Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Land Voyage - To the Mana bar!
So the plot goes something like this:
After packing totally casual clothes the Panda tells us that slacks are in order and all shirts should have collars. A little repacking was required, attire more suited to The Ship. On the road we started a video diary. But by Gympie the ipad was flatter than a crazy gods 3 week old bottle of Pepsi Max. Initially our auditory sensors were assaulted by a drone regarding assault. Soon enough we switched to another radio frequency and found a manly discourse on manliness at least that’s what he said, mostly it was about etiquette. But we did learn how to fold pocket squares and about Bar-Tits-U, the manly martial art. Eventually we cruised into a bunker and unloaded all out munitions. Then careened into Chinatown to look for crates and discarded noodle boxes. The noodles I found came in a bowl and ROFL managed to splash curry onto my manly berserker chest, at least he would have if he hadn’t donated a shirt to me earlier. Once we had all consumed our consumables we ambled onwards our final destination, the Manabar.
Really not what I expected at first. Overall it was a small pub. But after 9 it became cozy. I’m glad now that we arrived early and had a chance to scope the place our and look at all the games without sharing when we first arrived. The drinks were expensive but I wouldn’t have bought anything other than the mixed drinks as they fit the theme. The Health potion wasn’t pleasant at all but then again I suppose that makes it a health potion. One of the games appears to have been named after me, Guitar Hero was a little hard to hear but since the Beetles were playing I could sing along to most of the songs.
What happened at 9 to make it cozy? Well out the window I saw a sushi shop and was intrigued. Could I make this type of consumable? Would it restore my health in a more pleasant manner than the potion had? What is that in the window? Is it a train?
It was a train. Trains are cool, trains with food are even cooler.
After a while I was no longer intrigued, instead I was bamboozled. But trains with food are still cool. Then Panda's dad arrived and spoke of far of lands where it’s so primitive that they install wireless access points in trees. He made the food better.
More stuff about the pub... arrival of Revi and the nearly techodanceparty…
On Sunday Sam rose early to checkout the backpackers, when he was done we made way to the mall to meet a mountain of a man. Since the man mountain wore a manly tie and sold pocket squares I felt the need to buy a manly tie too. Then we found out why safety razors are more manly than unsafe razors. Our next quest was to find some manly hats, we needed a collection of various hats. But first we found comic books.
Later for lunch we retired in a romantic Irish tavern and reveled as RORL read from his rose petal book about the sensual effects of vampirism, at the time I was experiencing the same sensations. But for me the effect resulted from a ravishing blood pudding and pint of Kilkenny, really quite refreshing.
I nearly procured a top hat and sundowner but I was unsure if I had the correct faceshape to pull it off so I thought I'd await the Hattery, which we never found. Then it rained, I do believe that rain is not so good for felt hats, one wonders where one would wear a top hat, not in the rain, not inside, not while eating (except in a manly café outside).
Following that with more haste than speed we arrived too late to watch a Sherlock Holms movie, instead we started to watch the girl with the dragon tattoo. At the point in the movie where she gets raped I felt the need to leave, and Revi felt the need to follow me. We discussed the movie a little and felt that we were still in the into as nothing had really happened yet. As nothing plotwise had occurred we found we nolonger had the desire to return to the movie once the rape scene was over. So we went looking for a better movie and saw the start of the iron lady, seemed like a decent movie that I wasn’t really interested in. Although the filming was great and the way that they introduced the story was really interesting, dealing with Alzheimer’s I think.
Then we ended up with Sherlock Holms, and that’s a real manly movie, definitely worth watching. Me and Revi probably saw the middle hour of it. This movie really brought together ROFL’s read, it had everything from canes and umbrellas to polished shoes to pocket squares. Next it was onto church.
This was another scouting mission but a side quest, for bonus XP. I found myself on familiar ground, SNL was almost exactly the same as going to my Baptist church at Uni. Lots of singing complex songs a testimonial, sermon as a part of a theme, mostly uni people (harder to drive yourself to church when you don’t have a car) and a few faces that I recognized. As a reward for completing this quest we got a decent meal of pasta for a mere 3 Lucre.
Then came the saga, it was a long sleepy trek back to our respective normal habitats. Since we never really had a bossfight there must be more quests to come. Possibly out opponent bars the way into the Hattery?
The other Technomancers that made this sojourn possible were: Deo_the_Drunkard, VRBones, ¿Panda¿, Panda’s Dad, Revi Two Hands, ROFLHarris, ¿MountainMan¿ , Josh Levifriend and me, Raskalnickoff.
EDIT: Panda usually goes by the name Duffman although I've known him usually as Pandaburp. and I don't know MountainMan very well but rumor has it he goes by the tag Minimus Cumulus.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Hydrophobia Prophesy: A Review
Hydrophobia Prophesy, after the intro I started looking for mods to remove the swearing. I did fine where the sound bytes were stored although VLC didn’t play them well. I removed about 20 files and felt pleased with myself. Initially I was going to replace them with a sound of Kate groaning as it could serve as a good analog, but not for that many files. Although even after that though the main characters still swear a lot. It’s not just taking the Lords name in vain; it’s also the repetitiveness of the so called “Colorful adjectives” that irritates me. People plagued by the word “Um” irritate me in the same manner. Sometimes I can live with it like Red Steal on the Wii, the first line of your girlfriend is “my god, you’re here” or something along those lines, so forever after that I was talking to the ingame characters and gently chided her for giving me the pet name of god. If it wasn’t for that I would never have called out all the sword moves as I did them, and that added a lot to the game. That said unlike Saints Row I am keeping with it and should probably see the tale through to the end.
My next gripe is that the MAVI idea is a great one that would have been better if all the UI was contained within it. As it stands there are a few things that glow on their own like a corpse that I needed to loot and exploding barrels, both of which broke my suspension of disbelief. Also its nice when a game doesn’t tell me that “W” will walk me forwards. The only game that I can think of that specifically doesn’t use “C” for crouch would be the rougelikes. Can there be a difficulty setting for “I have played a FPS before and I know how to configure the kemap” Then only the people who fail to understand get forced to sit through a tutorial. There is also the high score system, that would definitely work better if it was constrained to the NAVI at least in the first playthrough. Plus when you are looking through the MAVI at the world then bring up the overhead map you open another new MAVI over the top of the current one and it is slightly larger.
All the rest is good, It’s nice to not start a game with coming out of a coma. The water mechanics are nice, the confusing half in half out of the water works well in this game. While its frustrating to constantly lose vision as you go through the phase change of water-air-water it feels like it is supposed to do that.
I am wondering at this stage how my mate in the computer knows what I am doing. But his help is not invasive; it actually feels pretty cruisey that I don’t have to think for myself. Also after the first few checkpoints I found that while I am in a rush to not die I always die when I rush.
So it’s a nice immersive game. This also means that I need to play at nighttime to build up the atmosphere. And never run to quest objectives because then people stop talking mid-sentence, moving onto their next piece of dialog.
I also like the boob wobble, reminds me of anime. Although since I first noticed that I’ve been looking for other things that wobble and take advantage of the fluid dynamics system but I haven’t yet noticed anything yet. Maybe I will go through a cafeteria later that was serving jelly. I wonder if there will be oil on water mechanic too?
Ooo a sound gun, that sounds nifty, I suppose I’ll never have to reload it. I’ve yet to try it underwater. I saw somebody complain that there were no air bubbles under water but I don’t mind, with the overhead camera I’m sure they would always get in the road of what you are trying to see. I recently played a mermaid mod of CS Source and the most funest bit of that game was gaining speed and leaping out of the water, then hitting something on land with a wet slap. That game had a good mechanic for getting me to panic about suffocating on land, but here I feel too relaxed about the whole endeavor to be bothered by drowning.
Ah the balance mechanic is also interesting I had no idea what was happening at first as I never fell off anything. But now I know what it is about I’ll give it a go. Incidentally you lean forward when drawing the pistol and it seems I leant forward enough to be on a balance beam, but I cannot have a drawn weapon there so Kate stopped moving. Since I couldn’t do anything else after that I called it a night.
Overall thus far I’d say the game is ok in spite of the swearing and because of the swearing I don’t think I can recommend it.
Part 2:
Wow roughly 3 hours in before I am climbing into a vent. And I have vet to see a box/crate puzzle. Although I think the first instance or crate clutter was just after the elevator in the tutorial.
In one room the apparent exit was blocked with a shipping container and I thought “In real life those barrels could be used to float the container” then proceeded to explore every inch of the room looking for the way out. Eventually I resorted to using the map, then after a while of trying to squeeze through the gap I nearly gave up. Then I found out I could grab the floating barrels and swim down.
Facepalm…
The water powers were cool when I eventually go them although I couldn’t find enough places to play with it. Throwing dynamite barrels is so much more effective than shooting them. Also you can throw people but I didn’t manage to throw one person at another. Also it takes a while but they do drown, they give of a greeny glow when you kill them.
The boss fight had me stumped, after a half dozen attempts I could get her 2/3 dead but then I always died from a tsunami of grenades. I even had to google a solution, I spoilt the fact that this was the only boss fight and found out that the boss was definitely 2/3 defeated. But now how to beat her?
It was simple really, don’t use cover. When you hide the boss throws grenades. All the other attacks you can move out of the road of.
That’s it then, all done and dusted. Apparently this is game 1/3 and they are still looking for player feedback. I like that It made me review the game and got me more interested. Although I’m not about to restart it and hunt for more collectables (I may have found them all but I don’t know). After my rant on swearing I didn’t really notice much more, so that was good. More brain scratching puzzles would have been good, and more combat to play with the water power. Also less chaos may make it better, or worse. Maybe just a faster graphics card to make the chaos smoother is all I needed in those explody electric flooded firefights. Jelly would be a nice addition and having the floor rock under you feet, maybe sway? Yes sway like a real boat. Having a boat rock sounds like it is beached or you are listening to the Beach Boys.
My next gripe is that the MAVI idea is a great one that would have been better if all the UI was contained within it. As it stands there are a few things that glow on their own like a corpse that I needed to loot and exploding barrels, both of which broke my suspension of disbelief. Also its nice when a game doesn’t tell me that “W” will walk me forwards. The only game that I can think of that specifically doesn’t use “C” for crouch would be the rougelikes. Can there be a difficulty setting for “I have played a FPS before and I know how to configure the kemap” Then only the people who fail to understand get forced to sit through a tutorial. There is also the high score system, that would definitely work better if it was constrained to the NAVI at least in the first playthrough. Plus when you are looking through the MAVI at the world then bring up the overhead map you open another new MAVI over the top of the current one and it is slightly larger.
All the rest is good, It’s nice to not start a game with coming out of a coma. The water mechanics are nice, the confusing half in half out of the water works well in this game. While its frustrating to constantly lose vision as you go through the phase change of water-air-water it feels like it is supposed to do that.
I am wondering at this stage how my mate in the computer knows what I am doing. But his help is not invasive; it actually feels pretty cruisey that I don’t have to think for myself. Also after the first few checkpoints I found that while I am in a rush to not die I always die when I rush.
So it’s a nice immersive game. This also means that I need to play at nighttime to build up the atmosphere. And never run to quest objectives because then people stop talking mid-sentence, moving onto their next piece of dialog.
I also like the boob wobble, reminds me of anime. Although since I first noticed that I’ve been looking for other things that wobble and take advantage of the fluid dynamics system but I haven’t yet noticed anything yet. Maybe I will go through a cafeteria later that was serving jelly. I wonder if there will be oil on water mechanic too?
Ooo a sound gun, that sounds nifty, I suppose I’ll never have to reload it. I’ve yet to try it underwater. I saw somebody complain that there were no air bubbles under water but I don’t mind, with the overhead camera I’m sure they would always get in the road of what you are trying to see. I recently played a mermaid mod of CS Source and the most funest bit of that game was gaining speed and leaping out of the water, then hitting something on land with a wet slap. That game had a good mechanic for getting me to panic about suffocating on land, but here I feel too relaxed about the whole endeavor to be bothered by drowning.
Ah the balance mechanic is also interesting I had no idea what was happening at first as I never fell off anything. But now I know what it is about I’ll give it a go. Incidentally you lean forward when drawing the pistol and it seems I leant forward enough to be on a balance beam, but I cannot have a drawn weapon there so Kate stopped moving. Since I couldn’t do anything else after that I called it a night.
Overall thus far I’d say the game is ok in spite of the swearing and because of the swearing I don’t think I can recommend it.
Part 2:
Wow roughly 3 hours in before I am climbing into a vent. And I have vet to see a box/crate puzzle. Although I think the first instance or crate clutter was just after the elevator in the tutorial.
In one room the apparent exit was blocked with a shipping container and I thought “In real life those barrels could be used to float the container” then proceeded to explore every inch of the room looking for the way out. Eventually I resorted to using the map, then after a while of trying to squeeze through the gap I nearly gave up. Then I found out I could grab the floating barrels and swim down.
Facepalm…
The water powers were cool when I eventually go them although I couldn’t find enough places to play with it. Throwing dynamite barrels is so much more effective than shooting them. Also you can throw people but I didn’t manage to throw one person at another. Also it takes a while but they do drown, they give of a greeny glow when you kill them.
The boss fight had me stumped, after a half dozen attempts I could get her 2/3 dead but then I always died from a tsunami of grenades. I even had to google a solution, I spoilt the fact that this was the only boss fight and found out that the boss was definitely 2/3 defeated. But now how to beat her?
It was simple really, don’t use cover. When you hide the boss throws grenades. All the other attacks you can move out of the road of.
That’s it then, all done and dusted. Apparently this is game 1/3 and they are still looking for player feedback. I like that It made me review the game and got me more interested. Although I’m not about to restart it and hunt for more collectables (I may have found them all but I don’t know). After my rant on swearing I didn’t really notice much more, so that was good. More brain scratching puzzles would have been good, and more combat to play with the water power. Also less chaos may make it better, or worse. Maybe just a faster graphics card to make the chaos smoother is all I needed in those explody electric flooded firefights. Jelly would be a nice addition and having the floor rock under you feet, maybe sway? Yes sway like a real boat. Having a boat rock sounds like it is beached or you are listening to the Beach Boys.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Constitution and explanation
of Technomancers Sojourn Inc.
Provide a Christian environment in which to:
Initiate a transient LAN
With Cooperative intent and friendly rivalry,
Sojourn to an alternate virtual reality,
psizomai a native or create an avatar.
Quest and participate in the world.
Reincarnate.
Debrief.
Deus Ex Machina is to be avoided while eucatastrophe is encouraged.
Not to be taken, seriously; For fun and comedy.
Community is intrinsic to all activities, both with fellow technomancers and the locals.
1
The group started off as an offshoot from the youth group that I was running around 4 years ago. Gradually the numbers dropped off an I started watching anime in the youth room instead or studying the Bible. Then I figured that I would be playing computers anyway so I dedicated one night a week to it. This may have helped me avoid procrastination the rest of the week. Herin lies the source of our regularity, the fournightly friday night BASICLY (Brothers And Sisters In Christ Lutheran Youth).
2
With a dedicated day I found playing games much more fun with other people. We would build up a local area network and do something multiplayer.
3
The competitive games never really interested me much. There is something about dying for the 100th time in a row with a full ammo clip in Counter Strike that made me lose interest. Then my brothers knew all these neat maps in Frozen Throne, I wouldn’t have the foggiest what was going on except that I needed to do it fast. Also people like Sam often give advice that is purely for funnies (“left click to talk to him”), attacking quest givers is not exactly conducive to learning.
For me the friendly rivalry of backstabbing teammates and eventually uniting against a boss was way more fulfilling than getting a high score.
4
This took a while to nut out, the escapism you get from movies and books is too passive I think. The same thing happens here but it is more like active meditation. Since we only have a temporary journey both to the house where the LAN is setup and to the virtual world then sojourn fits nicely. Interestingly I couldn’t find any foreign language analog of “virtual reality”. It seems nearly all computer terms are phonetic pronunciations of the English word.
5
I had to make up a word to explain this. If I were a daemon I would be possessing the “Player Character” But I’m not a daemon and the first point was that we are Christians. Same goes for “Avatar” which initially was the description of the god Vishnu for when she created a vessel for herself so that she could pretend to be a mortal when she was playing with them.
6
Can it really be a game without fetch/ travel quests? Also you need to activate the “Suspension of Disbelief” to overcome bizarre user interface glitches and prevent “Breaking the fourth wall”.
The participation part is really important because without it there would be no point to life. And so we form communities amongst ourselves and with other gamers and with the characters of our games.
7
Eventually we need to return to the real world, and reincarnate is exactly the right word to use after our group OBE (Out of Body Experience)
8
Technology is not the only reason for the gathering, we also like to talk about stuff and eat pizza and drink too much pepsi. A debrief at the end also makes things a lot more casual and less rushed.
9
Invoking the god of the machine to cheat won’t make things more fun for long, so it is best avoided. Much better to play through as the developers intended, all the way to the end were we win and find the Amulet of Yendor.
10
Regardless of how much I participated in Frozen throne is war rarely much fun. So why did I play it? Because other people were having fun.
11
And thus began our community, the Technomancers Sojourn Inc. Why does this all sound so esoteric?
Provide a Christian environment in which to:
Initiate a transient LAN
With Cooperative intent and friendly rivalry,
Sojourn to an alternate virtual reality,
psizomai a native or create an avatar.
Quest and participate in the world.
Reincarnate.
Debrief.
Deus Ex Machina is to be avoided while eucatastrophe is encouraged.
Not to be taken, seriously; For fun and comedy.
Community is intrinsic to all activities, both with fellow technomancers and the locals.
1
The group started off as an offshoot from the youth group that I was running around 4 years ago. Gradually the numbers dropped off an I started watching anime in the youth room instead or studying the Bible. Then I figured that I would be playing computers anyway so I dedicated one night a week to it. This may have helped me avoid procrastination the rest of the week. Herin lies the source of our regularity, the fournightly friday night BASICLY (Brothers And Sisters In Christ Lutheran Youth).
2
With a dedicated day I found playing games much more fun with other people. We would build up a local area network and do something multiplayer.
3
The competitive games never really interested me much. There is something about dying for the 100th time in a row with a full ammo clip in Counter Strike that made me lose interest. Then my brothers knew all these neat maps in Frozen Throne, I wouldn’t have the foggiest what was going on except that I needed to do it fast. Also people like Sam often give advice that is purely for funnies (“left click to talk to him”), attacking quest givers is not exactly conducive to learning.
For me the friendly rivalry of backstabbing teammates and eventually uniting against a boss was way more fulfilling than getting a high score.
4
This took a while to nut out, the escapism you get from movies and books is too passive I think. The same thing happens here but it is more like active meditation. Since we only have a temporary journey both to the house where the LAN is setup and to the virtual world then sojourn fits nicely. Interestingly I couldn’t find any foreign language analog of “virtual reality”. It seems nearly all computer terms are phonetic pronunciations of the English word.
5
I had to make up a word to explain this. If I were a daemon I would be possessing the “Player Character” But I’m not a daemon and the first point was that we are Christians. Same goes for “Avatar” which initially was the description of the god Vishnu for when she created a vessel for herself so that she could pretend to be a mortal when she was playing with them.
6
Can it really be a game without fetch/ travel quests? Also you need to activate the “Suspension of Disbelief” to overcome bizarre user interface glitches and prevent “Breaking the fourth wall”.
The participation part is really important because without it there would be no point to life. And so we form communities amongst ourselves and with other gamers and with the characters of our games.
7
Eventually we need to return to the real world, and reincarnate is exactly the right word to use after our group OBE (Out of Body Experience)
8
Technology is not the only reason for the gathering, we also like to talk about stuff and eat pizza and drink too much pepsi. A debrief at the end also makes things a lot more casual and less rushed.
9
Invoking the god of the machine to cheat won’t make things more fun for long, so it is best avoided. Much better to play through as the developers intended, all the way to the end were we win and find the Amulet of Yendor.
10
Regardless of how much I participated in Frozen throne is war rarely much fun. So why did I play it? Because other people were having fun.
11
And thus began our community, the Technomancers Sojourn Inc. Why does this all sound so esoteric?
10
10 step plan for imperial success:
I ummed and arrred about adding this to my blog for quite some time but came to the conclusion that I don’t mind if people know how I tick and nobody will probably read it anyway. This also reflects a change in personality for Dimitri it seems over the last year we decided that it would be best to acknowledge each other. I’d say that is mostly thanks to Anoikis the Healer, plus the convenience.
I envision these ten steps to change over time as I learn more about myself and the world around us.
1
Luxuries are to be shared:
Only drink beverages with other people. No drinking alcohol or coffee by myself, water instead, also no milk. Need to invite people around for a meal to get these things and eat rich food. Other than that Tea should be <$10 per day, eg spaghetti bolognaise. Curries also work and stir fry, I'm gradually blogging my way through tea. Investigate rice dish, sushi?
New PC games are a luxury that needs sharing but when bought comes under the heading Fun
2
Plan things:
More extensive use of the whiteboards. Helps to reason things out and come to an informed conclusion. Plan for the unexpected as per the scouts motto “Be Prepared”. Plan to change Plans at the last minuet. Plan to be unprepared. Plan to be wrong. Plenty of documentation is the cure for forgetfulness.
What happens if I accidentally get cryogenically frozen? Like Fry in Futrurama or Aang, the Last Air Bender? Then all my knowledge and skills may be for naught. Will I be just left with my personality and morals? This is a good reason to keep learning how to learn and adapt to a new plan. Things that are done on purpose are always more stylish.
3
Spent more efficiently:
Not always spending less. Need to be like Lord Vimes of the Watch in Discworld. Buy things that last so that I will never have to buy one again. Keep receipts. Research what it does before purchasing.
Allocate $200 max per week for food and a further $200 for Luxuries. Compile a list of all ongoing expenditures and what date the yearly ones need renewing. Luxury spending is allowed to bank up, not food costs though.
Minimum house repayment is $1000 per month.
Seems I have failed #2 here but have been succeeding nonetheless as income is faintly exceeding expenses at the moment. Also I need to be wary of Jevons Paradox, when an increased efficiency increases the demand for the resource that you intended to preserve.
4
Exercise Mentally:
Learn new things, and occasionally do math the hard way on paper. Correct my own spelling without the help of a spell checker. Learning another new language always sounds so romantic. Need to be both logical and artistic in mental activities. Also need to exercise both cognitive and instinctive thought.
Doing more exercise than is required in day to day activities is a good way to maintain an adequate level of fitness.
5
Exercise Physically:
Currently riding to Bargara is not sufficient. Dancing may help. 30x Crunches and 10x Push-ups on arrival home from work is good. But I forgot about doing that. Also have not been dancing of late. May take up dancing and kite surfing in the new year.
I think my bike ride to work is all that I reliably acheive. Dancing is more of a social / mental exercise anyway.
6
Exercise Spiritually:
Pray when driving/ in the loo/ going to bed/ waking up. Read bible daily when going to bed, try to remember it in the morning. (church too). Also Youth groups help to keep me young, I also try to get Technomancers to have christian overtones.
Query: Is my Spirit different to my Soul? This may also delve into community development theory and the LAN Psizomaijitsu. Nope, thats mostly my greek logic backgroud, and I'm suffering from preconception bias.
7
Exercise Emotionally:
Hang out with other people, currently LAN + BibleStudy + Church + Dancing. Also invite people over for tea once a week. Had to bail on monday dancing to invite people over. Been going out tomany night of late.
8
Recovery:
The goal is not to avoid injury, illness and death, but to surpass them and use the experience to build character, just like Calvin and Hobbes going camping. Don’t pray for healing, because death is a kind of healing too.
I recently got some wired skin irritation from PNG and cut my hands and feet up whilst snorkelling. Boath a learning experience.
9
Have Fun:
All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy. If this is combined with all the above activities then success has been achieved.
Being at work cannot be an exception to this, neither being asleep. Otherwise having fun applies to one third of my time.
Phrase everything in a positive and enthusiastic light, especially when being cynical and pessimistic. Just like in Ecclesiastes
0
Regret Nothing:
Be not ashamed; If there is no pride to be shared in a task then leave it undone. Take pride in everything that is done and confine nothing to the secrets of the darkness. Combine this also with all of the activities above. Then there will be nothing to be ashamed of. But it is important not to take this too far and be arrogant.
This one here needs some word smithing, possibly a biblical reference too.
Progressive advancement:
Need more of all the above.
More sharing of luxuries, this is the ideal of communism. (the sort without corruption)
More Plan so that when I do not know what is going on I still know what to do and why I am.
More efficiency of worldly possessions means that I require less worldly possessions. These things need to be expended to acquire more of everything else.
More fit in the four areas of exercise. To be fit it to be able to do all the things that I want to do, I do not need to be an athlete to be fit.
More recovery so that when inconveniences occur the recovery is quicker and I have more practice at recovering from them. It’s the bumps along the highway of life that make it interesting.
More fun, is there such a thing as too much fun?
More more, I’ve forgotten what happened last week, so it needs to be done again and better this time. (reference Rock Lee from Naruto)
The progressive advancement of more fun through these activities is a good measurement of the current success rate of that which is the goal of being Ben and grabbing life with both hands and squeezing it for all it is worth while we all go for another trip around the sun.
I ummed and arrred about adding this to my blog for quite some time but came to the conclusion that I don’t mind if people know how I tick and nobody will probably read it anyway. This also reflects a change in personality for Dimitri it seems over the last year we decided that it would be best to acknowledge each other. I’d say that is mostly thanks to Anoikis the Healer, plus the convenience.
I envision these ten steps to change over time as I learn more about myself and the world around us.
1
Luxuries are to be shared:
Only drink beverages with other people. No drinking alcohol or coffee by myself, water instead, also no milk. Need to invite people around for a meal to get these things and eat rich food. Other than that Tea should be <$10 per day, eg spaghetti bolognaise. Curries also work and stir fry, I'm gradually blogging my way through tea. Investigate rice dish, sushi?
New PC games are a luxury that needs sharing but when bought comes under the heading Fun
2
Plan things:
More extensive use of the whiteboards. Helps to reason things out and come to an informed conclusion. Plan for the unexpected as per the scouts motto “Be Prepared”. Plan to change Plans at the last minuet. Plan to be unprepared. Plan to be wrong. Plenty of documentation is the cure for forgetfulness.
What happens if I accidentally get cryogenically frozen? Like Fry in Futrurama or Aang, the Last Air Bender? Then all my knowledge and skills may be for naught. Will I be just left with my personality and morals? This is a good reason to keep learning how to learn and adapt to a new plan. Things that are done on purpose are always more stylish.
3
Spent more efficiently:
Not always spending less. Need to be like Lord Vimes of the Watch in Discworld. Buy things that last so that I will never have to buy one again. Keep receipts. Research what it does before purchasing.
Allocate $200 max per week for food and a further $200 for Luxuries. Compile a list of all ongoing expenditures and what date the yearly ones need renewing. Luxury spending is allowed to bank up, not food costs though.
Minimum house repayment is $1000 per month.
Seems I have failed #2 here but have been succeeding nonetheless as income is faintly exceeding expenses at the moment. Also I need to be wary of Jevons Paradox, when an increased efficiency increases the demand for the resource that you intended to preserve.
4
Exercise Mentally:
Learn new things, and occasionally do math the hard way on paper. Correct my own spelling without the help of a spell checker. Learning another new language always sounds so romantic. Need to be both logical and artistic in mental activities. Also need to exercise both cognitive and instinctive thought.
Doing more exercise than is required in day to day activities is a good way to maintain an adequate level of fitness.
5
Exercise Physically:
Currently riding to Bargara is not sufficient. Dancing may help. 30x Crunches and 10x Push-ups on arrival home from work is good. But I forgot about doing that. Also have not been dancing of late. May take up dancing and kite surfing in the new year.
I think my bike ride to work is all that I reliably acheive. Dancing is more of a social / mental exercise anyway.
6
Exercise Spiritually:
Pray when driving/ in the loo/ going to bed/ waking up. Read bible daily when going to bed, try to remember it in the morning. (church too). Also Youth groups help to keep me young, I also try to get Technomancers to have christian overtones.
Query: Is my Spirit different to my Soul? This may also delve into community development theory and the LAN Psizomaijitsu. Nope, thats mostly my greek logic backgroud, and I'm suffering from preconception bias.
7
Exercise Emotionally:
Hang out with other people, currently LAN + BibleStudy + Church + Dancing. Also invite people over for tea once a week. Had to bail on monday dancing to invite people over. Been going out tomany night of late.
8
Recovery:
The goal is not to avoid injury, illness and death, but to surpass them and use the experience to build character, just like Calvin and Hobbes going camping. Don’t pray for healing, because death is a kind of healing too.
I recently got some wired skin irritation from PNG and cut my hands and feet up whilst snorkelling. Boath a learning experience.
9
Have Fun:
All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy. If this is combined with all the above activities then success has been achieved.
Being at work cannot be an exception to this, neither being asleep. Otherwise having fun applies to one third of my time.
Phrase everything in a positive and enthusiastic light, especially when being cynical and pessimistic. Just like in Ecclesiastes
0
Regret Nothing:
Be not ashamed; If there is no pride to be shared in a task then leave it undone. Take pride in everything that is done and confine nothing to the secrets of the darkness. Combine this also with all of the activities above. Then there will be nothing to be ashamed of. But it is important not to take this too far and be arrogant.
This one here needs some word smithing, possibly a biblical reference too.
Progressive advancement:
Need more of all the above.
More sharing of luxuries, this is the ideal of communism. (the sort without corruption)
More Plan so that when I do not know what is going on I still know what to do and why I am.
More efficiency of worldly possessions means that I require less worldly possessions. These things need to be expended to acquire more of everything else.
More fit in the four areas of exercise. To be fit it to be able to do all the things that I want to do, I do not need to be an athlete to be fit.
More recovery so that when inconveniences occur the recovery is quicker and I have more practice at recovering from them. It’s the bumps along the highway of life that make it interesting.
More fun, is there such a thing as too much fun?
More more, I’ve forgotten what happened last week, so it needs to be done again and better this time. (reference Rock Lee from Naruto)
The progressive advancement of more fun through these activities is a good measurement of the current success rate of that which is the goal of being Ben and grabbing life with both hands and squeezing it for all it is worth while we all go for another trip around the sun.
Friday, December 23, 2011
LOL: 3v3v3 map
Concept based around a hexagon like a Benzene ring. Each corner of the map contains a base similar to that found in a 5v5 map, but without the 3 turrets at the nexus.
When your nexus is defeated your champions still respawn and can play but your team cannot win.
At champion select also vote for starting position, default location already has 1 vote. At a draw or if teams all vote for the same place then it is random, so you will either end up where you voted for or at your default location.
IP awarded depending on how well you played plus winning bonus, like dominion.
Baron in centre of the map and the minions circle him so that they are out of range of each other. Dragon present at the start of the game but baron replaces him when killed.
You have 2 turrets on the side lanes and one to baron.
Dragons live in empty bases, where the nexus would be.
12 jungle camps (2 in each triangle) so 16 total jungle camps.
Can use the shops at empty bases, cannot heal there though and no nexus turret.
Minion wave has 4 casters and 4 melee. 2 of each stealth when moving so they sometimes can pass each other around baron
Unused towers are passive, only attacking as defence but if you kill one you get gold and full health + mana.
Green = Creep; Blue/Red/Yellow = teams; B = Baron/Base; T = Tower; Dot = Jungle Camp
end game blue V red, blue path shown
end game blue v yellow, blue path shown
Blue Path, crowded corner.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
"the process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process"
After reinstalling windows I found how much I relied on the hibernate option. But when I came to turn it on in the power settings al always got this message:
"the process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process"
It didn't seem to matter what programs or processes I killed, there was still something interfering with the power settings.
after a while I found this post, then bells rang I remember last time I had to do this too.
So I ran the msconfig utility and disabled all the system startup options as indicated. Then restarted my PC. When it was right to go I was able to enable hibernate. Then I set msconfig back to the default setting and restarted my PC again.
Now when I shutdown my PC I can change "Standby" to "Hibernate by holding Shift on the keyboard.
"the process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process"
It didn't seem to matter what programs or processes I killed, there was still something interfering with the power settings.
after a while I found this post, then bells rang I remember last time I had to do this too.
So I ran the msconfig utility and disabled all the system startup options as indicated. Then restarted my PC. When it was right to go I was able to enable hibernate. Then I set msconfig back to the default setting and restarted my PC again.
Now when I shutdown my PC I can change "Standby" to "Hibernate by holding Shift on the keyboard.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Further to trying to define what happens at a LAN: Psizomaijitsu and psizomai
Psizomai is a state of being like “asleep” or "betrothed” it describes the relationship between a human and an electronic entity that is being controlled, be they an avatar or otherwise.
Psizomai is taken from the words psionic for mind magic and daimonizomai for daemon possessed. For through the relationship you can control all the thoughts and actions of your protagonist. Creation of avatar is a common method of connection, as per games like Skyrim and WoW, psizomai incorporates this as well as when you control a predefined character and live by their rules as per Tomb Raider or Deus Ex. In the latter case the character exits in the world apart from the player and has a memory of events preceding to when you joined the game, these people are also more likely to participate in cut scenes.
Psizomaijitsu is an active type of meditation, where the practitioner focusses on other worldly events to the exclusion of our own world. Thus setting up and maintaining the psizomai link. It is easily interrupted as with any other type of meditation. Certain equipment is required, such as a Gameboy/PC/comfortable chair.
I dare say that the earliest instances of psizomaijitsu would be “chose your own adventure” books. The opposite of psizomaijitsu then be roleplay i.e. D&D or maybe cosplay, where you draw elements out of the gameworld and superimpose them on yourself, pretending that this is the gameworld.
Different games lend themselves to different levels of immersion. Certain things like min-maxing your character usually voids the suspension of disbelief as well.
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