Lost in Blue: sexist game ever?

Published on July 25, 2010 in Geeky Stuff, Random Stuff, rants and reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

No, that isn’t a typo, up there in the title. It really is the most sexist game I’ve ever played, not the sexiest.

The premise, in a nutshell: you are a teenage boy who gets thrown from a cruise liner (or it sinks, it’s not stated either which way). You wake up on a deserted island — but wait! It’s not totally deserted, because who washes up on the beach next door but a teenage girl from the same ship! She’s looking for her glasses, which you promptly step on. Whoops. So, taking her by the hand, you lead her to the conveniently located cave nearby.

She weaves. She feeds the fire. She braids rope. And, of course, she cooks. Here’s how it plays out: you talk to her. She says something like “Hi! How was your day?” or, “Did you hear my stomach growling? ^_^” (the emotion is basically how they drew that bit of artwork.) Then you tell her that it’s time to eat, you hand over all your food, and she says… “I’ll do my best! ^_^” Then while your character sprawls out in front of the fire, she goes over to the corner and cooks your meal.

The girl is useless. She serves an in-game purpose, I understand that, but they could have made her just tiny bit less like an ideal 1930s housewife.

You can take her for a walk outside if you want. There’s no leash, so you’ll have to hold her hand the entire time. Why? Apparently because she doesn’t have her glasses and is therefore completely blind. When you get to a knee-high ledge, your character has to pick her up, swing her around, and set her down. Then he jumps up beside her, takes her hand, and pulls her to her feet. She can’t climb any high ledges, like the boy can, and she can’t wade through swamp (maybe it’ll ruin her dress? Who knows!).

In short, she’s useless. And because of the game designer’s half hearted attempts at a plot, it’s hard to ignore her simpering brainlessness.

Dear game developers (and while I’m at it, Hollywood execs): we need more female heroes. Real heroes. Not a damsel in distress, not a love interest, not pure sex appeal. Heroes.

Thank you, that is all.

I shot JFK

Published on June 5, 2010 in Deep Thought and rants. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

To many people, the words “JFK assassination” are almost synonymous with “conspiracy.” The event and the aftermath sparked off a debate that continues to this day, and has been the subject of many books, research papers, and a few movies. It’s also been referenced in countless works of fiction. For example, in Alan Moore’s famous Watchmen comic book series, it’s strongly suggested that one of the main characters was the shooter on the grassy knoll.

Though the Warren commission determined that there was only one shooter, many alternate theories postulate a second gunman, firing from either the grassy knoll or the Dal-Tex Building, across from the School Book Depository, or somewhere else entirely. It appears to me that the reason for the popularity of these theories is a basic unwillingness to believe that Oswald could have made the shots he did in that time span. I decided to test that out myself.

First I looked up the timespan. To my surprise, it has yet to be conclusively narrowed down. It’s estimated at 4.8 to over 7 seconds. I decided to use the lower number as a benchmark. I don’t have a Carcano rifle like Oswald, so I had to make do with a bolt-action .22 rifle.

My first test was seeing if I could fire three shots in under 4.8 seconds. I stood about 80 feet from my target, a 9×11 piece of paper. I was using an un-scoped .22. I performed the test three times, the first two standing, the final one kneeling, using a wooden bench rest (much like the window sill Oswald probably used).

First result: 2 out of 3 hits (same as Oswald) in 3.14 seconds. Second result was 2/3 in 3.2. Third and final result was 3/3 in 3.6 second.

I now knew that the firing speed, at least, was easily doable. But what about accuracy?

For the next test, I set up 3 targets at 250 feet. The targets were 2x4s, about 8 inches long, standing vertically. I used the same .22 rifle as before, only this time with a 9X magnification scope. I used the same wooden bench as before for a rest. The result was 2 hits out of 3 shots in 5.2 seconds.

I realize there are problems with this test, due to my inability to rent a sixth floor snipers nest and a moving target. However, these things are trivial. The fact of the matter is that accurate, rapid fire can be achieved with a bolt action. I may not convince anyone else, but I’ve surely convinced myself: Oswald acted alone, and anyone who says otherwise is just trying to make things more complicated than they really are.

Consistency vs. Customization

Published on May 17, 2010 in Deep Thought. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Sometime in between now and becoming Emperor of the Americas (something I will detail at a later date) I want to start a cafe. Not just any cafe, but a robotic cafe. Food prepared by a robotic assembly line. Yes, that would be just as awesome as it sounds.

The title of this post — Consistency vs. Customization — comes from a thought I had today. McDonalds, or any other fast food franchise, is an excellent example of consistency. No matter where you go, a happy meal is going to be a happy meal: 97% identical to any other (and yes, I pulled that statistic out of my ass). But say you want mayonnaise instead of ketchup, or pepper jack cheese instead of cheddar? Tough luck.

A local cafe that I love — Cafe 103 — is the perfect example of customization. They have a menu, but nothing is set in stone. If they have the ingredients, they will make it for you. My usual order is for a Strawberry smoothie spiked with grape zip-fizz, soy milk instead of regular (because I’m kinda lactose intolerant) lightly blended so its so thick I have to eat it with a spoon. And no whip cream. My cheese burger is pretty normal, with the exception of pepper jack cheese. That, my friends, is what you get when you live by the motto “The customer is always right.”

Of course, this customization has a downside: very little consistency. I don’t know how many ways there are to fry a burger or mix a smoothie, but I think I’ve nearly collected the entire set.

Enter, stage left: machine precision. You walk in; you go to a touchscreen. You select you basic meal, then customize it to your heart’s content. The interface would be very friendly and easy to use, while still offering fine grained control. It would also show you a live calorie count and other nutritional information. Then, after you’re done, you can could save your design so that the next time you came in your perfect meal would be just a few button presses away.

Once you submit your order, the robots would get to work: frying, slicing, dicing, shredding, blending, baking, pouring soda pop. This would all take place under clear glass, so you could watch your food move down the line.

I would make millions, I’m sure.

A bit of fiction…

Published on April 20, 2010 in writing. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Wrote this a while back, while testing out Write or Die.

“This sucks,” thought James, as he blew the head off yet another zombie.

It had all started two days ago, when Obama’s health-care plan took a turn for the worse and started bringing the dead back to life. The country — perhaps even the world — was completely overrun. Only small pockets of survivors were left, like the one James was with. But they were close to the end, having run low on all their supplies. Including bullets, James was reminded as he reached for a shotgun shell but only touched air. He swore, dropped the shotgun, and drew his Mateba Auto Revolver.

The survivors were holed up in a coffee shop — not Starbucks, because even in the middle of a zombie apocalypse none of them were that desperate. No, this was a small, independent place called Coffee of Doom. The proprietor had succumbed to the infection a few hours back — and, as she was the only one who knew how to work the fancy coffee machines, they were almost out of caffeine.

James was standing near the window — or, rather, where the window used to be. Floor to ceiling glass walls don’t last very long around the undead. Speaking of which, another zombie appeared across the street, howled, and charged. James sighted his .45 calibre weapon, squeezed the triger gently. The monsters head exploded.

“If only they were Romero zombies,” James wished for the thousandth time. “But no, that Zack fucker had to go and do a remake…”

How-to: WPA/TKIP on Linux

Published on April 14, 2010 in Geeky Stuff and tutorial. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

It’s simpler then you think. Yes, it involves wpa_suplicant, but you don’t have to edit any config files or try to decipher the wpa_supplicant command that involves a dozen random, mandatory arguments.

First, install wpa_gui. It should be in your repositories (might have to look under “wpagui” — without the underscore). Run it. If it says something like “could not get status from wpa_supplicant” continue on. Otherwise, awesome! The program is a bit non-standard in it’s interface, but it’s really not as terrible as it may seem. Just hit “scan,” double click the network you want, edit the information with everything needed, then hit “add.” Should connect automatically after that.

To get wpa_suplicant configured right, it’s easiest to install ceni. This is a tool created by the sidux developers as a replacement tool for Network Manager. There’s a deb and source-code in the directory I linked, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Though it was created for a Debian-based distro, I’m confident that it’ll work anywhere. (Note: it’s a curses app — console based, but not command line.)

Once you get it installed, run it. If it freezes your system for ~30 seconds, don’t freak. It does that me, too. Dunno why.

Select your wireless card when prompted, then select reconfigure, then roaming. Then hit the continue (shouldn’t need to change the default options) and… ta-da! wpa_gui should work just fine. ^_^

Any problems/suggestions, feel free to comment.

Side mount scope on a Marlin 80

Published on April 11, 2010 in Random Stuff and firearms. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Do a Google search for “side mount scope” and you get absolute shit results. “Marlin 80 side mount scope?” Forget about it. So to anybody looking for information, here you go.

Who this applies to: anyone who has a rifle with rail mounting holes on the side of the rifle rather then the top. Like my Marlin 80. You need a Weaver side mount and a ring mount.

You put the weaver side mount on — which is really just a riser with two screw holes in it — then onto that, you mount the rings. Then you stick the scope on and you’re done! And yes, the scope is in the same place as normal — when I was looking at the pictures of the parts, I couldn’t quite figure it out and was imagining the scope sticking out from the side or something. Happily, that is not the case.

One thing to note is that at least with my rifle, the scope was so low the bolt handle can interfere with the power adjustment knob on the scope if you’re not careful. One way to fix this might be to weld/glue/magik on a wee little bit of metal to the base of the bolt handle, which would remove the extra play it has and eliminate any possibility of the handle touching the scope.

Global Gun Control? Probably not, but keep an eye out…

Published on March 22, 2010 in Deep Thought and firearms. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Uzi

The oft-maligned Uzi. It’s on my wishlist, even though I have no compelling reason to own one.

Over the past few months I’ve been seeing articles on the UN’s Small Arms Treaty pop up in various places. The articles warned of one world governments, global civilian disarmament, and how Hillary Clinton was the Antichrist.

In other words, I thought, your standard tinfoil hats. Until today, when I actually looked up the treaty, and realized that tinfoil hat types are similar in function to the canaries miners use to have to warn of poisonous gas.

As it turns out, the Small Arms Treaty has yet to be written. However, the group pushing it — Control Arms Campaign — has enough information to get me slightly worried…

Extracted from their FAQ: “…but it would most likely not affect national laws allowing private citizens to be properly licensed to own and lawfully use a firearm in cases where they have a compelling reason to use a firearm and can do so safely.”

No, they’re not taking your guns away. Providing, of course, you have a compelling reason to own them… and something tell me “resisting governmental tyranny” sure as hell won’t cut it.

Of course, things change. The damn treaty isn’t even written, and once it has been the US still needs to sign it — something far from guaranteed. I’m not opposed to the main ideas put forth in the treaty — that is, keeping small arms out the hands of wannabe dictators and warlords — though I do think it’ll do little good. The final version will probably be quite tame and do jack shit about anything, just like the rest of the UN.

But keep an eye out.

Land of the Dead: a review

Published on January 30, 2010 in rants and reviews. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .

Somewhere in between Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead, George Romero was bitten by a zombie. It’s the only way to explain it.

Here’s some issues, big and small, that I had with the movie. There are spoilers, but that doesn’t really matter since you should avoid this movie like the plague — watching it will lower your IQ.

  • Skateboards. A few different people skateboard in this film. Problem: at the start of the movie, someone is skateboarding in a zombie infested town. Have you ever skateboarded? If you have, you know that you can’t skate gravel. Or dirt. Or mud. Or on a mass of leaves. In other words, all the things you’d except to find in a town that’s been abandoned for ten frigging years! (Or however long it’s been — it’s never actually stated in the movie.) But nope, I guess they’ve got functioning robot street sweepers!

    And let’s not forget when there’s a guy waiting in a shack. After he hears a noise, he gets up, jumps on his skateboard, raises his gun (does he not know about Newton’s third law?) and skates the five feet toward the door. He gets what he deserves.

  • Automatic weapons. It’s common knowledge that the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot it in the head, so what does everybody do? They fire on full auto toward’s the zombies’ torsos, and act shocked when nothing happens.
  • So this dude steals a APC-like vehicle that’s armed with middle launchers, and says he’ll blow up the city unless… he gets two million dollars in cash. The only thing I can say to that is: WHAT! THE! FUCK!

    What the FUCK are you going to do with money in the middle of zombie infested America, huh? Even IF there still was a functioning economy in the city itself (a pretty big if — more on that in a bit) he can’t exactly go back to the place he just threatened to destroy. Completely illogical.

  • Economy. Oh man, I’m not sure where to begin… In fact, I don’t think I can write anything on this subject other then “what the fuck!?” because it is just 100% the opposite of anything remotely plausible.
  • Leadership. The city was manged by a board of directors that did… absoultley nothing? Along with an upper-class group of citizens that likewise did nothing except sit around and drink fine wine? Another WTF is called for.

    • And then there are countless incidents where characters act like utter morons for no good reason… and by “incidents” I mean “the whole damn movie.”

    I’ve heard many people say that the “…of the Dead” movies are a metaphorical, satirical take on life and society.

    If they mean that life really, really SUCKS, then I guess they’re right.

Death Troopers sucks.

Published on January 30, 2010 in rants and reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Should of posted this a long time ago, but whatever: Death Troopers is the worst Star Wars book ever. Well, maybe a close second to the Tales of the Empire (or was it New Republic?) short story collection, which was SO FREAKING BAD I puked all over it. Then quietly put it back on the bookshelf and slipped out of the bookstore. (Slight exaggeration.)

Death Troopers had a lot going for it. Well, ok, just the cover… but the cover alone was enough to make me go blind from the sheer awesomeness of the thing. If I could get that thing as a poster, I would.

And the book even starts alright — the first chapter is pretty creepy. Then the characters open their mouths and it all comes crashing down. On top of bad dialog is the fact that everyone seems to be holding the idiot ball and not noticing when corpses start disappearing and shit. (The whole thing was a terribly contrived way to add suspense. I’m supposed to believe that these zombies are going to sneak around, carefully remaining hidden and avoiding the survivors just in order to… what, inflict psychological harm? Yeah.)

And so then some stuff happens, some people die (not as awesome as it sounds — I think the Lucasfilm people might have edited it down, or the author just sucks) some more stuff happens, and the escape, and everyone lives happily ever after. Mhm. Dawn of the dead this is not.

In summation: could have been so frigg’n awesome. Later on in my life I would not mind funding a low budget indie adaption of this, in the vein of Alien. With the script completely reworked my yours truly, of course.

Phantom Hourglass: yeah, it’s awesome.

Published on January 27, 2010 in Random Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

After my last post about how much Spirit Tracks sucks, I decided to replay Phantom Hourglass. And yep, it’s awesome. I think it’s better then Ocarina of Time. Furthermore, Linebeck is the greatest supporting character of any Zelda game ever made.