Tripple A for Idiots!

So, I just finished watching 28 Weeks later. For those of you who haven't seen it, I will try to keep this a vague and spoiler-free as possible. In case you haven't seen 28 Days later either, The Rage Virus is spread just like AIDS, except that the concentration in spit is higher. Like rabies.

So, the main problem in this is the virus gets out. That's not a spoiler as it's fricken obvious. How does it get out? It gets out because the rescue opperation is run by AMERICANS. Firstly, the "Dad" guy? He has Access All Areas card, ne? So, here's a hint, I hope, should the world ever come down because of a virus, and the clean up be left to Americans, I sure hope this blog is still up, because here's some hints that the people in this film would have survived because of. If someone has AAA, give them some BASIC TRAINING. You know, BASIC. "This virus is spread via pretty much any bodily fluid. Should you be in, say a quarantine bay, with someone who might be infected, try to avoid, kissing, sex, bloodletting, biting, you know, the usual stuff. Okay, run that through, what do we not do to people who are in quarantine? No kissing, no sex, no biting, no blood-bonding, no urinolagua! Repeat back to me, Bitch!" See, pretty goddamned basic. If they don't get it, keep them out of the fucking quarantine bays!

The next big thing? Secure underground bunkers. Re-read SECURE. This means people cannot get in unless they have the basic intelligence necessary to say, enter a code, swipe a card, not eat their kith and kin. The bunker in the film was an old underground car-park. One thing that could have been done to make it more secure, would be say... locking the fucking doors? That bunker SHOULD have been impenetrable to thousands en mass of infected. As it was, the one kids' dad could just waltz in there and start chewing people's ears.

Now, should you ever find yourself a responsible citizen, drafted in to re-populate a disaster zone, where there is potential for more disaster, particularly when people get AAA without being taught the transmission rules, make sure you're up to it. People who, when locked into a SECURE (as far as they knew) bunker, run around screaming like any sensible person would do only if they where NOT in there, should not re-populate disaster areas! If you can't cope with a code red, stay at home in America!

Now, imagine your brother ran in with blood, fresh, potentially infected blood, all over his face. If you hug him, you are an idiot. Are we done now? Okay, correct procedure! Walk up to him, so you are minimum a meter away. Drop a pack of wet-wipes, a sergical gown, a lighter a can of gasoline and "Personal Hygene 101" "Nosophobia for dummies" or "the Complete Idiots guide to Not getting Infected with Blood Bourne Diseases". Turn around, let the kid undress, burn his clothes, wipe the germs of his face and put on the surgical robe away from your perverted eyes. Then teach him to read. Learn to not get Rage. Hugging is BAD.

Now, the sliiight containment failure at the end. I'm not blaming the helicopter guy. There's no way he could know. I blame the doctor woman. That child did not even KNOW he could pass it on... because the stupid hag didn't think to mention it! Idiot! If the people in this film knew what was going ON, then nothing bad would happen. Little fucktard wouldn't have gone off and had sex with French girls, make blood-brothers, joined a French Vampirists' Cult or celebrated their landing by French kissing his sister. He'd have stayed in Brittan and died like a good little shit. Or, survived like a good little shit.

So, on the off chance I survive this happening in real life, please don't suck cock at disease containment. (Also, don't suck cock. That's exchange of bodily fluid.) I don't want to watch you pittingly. If I don't survive, go ahead, why should I care?

Cryengine... Cry.

So, I was watching a cryengine demo video... I mean hello? Let me condense the script. To one line.

CryEngine can do anything, apart from the things that actually have anything to do with how worth playing a game is. So, CryEngine can do anything, so long as it doesn't involve a game. Okay, so cryengine can do nothing. Oh, wait, it can melt your CPU. Pretty impressive, ne?

Uhm... No? Never in my life have I gone "OMFG, it;s so realistic!" while playing a game. Never will I. The closest I can come, is "Glass things break when you shoot them? It's almost like a minigame!". Glass breaking is fun. I am never, ever, ever, ever going to think "Whoa! Dynamic shadows! I think I will stand here, then walk over there, and watch the shadow shorten! I have found something fun to do in this piece of shite game! I'm having so much fun! I love this game, I will recommend it to all my friends!". I PROMISE. Graphics exist for one reason, and one reason only. So the player can see what they are doing. Somethign that clearly went right over the heads of the people who made Guild Wars. They seemed to think the purpose of graphics was to make it so hard to see what you are doing that your head hurts and you get the fuck off their server, you freeloading bastard. For their successes in this area, I commend them. I commended them first by not buying their game, and second by not buying any of the expansion packs. Now, graphics can be beautiful. Good graphics are about DESIGN. The graphics in Deus Ex are better than the graphics in Crysis. Wanna know why? There's blue glowing stuff, a dark eerie ambiance, and I can see what I am doing. Everything has square edges. Oh my fucking god, shockhorror. I like square edges. I miss them in real life. The graphics in Arcanum CANNOT BE IMPROVED APON (except there should be more character sprites!). Now, here is a total, complete list of all the instances in which it is ACCEPTABLE to use 3d graphics:

• The game is impossible if it is not rotational. This rotation is impossible in 2d.

Realmyst graphics are shite. The graphics in myst are bad out of lazyness, not technical restraints, and if they rendered the graphics in realmyst, and left them like myst, with a few more animations, the game wouldn't have sucked cock. End of story. The people who thought "oooh, NWN should be 3d are the people responsible for the demo being better than the game. As are the peple who made all the levels after the first one pigshit. The people who said "ooh, make it avaliable for linux!" are the saving grace.

Back to this demo... all of the examples of cool things the character can do are followed by BOG STANDARD animations. Oh, look, he can walk like any other game character in existence. Fricken A. And object motion blur? Remember how graphics exist to allow people to SEE WHAT THEY ARE DOING EASILY? Right. Remove the motion blur. Along with every other kind of blur. Apart from blur it so they don't notice it's shite blur (the latest photoshop filter). And what is the difference between "enhanced cinematic effects" and, INGAME CUTSCENES? which are a huge technological advance that featured in such recent* games as FFVII**. Which also shouldn't have been 3d out of battle.
* 1992? Well, not this millenium, decade, or since the last E3 anyway.
** allong with... well, FF. FFII. Etc. Pretty much every game ever.

Grrr... periodic table of visualisation techinques? PERIODIC?

Another point... to the makers of these periodic tables of visualizations, American presidents, sweetening agents, candy bars, vegetables, random stuff like that, fuck off. I mean, seriously? Have you noticed your data is not periodic? Have you noticed you're not funny, or interesting, or anything other than spactastic? Hello? What is with putting the latinade and somethingelseade series at the bottom too? and the curves at the top? the periodic table is the shape it is because it is HIGHLY STRUCTURED. Now as your "highly structured" is possibly alphabetic, maybe even chronological, or in colour order (arbitrary colour order, I mean, hello? has anyone else EVER SEEN a rainbow?) you have no excuse for the kinky shapes. In fact, lucky to be grouped by two variables. Now the Simpsons candy sponsored periodic table joke was hilarious. You are pathetic.

Sometimes I worry that people don't fully appreciate the true, immense beauty, the sheer numerical mastery, the information giving potential of the periodic table. It is a master of design. It is one of the great achievements of the human race. Usually, after worrying about that, I feel sorry for my self, I'm such a social outcast... for not good reason!

Oh, today in maths, I said "Will you shut up?! this is FUN math! The kind of maths I love! Quit ruining it!". They just laughed at me. On one hand though, algebraic proof is better than friends.

The internet continues to suck my spongy liver anus. Or something coherent.

Okay, I want a periodic table. What I want is very, very simple. I would like the symbol of the element obviously, the name preferable, the atomic number WITHOUT QUESTION, and the Relative Atomic Weight as an INTEGER. I'm not doing a degree, I want to know how many NUETORNS there are. I'm aware neutrons are a bit heavy, quit fucking with me. 0 decimal places is quite sufficient precision! You would think, with the expanse of the internet, I would find this easily. But no. I get all this coloured funk, some of it doesn't even have the atomic number, or atomic weight to 84 sigfigs. Occasionally, there's no symbol. I mean, no name, fair, names are huge and if you can're remember what K is, maybe you need one of the ones with alkaline earth metals in cerise pink. And stop NUMBERING the periods. I can count to 0. I mean 8. I want to print it out and put it in between my map of Arcanum and my map of Lanhmar, or possibly next to my map of Ankh-Morpork. As far as I'm concerned, the periodic table is the beautiful, unchanging map of real life. Apparently I need to get in touch with that real life shizzle. I thought reading real life would help.... it's offensive to vegetarians, so I killed the author and burned his face. Then ate him.

On another note, today I touched liver. Not sure what liver it was, but it's pretty good at decaying H202 (hydrogen peroxide). It was squidgey and nice... I poked it repeatedly. It smelled utterly disgusting. Most people where surprised that I was okay with touching liver, when other people are not. Other people who eat meat. I mean.... duh! It's uncooked, it feels nice, it's pretty, and I don't have to worry about how it tastes. It's not economically inviable because this was a science class, not a dining room. Why would I care?

You non-liver touching people? You're a little pussy. I also noted it was almost all girls. Stupid girls. What stupid girls are doing in my science classes I don't know. Sorry Lau, you know I love you. Pussy.

By the way, my science teacher is a credit to the human race. As is my maths teacher, whole nother reason.

Straying even further from topic, I dreamed of my ex-girlfriend last night. She was kissing a guy and I felt angry and hurt. On top of wanting to angrily hut the said guy. I then attempted to make her jealous by cuddling up to a friend of mine, to whom I am most certinately not attracted... what with him being male and all... You'd think I'd've got over her now, ne? I should stop looking away from pain. If you ignore it, it might just stick around until it gets the attention it deserves.

26.

I win.

Great, now I smell like boy.

and that's twelve.

Well I've just been hugging someone for 13 minutes... actually, still going strong now. Hence poor typing.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Eienem nuen fenster? Nein, DESKTOP CLUTTER!

"Blog anzeigen (in einem neuen Fenster)"

Okay, not only had blogger started germanning me.... but I understood that!

I wish I was taking Russian at Uni... University level Russian is like, telling the time. Spelling people's names. University Japanese is like, re-doing your nuclear physics HWK in Japanese. And it's 60% shorter.

Anyone know the German for Desktop Clutter? Mein tische ist nicht so sho:rn? Okay, I;m failing German.

How I lost my faith in U edu.

On University Challenge last night, there was a question on computers...

"What is the name for a program written in Java..."

*buzz* "kernel!" (sounded pretty confident too...)

"Used to enhance the content of a web-page..."

APPLET! I knew that! I mean... Java... Kernel. Fuck. Still the guy was taking vetinary studies.

I also got the style of architecture enhanced with floral designs and pointed arches that flourished in the 19th C (Gothic) and five other questions I can't remember.

Java... Kernel.... I will never get over that.

Bad luck Jesus, you suck. (That was the name of the University... Jesus College Cambridge. But, while we're on the subject...)

*sulks*.

Everyone I love/* is depressed and not talking to me. What are the chances of all those (2) people managing that? Even blaming it on me. I only have sympathy fro one of you. The other is just being a tool.

1 simple copywritting rule.

Assault Cube

Exemplary. Utterly exemplary. This is a web-page for a computer game.

"AssaultCube, formerly ActionCube, is a free first-person-shooter based on the game Cube. Set in a realistic looking environment, as far as that´s possible with this engine, while gameplay stays fast and arcade. This game is all about team oriented multiplayer fun. More."

Reading just that ONE paragraph, I can see:

1. This is the page of ASSAULTCUBE (formerly ActionCube).
2. Assualt Cube is FREE.
3. AssaultCube is a First Person Shooter
4. Uses Cube Engine (which is good, BTW).
5. A few of the games strengths, and it;s multiplayer capibility.

If that didn't sell it to me, I could click on the "more" link. I'm interested. I want to know if the game runs on my operating system. Oh, look there's a GREAT BIG PENGUIN right there! I guess it does. I want to know if the download will take me forty four days and a year. The filesize is in huge letters underneath. I want to see if the graphics are legible, or eye-hurtingly ugly. I look down, screenshots. I know EVERYTHING I want to know, and I have not clicked a single, link. I have barely scrolled down! That's INCREDIBLE! FANTASTIC! 10/10. AssualtCube, I love your homepage. So, I'm thoroughly interested. I want to download this small, exciting, linux compatible multiplayer FPS. Oh, look there's a download link, right there. If I wasn't computer apt enough to tell whether or not something will run on my computer from the screenshots, the "more" link tells me it will run on crap hardware. Now, if I was comming to this page for the thousandth time, and I wanted to see what was new, there is news bellow. Great. not only a great product, but a great, fantastic, exemplary homepage. I'm going to say this again. Exemplary. Fantastic. Is it getting you yet? This is the best homepage, ever.

Breakdown! It's great, because!

• Once sentence. 8 words. That's all I had to read to know what the site did. It's a site for a free FPS. 8 words. This is your target. If I read the first 2 sentences of your page, I should know what it does.
• The Linux Logo. Using pictures to convey information. I did not have to read a word to find out if it ran on my operating system. Not a word. Where possible, use pictures to convey information, say it in text too, to make it clearer. People think in pictures, pictures read faster. Pictures are good.
• I never got lost. It's all there! Everything I needed to know! One page!
• Displaying filesize. Downloads had specified filesizes.
• The site design is good and appropriate, it's an FPS, there are no pictures of puppies. Check. Bloodied metal, scraped plaster. Oh yes.
• A logical menu in a logical location, just in case I need something not on the homepage. Juuust in case.

5 simple webdesign rules.

Seriously, this is so simple I can't believe people have these issues.

the first thing my father told me, before I learned HTML or CSS or anything, was very, very simple. Yet, people still make this mistake. Yahoo, for example, their web designers must be utter fucktards. The rule? Specify, Specify, Specify. If you specify a foreground colour, specify a background colour. If you specify a background colour, specify a foreground. If you don't specify either, don't specify either. Leaving a background colour out is fine, but also leave a foreground out, then if you site is illegible, it's the users fault. If you specify a black text colour, but no background colour, what do people with black background defaults see? YOUR STUPIDITY.

No flash pages. I can;t make this any simpler. Flash intros are occasionally okay. Flash animations are great, flash videos are great. Flash pages are LIVING PROOF YOU HAVE THE MENTAL CAPACITY OF A SLUG! THERE IS NO REASON TO MAKE A FLASH PAGE EVER! If your site is like one great big game, fine. Flash. Otherwise, NO.

What am I downloading? On your site, I should always know how large the file I'm downloading is. Flash or FTP downloads. And If you site is one big flash, I should be able to find out what it is WITHOUT downloading it. A front page describing your site function is good. A little note above the flash is fine. A file size beneath the flash good. I should never, ever, ever have to download a huge flash program to find out what it does. If you start loading flash, and I don;t know what it does, do you know what I do? I move on. I never wait for flash to download unless I know what it is. Ever. Ever. Ever. That is final. I mean, you wouldn't ask a user to download a file without knowing what it is, would you? You wouldn't waste my TIME and BANDWITH with something I don;t want, whilst wasting YOUR bandwith and thus MONEY giving it to me, unless you where a totally idiot, of course. And most people do want to know how large a file is before they download it. And when I say most I mean all, and when I say people, I mean non-stupid people. Also giving the file size in bytes when it's over 2kb and in kb when it's over 2 meg is called being a fucktard. Don't do it. Yes, that means you FSF. (Obviously, using MB when you are over 1 gig is also retarded, but if you ever, ever expect someone to direct download a gig+ file, you should learn to read.)

No textures behind text. Common sense, people. Unless they are fantastically placid.

Never Change Your Users Settings. I like my browser window size. If you change it, you should die. Are we clear? It;s a bad, bad thing to do.

Don't leave it to chance. You images might have horrible white edges (called flash) but it doesn't matter, because your users will have white backgrounds, DUH! I don't need to specify a white background when i specify a dark colour of text, because the user will be using a white background! Guess what. I'm not. Owned. You site looks crap because you assumed I was using a white background. If it is necessary, specify.

Read all of your site the way it appears to users. Was that fun? Might give you ideas for changes, or validate your opinion, but do it. Now ask all your friends too. Collect many opinions. This is called Testing.

Use CSS, small filesizes, great flexibility. Embed CSS only when something appeas on only one page and so it;s a space saving.

Hand code. Always, always hand code. Yeah, I would say that. But try reading machine-generated HTML. Try VALIDATING it. Your web design program is Kate. Or notepad if you use windows.

Never use Microsoft software. Not frontpage, not word, hell, I'd even steer clear of windows. Okay, paint is a great program, and Notepad is okaaay... but other than that, no.

Ignore stupid standards. No embedded CSS? That's retarded. Suppose I have one page that requires an additional piece of positioning, the people on that page, should download that positioning code, no-one else. Just because it's a standard doesn't mean you need to listen. You have good reasons to violate it, Violate it! Violating things is fun!

You site should make noise ONLY on request. ONLY.

You site should stick to one window.

If you find yourself typing "frameset", cry.

No Stock. Stock is bad.

Okay, that was more than 5

Worst, Webdesign Book, EVER.

Mastering Microsoft Frontpage. 976 pages. Presuming that's 6 publisher's pages, 70 blank pages and 900 content pages, the book should go like this:

Page 1:YOU.

Page 2:DON'T.

Page 3:DESERVE.

Page 4:TO.

Page 5:LIVE.

Page 6:(This means you dying, good thing happen, k?).

The next 890 pages should be filled with categorized, simplified, illustrated child and idiot friendly ways to kill yourself, the final 3 pages should be a list of numbers to dial if you fail terminating your you sorry excuse for a brain without adult supervision, with illustrated instructions on how to use a phone. My number is 07981096381, put it first on the list in the next revision, PLZ-K-THNX.

And we're not made of eachother how now?

http://seikku.iki.fi/seikku/EnglishPaper.html

I sent this link to my Ex-boyfriend, now it's been generally accepted that our relationship worked because I'm an utterly masculine, gay girl and he's an utterly feminine, almost gay guy. Well, I sent him that link and criticized the dull writing of the woman, while he said, she had better writing skills, the man was a bitch etc... I continued to uphold my side.

We're so weird.

M: So, behaving like a horney neko-mimi is not the way to a mans heart?
S: no.
M: why not?
S: *shrugs* Because a man's heart is in his chest, not between his legs? Although there's an artery at the groin that will kill just as efficiently...

My dog pwns you again!

Today I saw a young mother with her child on a little leash. Not the harness ones more commonly seen, a wrist to wrist leash. Fair enough, I can totally understand a need to ensure your child stays close, and off the road. Condoned. I ALSO condone holding the little tyke's damned hand, but that was clearly impossible, because it was a tall woman and a small child, and she was also pushing a pushchair. Wanna know what made me mad? The leash was necessary. Not because the child might wander in front of a passing car or because there where crowds to loose her in. Because the child was a fucking out of control little brat. Okay, pretty young, but at least four. At the age of four your child should not kick things on their way home. And by things, I mean signs, people and litter, at least not multiple times. Your child should not try to pull away from you because you told it not to kick things that oughtn't be kicked (badly). I've forgotten what else she was doing, but this child would have been a terror if it wasn't on a leash. You know what's really, really, really funny? I've walked my dog up and down the same road. Without a leash. She was often a few steps ahead of me, and often a few behind, but she stuck with me, and if I put her on a lead, it was because I worried about traffic. My dog, is better trained than your child. My dog is younger and, hopefully, less intelligent than your child, and yet she is better behaved. Go me. Yes, biotch, you suck. And don't give me that crap about your child being more intelligent and thus more rebellious. The only reason your child would rebel against YOU, her MOTHER, is you're own failure; in discipline, earning respect and proportional punishment. (it's important that you don't over-punish your child, that's worse than the same amount of under-punishing, believe me, I've seen it).

Again, I sound like V. But I found myself thinking this, and I wanted to write it. So I can't complain. I wanted to write it mostly because of how funny it is my dog is better than some people's children.

---

Some woman who did lots of running for cancer and stuff died. Or something. I was utterly disgusted to hear someone saying she inspired other people with cancer to set goals. These where supported claims (asi, she said people told her this was how they felt) that the fact one woman with cancer did triathlons, prompted other encancered people to do stuff. Okay, here is the way it works.

You get up in the morning. You feel fine. You do whatever the fuck you want, whether or not you have cancer, because you feel fine.
You get up in the morning, you feel terrible. You lie down and do next to nothing because you don't feel very well. It does not matter if OTHER people run marathons with your condition. You don't feel well. Stay in bed. If you get up, it's because you know you can. Not because you know someone else with roughly the same problem can.

Please, nota bene, neither of those scenarios are affected by someone else doing something. At all. I'm sickened by people who either feel pressured into working when they are ill because this woman does it, or need someone else to get out of bed and run around the world to convince them that knowing you're dying is not enough to justify lying about like a fat slut. You have to feel like you are dying. Hello? Is this clear? Other people's grace and wonderfulness does not mean you have to be wonderful. You should never need to be reminded that when you feel well, you should get up and do something, recreational or careers based EVEN if you are going to die. I mean, i know I'm going to die some day, I still get up and draw. I am also not afraid to call in sick if I feel sick.