Oh man, the Spore Creature Creator is so unbelievably cool.

I only have the trial version(because I did not want to spend $10 on the full version), but it's still amazing.

Though perhaps not in the way that it was intended to be. Given the few types of body parts available in the trial version, I have been "forced" to create some very freaky and one-sided creatures.

I started out making a few regular, normal looking creatures, such as the Genericosuarus mongoliensis. Eventually, I began turning to works of fiction for inspiration, making some very pokemon-like things. The bee thing actually turned out pretty nice.

But then, as I became more aware of the effects that various body parts added, I began to create mutilated monsters with six mouths, eleven pairs of wings, and so on. Limbs began taking on more than three joints, creating freaky muscle-spiders. Spider goat, spider goat, does whatever a spider goat does...

I do have a few less hideous monsters though. I attempted to reconstruct the Taxxons and Hork-Bajir warriors from the Animorphs series. I think I did alright with the Hork-Bajir, considering my limited resources. Sure, the beak was sideways and he looked a bit too cute, but a fan of the series could probably identify it. The Taxxon, on the other hand... Well, he looks like turd.

The freedom that the Spore Creature Creator gives you to manipulate limbs, delete parts and combine others, is such that even without a large variety of different types of limbs available, some really cool things can be achieved.

Now, imagine an entire planet of those. Better yet, imagine them getting onto spacecrafts and colonising the universe.

The Spore Creature Creator is the sandbox of the future. From a simple lump of clay, of a very limited size, one can produce so many interesting and hilarious creatures.


And this, all before the actual game is out.

-Joe

So then! Today, is Teacher's Day, and the bunch of us went back to Montfort to say "hi" to our old teachers. That was great and all, and it was sure nice to see the people who literally educated us while we were growing up.

After which, I headed down to Comex. Initially, I thought that only Daniel and I would be going, but it turned out that more people were feeling like wasting some time down in the city. So the five of us met up (eventually) at Suntec City and spent some time getting squashed and being suffocated inside the convention halls.

I had a pretty good time today. I tried Clank out at the Sony Playstation booth, and played a little bit of Unreal Tournament with a Razer mouse and keyboard. So probably the best exhibition I've been to in a while.

I intended on buying some more RAM for my PC, but it turned out that I forgot what type of RAM my PC needed. I thus failed in my mission to buy RAM, and instead had to opt for a secondary objective.

(It turns out that I should get DDR2 RAM. Bleh. I'll need to remember that next time.)

Which was to purchase a new keyboard, just because I wanted one.

Well, among other things. I found my old keyboard a little too noisy. It's fun to hear the TACK TACK TACK when you type sometimes, but other times, it doesn't seem like a good idea. Such as when you really do not want people to hear you typing furiously away at something, in my case, hearing me push a few keys repeatedly over and over again to drink more potions.

And well, this new keyboard is nice. I'm typing on it right now. It's not quite the "laptop feel" that I enjoy so very much, but it's much closer to it than my archaic old keyboard. And it was only ten bucks! Whoo.

A few days ago, when I made my decision to indulge myself in a new keyboard, I googled up some very interesting looking ones. Here are a few:

The Eclipse Keyboard



Ain't that just beautiful? Lovely keyboard with a cool blue backlight emanating from within... Drool.

Archaic, much?


Probably not something I'd use, but hell, I'd get one just for the sheer coolness factor.

Custom Keyboard


Uber Thin Keyboard


The Optimus Maximus


I just had to put that one in there. Even though the LEDs would eventually get smudgy from all the typing, what isn't cool about having a keyboard totally out of a Sci-Fi?

And so on a completely unrelated note,

-Joe

So then. The Olympic Games have come to a close. I think. Seriously, I really don't know. But I assume that it has ended by now.

Clearly, I have not been following the Games, save for a few things that simply could not have escaped my attention. One being Michael Phelps, the first Olympic swimmer to win eight gold medals, and Usain Bolt, who seems to be going down the evolutionary path which will eventually lead to The Flash.

Maybe if he's not dead by the time I start working, I can get him to donate some of his DNA.

And of course, our own women's table-tennis team. Of which the star players were, ironically, from China. Still, it doesn't really matter where they come from, as long as they've got our flag on their T-shirts.

I can probably assume that the closing ceremony was as spectacular as the opening ceremony(which I did not watch) and that everyone was pretty happy and all. Now we can sit back for a couple of years and wait for the Winter Olympics to begin.

China has received quite a lot of flak this round, first with the air pollution problem, then with the faked bits of the opening ceremony. Their gymnasts have also been accused of being underage, and many people have been crying foul about that. For a good reason, too. Younger gymnasts, supposedly have an advantage due to their smaller stature and greater flexibility. I don't know how much of that is true, seeing as that I am neither a gymnast nor a physiologist . But even if it did give them an advantage, it probably wasn't the best idea to put underage competitors into the Olympics.

Well, I don't know whether their age has been verified or not yet. Neither does it really matter to me.

Although I would like to point out how annoying people who discuss this subject can get. People on the side of "No, underage competitors should definitely not be allowed" constantly get jabbed at with "You're just sore because your country lost to a few little girls". Oh well, it's the Internet, I guess. People are going to be idiots. Even more so now that they have anonymity.

Which kinda makes me a little wary of what I am going to do when I start playing Diablo 3. Initially, I hoped that the morons who played Diablo 2 would be all grown up and mature by now. From the state of the forums, however, it is clear that they are not.



Anyway, according to some sources, pistol duelling was once an Olympic sport! You know, the kind where people say "I challenge you to a duel!" and then they meet in some open field at sunrise on the next morning. They would stand back to back, take ten paces, pirouette, and then fire like a madman.

Of course, in the past, Olympic pistol duelling was done with target dummies rather than real people. I suppose they hadn't invented paintball at the time. Wouldn't it be cool if the Duelling Pistols returned as a sport? I might actually be interested in watching it.

-Joe

Aaaaand it's the weekend! Unfortunately, most people seem to be not looking forward to enjoying it.

Even I, while having a severe lack of proper responsibilities, will not enjoy this particular weekend either. Or maybe I will. I don't know yet. It really depends on how I wake up tomorrow.

Anyway, I have recently found a little news video report about Russian diners that create what they call "Latte Art".


By pouring milk in just the right way, they can create nice little patterns and such on the surface of the coffee. Wouldn't that just be nice?

This does face that usual problem of food that looks really good... Which is that once you start eating it, it stops looking nice. If this becomes popular in the rest of the world, I can imagine myself in some years time going "Hahahaha now I will imbibe your soul into my being, little bunny!" every morning.

Also, can anyone identify what is being drawn on the coffee at about 33-34 seconds into the video? I have looked at it from every angle my head would turn and it still looks like either 1) A mouse with a really big brain tumour or 2) Male genitalia.

-Joe

I was digging up my old chemistry stuff today, and here's what I found!



No, it's not every Eclipse can I've ever eaten my way through. There are still a few more that I threw away initially, before I got too lazy to begin disposing of them.

Still, if you just take this lot... It works out to about $52 at the current price.

Gosh.

Of course, there were those periods when these mints were only about $2.50 per can. Even so, this lot would be the equivalent of at least $40 out of my pocket.


...


And no, I'm not going to stop buying these things. They're infinitely better than other mints, and the cans make great souvenirs.

On a different note, I'm really not happy with LucasArts making The Force Unleashed for every console other than PC. Hell, they even have a DS version.

It's making me consider buying a PSP just so that I can play The Force Unleashed. But that's exactly what they're trying to make me do. Buy a console so that I can play awesome Star Wars games.

I don't see why they would not make a PC version. PCs are still the best gaming machines out there. There are already so many modifications for the PC, that you can even play games on it using the Xbox controllers. So "You can't use a gamepad" is a completely stupid argument against PC gaming.

And whatever people say, there are so many things you can do on a PC that you can't do on an Xbox 360 or a PS3. For example, type with a keyboard and do stuff with a mouse. They may have invented some gamepad-keyboard hybrid that basically adds a tumour with a keyboard on it to your controller. In the end, you're still typing with your thumbs, making it no different, nor less frustrating, than those tiny keyboards on PDAs.

Plus, the PC has a plus in the privacy and multitasking side. Can you alt+tab out of a game on a PS3 or Xbox? Can you Windows+D to minimise everything? Can you run a music player to listen to something else instead of the same music that you hear every single time you play a game?

Until the Xbox becomes a PC with a different name, it just isn't going to be better than a PC.

Of course, the game developers are trying to change that. You know, by forcing people to play their games on anything but PCs. I personally don't see any advantage for that, that PC doesn't have an answer for.

What's wrong with the old WASD-Spacebar control system for FPS? Why replace it with a D-pad that only lets you use your thumbs? On a keyboard, it's much less frustrating to pull off a quick combo, or to say, run diagonally. Another upside of using your fingers to do stuff instead of just your thumbs, is that in the rare occasion that you break your thumbs, it would only become more difficult to jump.

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. It started out okay. In fact, it was pretty cool. I was playing Diablo 3 in that dream.

And then after a while I realised that I was not at my computer, and that there was a controller in my hands.

This sequence of events was eventually concluded with some very dramatic fist-shaking, accompanied by a Luke Skywalker-esque "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

There are those times that I wished my dreams were prophetic. Right now, I am really hoping that they are not.


-Joe

Idiocracy has to be one of the scariest films I have seen in the past few years.

Instead of the usual horrors of ghosts, zombies, and various other supernatural beings, Idiocracy presents a far more frightening situation. Basically, in the year 2505, dysgenics has seen to the devolving of human intelligence such that even the most average of people in today's world will be Einstein-like geniuses, comparatively.

The entire movie pretty much covers my reasons for wanting some sort of eugenics program. Five hundred years into the future, mankind has degenerated into a society of dirty, illiterate, and promiscuous morons. The basis of this atrocity is that since modern humans(of the present) have no natural predators, there is nothing to thin our herds. So instead of the brightest and strongest being favoured, it is simply the ones that reproduce the fastest.

i.e. People who have no responsibilities whatsoever and pass time by engaging in coitus.

So then, over time, the average IQ of the world drops to the point where part of receiving a medical diagnosis involves inserting three unlabeled pins into three of your bodily orifices. Two of which being the anus and the mouth. In this future, people who speak today's normal, ordinary English are considered to be pompous homosexuals and are generally hated by the rest of society.

This film is scary, because I really think that what we see in it has a considerably high possibility of becoming a reality. I have reasons for that.



Like COME ON, SERIOUSLY.

The worst part is, that she can't be the only person in the world to think like that.

Let's have a look at this one:

It's from Atheist Experience, and some guy tries to call in and talk about... How we should die when the sun goes down because we get our energy from the sun.



So really. Is there another solution for saving humanity from the snare of stupidity? Or are we going to pretend that everything is just fine and dandy (while complaining about idiots at work all day). I feel that a lot of people just don't want to believe that the world isn't quite as intelligent as they want to think.

Oh, and if you feel like seeing more instances of human idiocy, just go read the Youtube comments for that video. In fact, go and read the comments on any YouTube video. They really make you believe that one day, Starbucks is going to run a prostitution chain.



-Joe

It isn't quite as tasty as a real cake, but when your consciousness is assimilated into the Matrix, there won't be a difference.

-Joe

You know what would be cool? If life had its own sound effects.

In movies, and on television, just about everything that happens is accompanied by music. During a typical slasher flick, when the last remaining survivor is playing a game of cat and mouse with the killer, there's that ominous kind of music. In every(yes, every) show that has a part where two lovers embrace each other and do other things, a swelling score emerges in a dramatic crescendo. When someone discovers something amazing and grand, or when someone does something stupidly brave, there are always those magnificent and majestic melodies that seem to give the scene so much depth. They have become part and parcel of visual media.

Indiana Jones comes to mind.

Visual media happens to mimic real life, in some aspects. Because there are, you know, humans, in TV shows. And the old saying "Life Imitates Art" holds true, as far as I can tell, given the number of morons who decided to jump off a building thinking that they could fly. (In truth, I do not believe that anyone has done this. Still, according to Einstein, human stupidity is infinite.) On a more realistic level, I believe that the words still apply.

Let's not deny it: Our generation was raised on the wonders of television and computers, both of which put the visual and audio experience together flawlessly. Ergo, it is difficult to say that we do not relate our own lives to our entertainment, at some point or another. It has become such that people expect to see in reality, what they see on film. This is not quite so much an issue, as, as stated above, life imitates art. The way people act and speak is most definitely influenced a great deal by entertainment. It's really not so much different from watching real people in real situations, and learning from them.

However, while people may be perfectly enabled to alter their speech patterns or change their dress code such that they can more easily relate to television personae, you cannot give yourself a theme song. When you win a race, there will be no brassy tune playing out of nowhere(unless you arranged for it) to emphasise your triumph. Life will not also suddenly go into slow-motion so that people can see you jumping up and down...in slow motion.

Of course you can video tape the thing and watch it in slow-mo another day.

My point, is that life could be so much more exciting with sound effects. Need romantic music on your date? Across the Stars, from Star Wars would be a good choice. About to have a fight to the death with your archenemy? A number of themes come to mind. Comforting a loved one? I'm pretty sure there's something out there.

It is probably not the most practical idea out there... Given current technology. You'd need an assistant to play the right tracks for moments in your life. That would involve having someone follow you around 24/7 just so that you have sound effects. Even if we could somehow do without this, the effect that spontaneous sound effects might produce would probably not be what was originally intended.

Because, you know, it'd probably be pretty damn funny when music starts playing out of nowhere.

So maybe, not such a good idea. As fancy as having your own theme song may sound, it probably would not work out so well.

What a shame. How cool would it be to run away from a giant stone ball and then hear trumpets...

And... No related pictures that I can find. Also, this may be a repost. I don't know. It's been getting difficult to remember what pictures I've used.



-Joe

Aaaah. Not many people think of Russia, without also having the Soviet Union come to mind. After all, they were a large player in the... wars... Also, their insignia is awesome.

An important part of Russian history that many people miss, is the invention of Tetris. Created by Alexey Pajitnov of the Academy of Science of the USSR, this simple puzzle game has made its way into just about every electronic device that also has a screen. The name is a combination of "tetra", because, each falling piece is made out of four squares, and "tennis", which just happens to be Alexey's favourite sport.

Funny, I always thought that the name was an allusion to a kind of lattice structure.

Tetris has been around for something like twenty-three years, which, while younger than Pong, is still a considerably old game. From the very beginning, it has been named as one of the best games of all time, taking over all those primitive consoles that people used to play on. It really shows how far we've come. People used to buy entire machines to play one game. Now, we can play a multitude of far larger ones, on smaller devices.

Recently, I have found myself playing Tetris a lot more than I used to. I suppose I just needed a change from what I have been doing. Tetris is really addictive. I have been considering getting people to call me instead of IM-ing me, so that I can play Tetris uninterrupted.

I should really get back to my maths.

As it turns out, I have no Tetris-related images. So here's a completely unrelated one!

-Joe

Depth perception.

You know how pirates, pirate-ninjas, pirate-doctors, and certain characters from Street Fighter enjoy wearing an eyepatch? During our younger days, we were brought to believe that it was because they somehow sustained some form of damage in one eye. Or, perhaps, they were suffering from lazy-eye. Sometime recently, Mythbusters kindly demonstrated that wearing an eyepatch for extended periods of time could enhance a person's ability to see in the dark.

I would say that happens because having one eye continually in darkness tricks the brain into making your eyes produce more visual purple, the pigment that helps you see in low-light conditions.

While we're at it, think of the number of characters and personalities we know that only see through one eye. There's Leela from Futurama, who only has one eye. There's that weird tentacle beast from the trash compactor in Star Wars.

We all (probably) know that stereoscopic vision(the ability to see in three dimensions) is only possible if we have more than one eye angled in a slightly different position. Only then, can our brain interpret the two (or more) images to produce a three-dimensional image.

So. The question now is, how do pirates aim? How do they even pour themselves a cup of tea? Wouldn't their complete lack of proper depth perception basically give them the visual prowess of half a cow? And wouldn't this, naturally, make it pretty impossible for them to fight anything that knows how to step backwards every so often?



On a side note, I've been watching The Big Bang Theory. It really is very entertaining.

On an even sidier note, happy National Day.

Inside each of those missiles. there is candy! And patriotism, of course.

-Joe

Is it possible to actually drown in heat? Because it really feels that way.

-Joe

Oh noes! Oh noes!

Well, it's finally happened. Some dickwad decided to murder someone and then blame GTA IV on it.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKBKK22888820080804

I can't imagine how many times Jack Thompson has pleasured himself to that article by now.

I hate that guy(in the article) for what he did. I mean, there are SO MANY WAYS you can see if the game mirrors real life. You know, like seeing if eating a pizza can cure gunshot wounds to the chest. I really wish more people would try that.

So basically what's happening now, is that anyone who is not already a gamer, is going to have their "videogames are bad" concept firmly implanted into their brains. After every murder committed by a teenager, who happens to enjoy videogames, the fault is immediately pinned on the games themselves.

People must realise that those who commit violent crimes because of videogames are completely assed in the head anyway. If there was any real relation between violent games and violent crimes, many more people would be dead.

I wonder what people used to blame crimes on, before immersive videogames, television, and radio. Probably possession by demonic entities or something.

Next, when someone bludgeons another guy on the head with a rectangular piece of wood, they're going to blame it on Pong. Because rectangular objects look exactly like Pong paddles.

-Joe

Holy tamales. It's August.

Where did the first two thirds of the year go? It's just seemed so quick. And to think that in about a month, I'll be having a 6-week school vacation. It just seems weird.

Recently, I've been getting into those rhythm games. You know, the ones where they play a catchy instrumental in the background, while sending coordinated coloured blocks at you. They are... Addictive, to say the least.

It is funny, really. A year or so ago, when these games were basically the more popular genre, I had close to zero interest in them. After all, they did not require the player to - for lack of a better expression- kill things. I would watch my classmates and peers play these games and wonder why anyone would enjoy simply pushing buttons in sync with falling coloured bars. It reminded me of those experiments where octopi were tested for their learning abilities, albeit with none of the music.

Same goes for DDR. It should be a crime for certain people to play DDR.

Although some people should really be encouraged to play it more, and preferably in more open areas.

The story is basically that one night, I could not fall asleep, so I got onto my computer to poke around at stuff. I remembered seeing a couple of people playing a rhythm game hosted on Newgrounds, so I decided to check it out. As it turned out, it was really quite fun. Fun enough to keep me playing for a couple of hours(even though there were only about 5 modes to try).

I see why the Guitar Hero series is so popular now. You do not need an actual background in music, nor do you require any expertise at all, for you to play a music game. In fact, even people with training in musical instruments would find these keyboard-wrecking marvels to be fresh and enjoyable. All one needs is to be open to alternative forms of music, and have a want to rack up combos and points.

That last one is actually a prerequisite for almost any game. But I think everyone has that desire, either already being expressed, or not yet discovered.

These games basically give you the idea that you are achieving something. It is like reaching level 40 on Pacman, or getting three perfect victories in a row in any fighting game. Of course, nothing is happening for you(other than dehydration or kidney issues), but the point is that it just feels really nice. It's like being flattered, literally, when you get 35 "PERFECT!"s in a row. You see a nice flashy word appear on the screen that tells you how awesome you are.

From a distance, it all seems very trivial. I suppose it is. But they're just so captivating. You know, I think that black holes are a nice analogy here. When you are too far away, you can't see anything. Just the things around it. However, when you get closer, you cross this boundary called the event horizon. Once you've gotten past it, you'll be able to experience the black hole in all its wonder and glory.

...Given in a different context, that probably isn't such a good analogy. Heck, even in this context it sounds a lot like drugs.

Speaking of which, yes, all hamster products will have a dose of LSD in them. Hamster hotdogs, hamster salami, hamster pepperoni, hamster nuggets... You know, the nuggets at the south canteen are kinda soft and not really natural tasting. I wonder if anyone has already capitalised on my idea.

-Joe