were to rob the largest bank in America, they would have to call in their loans, and when people can’t pay then there is an economic collapse, and I don’t need to paint the rest of the picture. The rapist equation is due to the forceful fucking someone over, in a painful and traumatic way. Say there are some indie devs working their asses off on an awesome game. They have a free public alpha, and are working on a final product. Now if someone were to clone their alpha and distribute it on a platform that the devs were targeting then what? Months of hard work lost. Any reasonable person would seek a way to right this situation. You would go to the police if a thief had entered your house and stole your possessions.

And while I may equate cloning a video game to certain things, cloning is certainly different. It is something so unique that most legal minds can’t quantify it. But game developers can. A can developer can look at a game and say: “Hey I see the influence of minesweeper in this game but I really like how they progressed on the idea.” At the same time a game dev can look at a game and say: “Wait that’s just solitaire with a different skin.”

See drawing inspiration or improving on a concept isn’t cloning since it progresses the concept or genre. For instance Half Life and Quake were built in the same engine, yet they are completely different games. And if someone made a game for xbox called kaloh, about a guy who wears a blue power suit and fights on a doughnut world, Microsoft would have a) never let them publish the game, and b) sued their asses off.

So how do we stop game cloning? Unfortunately we can’t. Douches will be douches; it’s like trying to stop crime. But when a criminal act is committed there is action taken against the aggressor and recompense for the victim. What we need is legislature that protects the creative rights of the creator that they may lodge a complaint, which is examined by notable and respectable game developers who can say “Yes this is a clone”. Just because we currently lack the legal system to deal with clones people may condone them.

So now we just hope that people shall start to realise that clones are bad. That we need legislature against it, and while they are tinkering with the laws can they please get rid of software patents.

Google Chrome just won my heart.

2011-01-26T19:24:00.000+02:00

I will admit it I love Google. And well that's for good reason, they do things right, and now their lovely little browser has done something I have always wanted.

My chrome browsers now sync up. Now you have you have to wonder what the big deal about this is? Well simply put I like bookmarking things. Now when you run multiple computers that becomes a problem. See when I am out and browsing the web on my netbook and I bookmark something to read later, then come home I cant just use my desktop. And vice-versa.

Now there has been some solutions to this before. Like emailing yourself what you wanted to read, or Opera's Link, and Firefox's SyncUp extension. But I wanted something cloud based, and tied into something I regularly use. Now I'll be honest I don't use Opera much so I can't give a full view on how good it is. But I have used Firefox, and since it first came out at that, and the sync extension was just lacking.

But with Chrome I have a sync that ties into my Google account, I do believe I have just discovered the holy grail, the only thing better would be a ghost-in-the-shell-esque internet directly into my brain.

Admittedly I'll still be using Firefox and Chrome as I have for the past while, but Chrome is now my favorite of the two.

Booking the venue for UPCON, the story so far

2011-01-20T15:22:00.004+02:00

The story of booking the venue for UPCON 2011 began last year when I went to tukkiewerf and asked, I was informed that I had to come back next year, so in this time the TKV, and GGC began plotting on how to make UPCON as awesome as we can.

So on the first day that the university was open –January 3^rd- I made the arduous journey from JHB to PTA –only done that for an entire year prior- and began scouting around for people to speak to since half the 75% of the university staff aren’t there. I spoke to the person in charge of managing the bookings for the venue (and no I’m not publicly announcing the date until I can confirm the venue).

So I come back to the university a week later to get the form now that the people responsible for them are back from holiday. So I fill the form out. And the land in charge of managing the bookings wonders why someone from tukkiewerf can’t just send her the form to book with, when the people at tukkiewerf says that a lady who is only coming back in a week needs to sign it off, but the lady in charge of managing the bookings, and blah blah blah blah the administrative procedures make no sense to me, and most of the staff.

So today I get the call from the lady that was away on holiday, aaaaand. Oh sorry your student society doesn’t exist. See last year's TKV council forgot to file some rather important paperwork, and ye we technically don’t exist, though we did host UPCON, and have out AGM.

Now the university won’t let us book the venue since we don’t have a society. And I asked if I can book it privately and pay full price, that’s not allowed either. So I was then told that I should go speak to the dean of students. He was out so I spoke to a senior assistant, I was told to email someone else since it was rather likely that the dean of students would refuse us the request.

So here we are. And we’re not done. We’ve not even started. We will get the venue, there will be an UPCON, and it will be awesome. We might just need some help from our beloved CON goers, and exhibitors.

PS, I do not wish to blame anyone. Blaming people will do nothing to help UPCON be a success. People banding together and showing support is what will help us. If we can show the university "Hey we are THIS AWESOME" then they will have to give us the venue. And hopefully forgive the past mishaps of the society.

Dota, who does it belong to?

2010-11-02T18:50:00.004+02:00

Well if you're a Dota fan, and have not been living under a rock. Then listen in, if you don't like Dota, then listen in about the IP, struggle, and blah blah blah.

So we start with the fact that around a year or so ago the man known simply as IceFrog - maker, and custodian of Dota- started working at valve. From this we guessed that valve was going to make some kind of Dota spin off. But they are making Dota.

Now business is a cut-throat world, you can get sued for patent infringement by making a slide icon on screen to unlock a touch phone. So Valve in their attempt to make Dota applied for a trademark.

Now we have the stink to the issue. Riot games counter filed for the trademark Defense of the ancients, and Blizzard are also trying to make their own Dota. So who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

Firstly my personal note. I grew up playing Diablo, and StarCraft. At one point I would consider myself the biggest Blizz fanboi there was. I almost cried when HellGate was announced - and was a lot closer to crying after playing. - I'm a really avid Dota player having spent entire weekends LANing and playing it with friends.

So back to who should get to call the game Dota. Dota was originally made by a pseudonym user called "Euls", this was in WC3 RoC, he was inspired by the SC map Aions of Strife. The map was then remade in WC3 FT by Steve "Guinsoo" Freak, who is one of the higher ups at Riot Games who make LoL. Now Valve hired IceFrog who has been the long standing Dota maker.

Now in short I believe Valve is in the right. Blizzard, and Riot Games both stand to lose due to Valve making Dota, LoL claims to be the successor to Dota, but it's rather hard to succeed a king while he is still lively and on his throne. Blizzard stands to lose since people would go and buy WC3 to play Dota.

Valve is doing what they have always done, saw a mod and went and made it into it's own game, look at Team Fortress Classic, TF2, Counter Strike. And the taking a game made in another engine isn't new since Team Fortress was originally a Quake mod. The team that made it hired by Valve. Sounds very familiar.

Now as far as design and so on goes. I'm very sure there will be tons of additional things to dota, I mead TF2 has received more content then some, or quite a few, subscription MMOs.

And I'm sure the Dota community will still be able to contribute to the game. And at heart it will always be their game, and if someone had to own the IP I'm glad it's Valve they have yet to give me a reason to doubt their actions. Blizzard has been Koticked :(

On a side note I saw that Blizz was making a map for SC2 called left to die. And I was totally making a text based zombie horror survival game called that . . .

ZA Game Dev Article Analysis (Sunday Times)

2010-09-30T00:41:00.005+02:00

So my usual routine of going on twitter with my Blackberry led me to a Star article Shoddy Quality Article used a picture of @dislekcia -Game Designer/Programmer/Collaborator of Space Hack, Desktop Dungeons, Monochrome amongst other.- So he is a rather awesome guy in terms of ZA Game Dev, since he runs one of the two communities, namely Game.Dev. The article instead focuses on AD Game Programming Courses, and Learn 3D.

Before this article I thought that the media tribunal is an absolutely horrid thing, I still do. I just think we need better articles than this. The article outlines that there are three types of Game Development. Professional, Indie, and Casual. I'm not even going into how flawed this is. But in my books a casual game developer is a hobbiest who makes games for the fun of it. Not really worrying about the selling of the game, thus giving us awesome freeware games. Indie developers focus on platforms such as iPhone, Android, XBLIG, and XBLA.

Moving on the two companies referred to in the article. Learn 3D offers Autodesk courses. So learning Maya, 3Ds Max. They also seem to be planning on doing a game development course soon. AD Game Programming Courses, seems to focus on a bunch of short lessons on how to make games, and from their demo screens it's in XNA. Not shower on the parade. But if you want to program just learn how, there are loads of tutorials on the net. If you want to program XNA then get a book. And start making games, join a game development community. And if you want a job, either get really awesome or get a degree, or both.

South Africa actually has game development on the international level just look at Luma Arcade. We might not be a country developing AAA title but there are reasons for that. We are still a growing game development industry barely even a generation old. If you want the actually story of what ZA Game Dev looks like Awesome Gamasutra Article

The conclusion is simple. We have Game Development in ZA. We have awesome Developers, we have an actual history of the industry in this country. The Star really should have done some proper investigating for that article.

Why School has Failed

2010-08-19T09:09:00.004+02:00

Well first off the blog isn't dead. Secondly after going through the South African Outcomes Based Education (OBE) system. My education looked like this I had a 70 something percent average and had never worked at all. You see there is a problem with that.

The fact of the matter is that something that is in turn more normal, tertiary education standards, is now something that is somewhat difficult. It went from the number of subjects in a year to more than that in a semester. And while I know of other degrees that require as much, if not less, effort then was required for me to pass high school these degrees much like high school do not advance you as a person.

The culmination of this flawed system is that the new South African government implemented a flawed system to fix apparent flaws in society. But the education system itself was fine, not perfect but at least better than OBE.

Thus I leave with this proposition. Let not high school be viewed as the final stop in the journey, but as another step in the journey that is life.

For as it is with universities (colleges for you Americans) the end all you have is a piece of paper saying you apparently know something. It doesn't say what you can actually do.

Blogging for RealDev

2010-06-14T11:19:00.004+02:00

Well there comes a time in every bloggers blife where he must move on to new and greater blogs. Fortuneately this is not that time. And I doubt it will ever happen.

So recently I, and by I I mean Pandawlf, has been doing a lot of development with Edg3. And as such we welcome him to the Pandawlf team as the guy who does the coding. In turn I am now blogging on his site http://www.realdev.co.za/ , and my blog can be found at http://www.realdev.co.za/karuji/

So now a lot of my development based posts will be there. But worry not good people I'll post all of it here with all the explicitives ;)

Also forgive the lack of image on this post, Edg3 has yet to get a logo for RealDev.

Number13 ARG

2010-06-11T21:39:00.005+02:00

So for those of you who do not know what an ARG is. Wiki it. It stands for Alternate Reality Game, not Argentina.

So the Number13 ARG is the first ARG in South Africa. And it so happened to occur at the University of Pretoria (TUKS) which I seem to go to a lot, don't ask me why. The ARG began by the hacking of the university Multimedia website. A link to a strange website was found, and down the rabbit hole we went.

The basis behind the ARG was that someguy (better known to the players as Kael) sister or girlfriend. Was kidnapped by stone masons for the ritual of a virgin sacrifice. I suppose at the point of virgin sacrifice the sister makes more sense so she is his sister.

Kael sends the players around on a bunch or arbitrary quests to save his sister. Since a never ending quest to save his girlfriend would be lame. So off we go solving encrypted puzzles with recording devices, hard riddles and since most people doing this were studying Computer Science. Laptops.

(On the note of laptops I might at the humorous part of me not having a single programming compiler IDE or anything on my now stolen laptop since I couldn't have been bothered to re-installed when i was getting my lovely new netbook)

So now we run around campus and discover the scary amount of stone mason stuff on campus. We also learn that Kael doesn't really want to save his sister since he only wants clever people running around doing stuff, In the end his sister in fact died in the ritual and we consumed her body make of delicious snackage and soft drink.

Not bad for something that lasted from the 14th of April to the 13th of May.

If you want more info try:
http://www.number13.co.za/ (The mysterious website)
http://num13.pbworks.com/ (The player wiki)
http://www.dreamfoundry.co.za/archives/1299 (A blog by someone who isn't me)

RIP Dio

2010-05-16T22:02:00.004+02:00

Just a minute ago I heard the tragic news of the passing of one of the great fathers of metal Ronnie James Dio (or just Dio) died today the 16 May 2010. Dio had been battling against stomach cancer. And until a few months ago it seemed he was on his way to recovery although the more recent news pointed toward this unfortunate day.

Indeed we must mourn this day for Dio truly was one of the greatest influences upon the metal genre. Being the vocalist for Black Sabbath be gave us the Corna (horns) not to mention some Über Metal. No doubt his greatest song is Holy Diver, while my personal favourite would be The End of The World, and more recently Heaven & Hell rocked us.

So to you Dio we hang our heads in morning, but we raise the horns high. You have earned your place in eternity. Your music is eternal.

Don't get emotional but we're out of time
The melody's gone
And fools have got the sunshine
If I'm mistaken and I see you again
Don't leave me alone
Maybe tomorrow
Could be the end of the world -Dio (The End of the World)

Inefficiency

2010-05-13T21:37:00.005+02:00

Well I don't mean to rant. Actually I do, this time. To be clear I didn't start this blog to be a personal rant page nor do I intend for it to be but there are times when a rant is in order.

So the 'cause of this rant is rather simple I am moving into an apartment close to my university (college for those American folk) and more than one week after applying for an electricity connection I am still in the dark. And for my South African readers I can't even put in a eishkom how did we fucked it up joke here.

So to start off my lovely *seething with sarcasm* experience with this company (impact meters). Last week Tuesday I start moving my stuff through to my apartment and contact the company for information as to how to get electricity at my place. After waiting on hold only to be told that I had to contact another branch I promptly called the other branch to inquire as to how to get connected. Do they email me an application form that I fill in digitally print out sign then fax to them?

Simply no. I have to go to them and pick up a form to be filled in. To which I thus ask what their location is. The response was to give me directions. I ask again for an address explaining that I am directionally inept and need to check out Google maps and my GPS to get anywhere. Once again she tries to give me directions. I sincerely explain that I am not a native of the city in which I study and thus directions do not help me but an address would help me. After about eight minutes of waiting she eventually give me an address.

So now that I can finally find the place I go there to get the form. Upon collection of the form I see why it can't be done digitally, well not that it can't just the idiots wont. The form is on carbon paper, remember that old stuff that you press on one page and it writes on another. Way cool in the 80's but this is the 21st century.

So while I begin to fill in the form I am informed that I need my lease agreement. So I take the form run to my real-estate agents and get a copy of my lease. While reading through the terms and conditions of the electrical supply I notice something things like that they can just change my rates, the landlord can ask the company to charge me extra, and lots of other bullshit. But the Pièce de résistance is that all communication must be by email otherwise they will charge me extra. The idiots can't set up a system with any digital incorporation into the application. Yet they want to charge me extra if they can't email me.

But back to the thing that really bugs me it's been over a week and I still don't have power. Are they that inefficient that they cannot even provide what their business is setup to do. And I contacted them on Monday and was told that I would have power but when I got back to my apartment it was completely in the dark. Thus leaving me to drive to another city so I could do anything besides just pass out on a bed.

So now my question why are things always so blasted inefficient. Do people simply lack innovation, are they too lazy to do anything decent? Do they just not care. But if people do not innovate or progress then they stagnate and if you stagnate while others progress you are left behind causing you to be inefficient. This basic problem can be applied to many field. Actually I will do a proper no rant type write up on this. That soon. But for now can they just fucking connect my electricity.

Facebook

2010-05-06T00:53:00.005+02:00

So Facebook, recently this booming social network has begun to annoy me. Ok that was a lie, I was being nice, facebook annoys the fuck out of me.

So why do I use it. Well it is convenient for what it was originally intended for. Keeping in touch with people, events, and so on. Basically social networking. Ok so if I think it's good for that then why am I ranting? Simple facebook fails at everything else. I've been using it since there was a mandatory 'is' in your status updates and you had to refer to yourself in the third person. So when I started using the site it wasn't the complete shit sauce I was expecting it to be, guess it lived up to my expectations in the end.

So what went wrong? Well the first thing was the apps. See back in the day you only used to have one facebook page, no tabs imagine that, and every-single-fucking-thing was on that page. You used to spend 20mb of bandwidth to load a page just to let a friend know that they left a cellphone at your house, and that they are an idiot for having so many apps on their page.

But facebook has it's redeeming qualities in that aspect that the devs soon realised like browsers facebook pages needed tabs. So crisis avoided and I started using facebook again.

Then came the one reason I still bother with the site. Events. These lovely little things let me know what's going on with music, lans, etc. So this little nugget of gold is rather helpful and convenient for my life. Since I run around to a lot of gigs and the bands can let me know what's going on. On the personal side, friend having a party, or myself, set up an event and problem solved.

So far I have mentioned the things I like about facebook and that's about all of them. So now to why I hate it. I'm an IT guy I'm passionate about it. Thus the facebook devs simple fucking around annoys me. Sure they have had some innovation. But really could that not have found a way to make it easier for the user? Every day I get 49 farmville, 20 petville, and what ever other app request. Then there are the group request, page request and so on. And sometimes there is that nugget of gold in the pile of shit. Often enough I lose it 'cause ignore all is just that convenient.

So let me go onto my recent gripes. Fan pages. Recently there has been an out break of page such as "Funniest pic evar join 2 c" besides horrid spelling of the name you have to join to see what is this less than humorous image. And you get spammed by an endless count of these.

If you are clever enough to catch onto a pattern here then you aren't in need of help. Facebook is a cesspit of viral trends from apps, to groups, to more app, to fan pages, to even more apps, to who the hell knows next.

In the end the problem is that a vast majority of facebook users are bored idiots who have nothing better to bide their time with than playing annoying apps and trying to coax their friend into joining them into playing these as well.

The sad part is the in the base concept facebook was brilliant. Social networking, well the next generation of it anyway. But a couple of mistakes by the devs has led to it being just a cesspit. Who wants all their information to be linked to fan pages? Hey is I was a self centred dev who was trying to prove to the world that I'm awesome I might make annoying things like the those mentioned above. In the end I'll just bide my time until the next generation social network comes along and I just hope it has events in it.

And so it begins.

2010-05-05T23:21:00.001+02:00

Hmm where to begin? Well I've been thinking for a while that I need a place to put all my crazy ideas and thoughts down so why not do something linked to my google account (one of the many) for convenience sake?

So here we are in my plain of meandering kaos (yes a purposeful misspelling of chaos but isn't that just kaos being chaos?) So basically you can expect anything from reviews on games, books, gigs, bands, to philosophy about games, music, and the universe or anything else my mind decides to spew out.

On that note if you have any comments or criticisms about about the blog in general just comment here and I'll take it into consideration