Informational Tech Talk

Words beyond wisdom

2010-06-05T00:50:00.000+10:00

What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany’s at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No. I go for the chandelier; it’s priceless. As I’m taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It’s her father’s business. She’s Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico but I go to Canada. I don’t trust her. Besides, I love the cold. Thirty years later I get a postcard. I have a son. And he’s the Chief of Police. This is where the story gets interesting: I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris by the Trocadero. She’s been waiting for me all these years. She’s never taken another lover. I don’t care. I don’t show up. I go to Berlin. That’s where I stashed the chandelier.

— Dwight Schrute

How Fire Extinguishers work

2010-06-02T21:11:00.002+10:00

I know how this guy feels

2010-06-02T12:18:00.003+10:00

I'm going to hell. Part 2

2010-05-22T02:21:00.002+10:00

Power corrupts. Even those of faith.

I'm going to hell.

2010-05-20T17:42:00.004+10:00

Revisiting Runescape - Part 2 - The Awe and the Horror

2010-04-29T13:42:00.005+10:00

Welcome back to part 2 of Revisiting Runescape and continuing where we left off...

I was actually quite surprised that something so simple, something that incorporated so much grind, something so...ugly, can still be alive and well to this day, reaching a substantial figure of 10 million active accounts where the popular World of Warcraft has a slightly larger subscription base of 11.5 million. The massive nature of the game spans over hundreds of servers located across the world and to this date, the first few servers, where players congregate, are still filled to the brim. It is difficult in any world to 'walk' across a town to not cross paths with another player.

The players are still friendly and talkative as I had left them all those years ago and within hours of rejoining the game, I had made a couple of friends. Asking for help mostly falls to deaf ears but the people who do help others out make this game's community truly great.

Having played a couple of hours, you find that the game's not really about the grinding, but actually about the people that make up the game. I continued to discuss the nature of the Theory of Relativity whilst slaughtering chickens by the hours. Who knew that chickens these days came with bones, feathers and the meaty parts separately when you killed them?

The friend would continue to berate Einstein, saying the speed of light can do whatever it wants but time must have an absolute time frame. Who knew that physics researchers played runescapes?

However, within hours of playing again, what seemed like endless chitchat eventually ended as both parties would have to go to work and coming back again just to chop or fish or mine kind of felt like working, which would of been one of the reasons why I joined the game in the first place, to escape the drag of real life. The game just seemed to progress too slowly to get anywhere.

And then a nice surprise came. An update which would add another dimension to the game. Stay tuned for the next part of Revisiting Runescape!

Revisiting Runescape - Part 1

2010-04-28T21:17:00.004+10:00

So recently I've gotten back into Runescape (yes I am that bored) and for those that are too young or too old to know what RuneScape is; RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2001 by Jagex Ltd. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering. Currently estimated to have approximately 10 million active accounts. As a comparison, the infamous World of Warcraft as only slightly more at 11.5 million active accounts.

I first started playing the game in the middle of 2003 and my initial thoughts was that this game was pretty good for what it was; it was filled with a very competitive and generally friendly community and the game itself wasn't half bad to play.

That was until you played for more than a couple of weeks and realised that in order to progress further into the game, you either had to pay to play (to have at your disposal numerous other skills for more endless time wasting) or it literally took a very long time of grinding to get to the next level of attack, strength or whatever you were leveling...and I was only at lvl 30! (Rule of thumb is that you need double the amount of experience points you currently have in a skill to advance another 7 levels)
Towards the end my first period of play, I thought to myself: So I need to double my play time...just to get another 7 levels in one skill? And I'm guessing that we can all see why I decided to quit.

So the time is 2010, 7 years later with twice the amount of real life and online exp, I decided once again to try out RuneScape. What did I think?

Stay Tuned ;] (In the meantime be sure to check out my other [epicly old] posts)

Movie Retrospective – Why Star Wars was not as awesome as you thought it was.

2009-02-03T14:30:00.000+11:00

Movie Retrospective – Why Star Wars was not as awesome as you thought it was.

The epic space opera franchise, known as Star Wars, was conceived by George Lucas during the 1970’s and spanning a total of 31 years, 7 movies were released forming the original Star Wars trilogy, the prequel trilogy and The Clone Wars. The total films ranged from 97% (The Empire Strikes Back) to 18% (The Clone Wars) on Rotten Tomatoes. One would think George Lucas would prevent anyone from defiling his ideas further by making The Clone Wars, but seeing as he did write and direct The Phantom Menace, Lucas probably realised it was past the point of no return.
Okay, put a group of Star Wars fans in a room for long enough and I guarantee the conversation will eventually turn to prequel bashing, so I doubt we need to explain further. If you still don’t believe me – Jar Jar Binks and midi-chlorians.
Hypothetically, a movie is only as bad as the number of plot holes it produces, and the original trilogy did produce a bit although overshadowed by the prequel trilogy.
“I wince every time a person dies” – Of course, we all remember when Yoda and Ben winced when thousands perished, however considering this is a universe we’re talking about, the average deaths per minute should incapacitate them.
“Don’t kiss me bro!”- If Luke and Leia are both attuned to the force (how else can we explain Leia’s recollection of her real mother as a “kind and gentle woman”) how come they didn’t realise they were brother and sister? How come Luke never sensed that his father was really Vader?
“It’s a TRAP!” - Admiral Ackbar’s memorable quote definitely stayed in the hearts of many and his words of wisdom definitely helped out. How else did Luke realise that he had to fly vertically towards the north pole of the Death Star to fire the magic missiles rather than to fly horizontally as per the briefing?
So in the end, maybe Star Wars is still an epic and fun series of movies to watch, but remember, even George Lucas bailed after filming the first one and decided to swap profit points with Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. At least it’s still better than Catwoman.

Movie Rental Review - The One - Jet Li

2008-10-31T17:15:00.002+11:00

Movie Rental Review:

This week, we review The One - directed by James Wong.

There are many things that make up a good movie; action scenes, plot, plausibility, believability and maybe lack of plot holes. The only thing that made The One half decent was the fighting scenes which involved Jet Li beating up crap. Then there comes a point when you just run out of things to beat up so the directors probably thought "Hmmm...instead of Jet Li beating up walls and objects, Jet Li beating up good guys, Jet Li beating up bad guys, we'll have Jet Li beating up Jet Li (insert smiley face). And since we all know action movies involving no plot gets old easily: we’ll add lots of bullet time and slow motion, so that the 30 minute tv special will become a full length feature movie!" So instead of the normal sane reaction of "Wait...what?" producers actually gave the green light and today we have the movie known as 'The One'.
If leaps and bounds in plot hole techniques were to be congratulated upon, then 'The One' would definitely win and if there was one thing that could of saved this movie, it would have been making Jet Li unable to talk. Unfortunately, neither is true, and 'The One' is definitely not made out of 'win'. Okay, so the movie goes on somewhat like this: Jet Li being himself accidentally talked to another Jet Li from another universe, killing it and somehow absorbed that universe's Jet Li's energy (plot hole 9000), sending him down a spiral filled with the thirst for more power, unfortunately none of the universes had POWER THIRST (plot hole 9001) causing him to travel to other universes to kill more Jet Li's, until there is only one left, and since (still with us?). Oh crap. I’m sorry I spoilt the movie for you; I guess you can’t go and waste your money on it now.
One and a Half Betas (add one beta if you enjoy a movie with action and no plot). In case you’re not convinced, screaming into the paper as you read “This is BS, Jet Li does martial arts, it can’t be bad!” then I have prepared a rebuttal: “Jet Li spoke English...ENGLISH”

Giant Robots and the such – exploring the possibility of a real life Gundam

2008-08-12T00:04:00.001+10:00

Following the release of the information regarding Japan’s plan to build a giant robot…Oh wait…they never actually planned to build anything. So take back those conversation topics about “Did you hear? Japan’s going to build a gundam!” and confused questions of “but how will they get the gundanium?”, because when taking into account the plausibility of building and running an actual Gundam-like robot, the possibilities involving current technology is quite...impossible.

The armor:

Putting aside the need of gundanium alloy, one would need to speculate on a possible substitute and while the Japanese Science and Technology Agency suggested that aluminum alloy would be feasible as a light-weight alternative, one would also wonder why carbon fiber wasn’t chosen. Considering carbon fiber can exhibit more than 10 times the maximum tensile strength of aluminum alloy, it is more heat resistant, lighter and will not fail under very small cyclic loadings, this makes it perfect for defense against children throwing rocks. Is there anything that makes it a worse choice than aluminum alloy? Maybe it was the cost.

The computer system:

One would think a gundam would only require a simple computer to run it, since it was only built to walk. However a US$1.5 million computer used to run 30 400KW motors (maybe even simultaneously) most definitely sounds like a steal!

The propulsion system:

So this thing has 30 x 400KW motors. So it can walk. So what? What about flying? Even in the anime the robots moved more like cars instead of utilising the human walking motion. If our walking motion was used, theoretically a pilot inside would feel extremely sick after the high gforces of the constant upwards and downwards motion. So unless a carlike motion was adopted, this rules out any chances of pilots. (Not to mention where are we going to find those coordinators.)

So unless we dig up some ancient super-technology, this writer doubts that a Gundam could be built in the foreseeable future. But in the mean time >insert propaganda for recruiting people into robotics design at unsw<

Next week -> Gundam is totally possible!

The easy-way to "Dual-Boot" Kubuntu Linux with Windows XP - just "Shrink" your Windows Partition

2008-04-05T18:52:00.003+11:00

Well I recently got a version of Kubuntu (free that I might add) and was wondering how to 'Dual-Boot' install it without harming my original xp installation.

That's when i found this guide by Shannon VanWagner. Props to him you can find the original article here.

The easy-way to "Shrink" your Windows XP partition with the GParted LiveCD and prepare your hard drive for installation of Kubuntu Linux.

With the use of the open source GParted utility (think partition magic but easier) you can very easily "shrink" your Windows XP partition quickly and safely without purchasing any additional software.

To install Kubuntu Linux (or any other Linux distro for that matter) you should "Shrink" your Windows Partition to make room for your Kubuntu Linux installation. You can then install Kubuntu in the extra space that you free up after "Shrinking" your Windows partition and the Linux Grub loader will automatically provide the option for you to select Windows or Kubuntu Linux on startup.

About GParted: The GParted utility is an easy-to-use yet very powerful graphical Open-Source partition editor that is available in "LiveCD" format(meaning that it boots from CDROM).

To use a "LiveCD, download the *.iso file and then use your favorite cd-burning software to burn the .iso image to a cdrom disk (My favorite cd-burning app for Windows is DeepBurner Free 1.8 for Linux use K3B).

Here are the steps that I used to "Shrink" my Windows partition with a nifty utility called "GParted ". I was then able to install Kubuntu 7.04 in the free space that was left over.

1.) Download and burn to cdrom the free Gparted Partition Editor Utility in LiveCD format from here or direct link to the gparted-livecd-0.3.4-7.iso file: http://tinyurl.com/24ph7r.

2.) Boot into Windows, perform a full disk cleanup (checkout www.ccleaner.com for a good cleanup utility), then run a full defragmentation of your Windows drive(s) (with Windows Defragmenter) to move all the physical data on your hard drive and provide room to "Shrink" the Windows partition.

3.) Boot up your computer to the GParted LiveCD (from Step #1 above). Upon booting into Gparted, try pushing Enter all the way through to accept the defaults at each of the configuration screens - this will get you into the GParted graphical utility, which is very simple to use.

4.) To "Shrink" your Windows partition, simply right-click it from within the GParted graphical utility, then select "resize". From the resize dialog simply use the slidebar to adjust the size of your Windows partition to a smaller size (slide to the left or enter a number). Be sure to leave some free space for Windows (4GB or more would be great)to avoid Windows performance problems. For Kubuntu you can set aside as little as 4GB of free space for the install. However, I suggest that you free up 20GB or more to have plenty of space for using Kubuntu. Chances are that once you start using Kubuntu Linux you will make it your primary OS of choice.

5.) Click "Apply Changes" and watch the magic of the GParted as it performs a "Shrink" of your Windows partition. Note: GParted may not work properly if you have any type of RAID array, so you're on your own for testing that.

6.) After all changes are applied, reboot the machine (Be sure to remove the GParted cdrom first). Windows XP will then perform a "chkdsk" to scan the hard drive for errors- this is normal, let it complete. Note: Be sure to let the chkdsk fully complete and then login to Windows to test to see that everything changed properly. If you look in "My Computer" it should show that your Windows partition is now smaller. If you were to run Start>Run>diskmgmt.msc , you would see that your drive now has the free space you created in steps 4 & 5 from above.

7.) Reboot with the Kubuntu LiveCD in your drive, once you get to the point where you can install Kubuntu you can install the linux partitions (swap, and / (e.g. ext3 root)) in the free space you created. Kubuntu will automatically detect your Windows partition and will add it as a selection for the GRUB Boot loader during the final steps of installion.
Explore a great new world and have a lot of fun using Kubuntu!! Try it, I'm sure you'll like it!!

Shannon VanWagner

The Piano

2008-01-07T11:43:00.000+11:00

A Happy New Year to everyone who has stayed with ITT for so long *cough*

Golden Compass - An extensive review

2007-12-28T15:17:00.000+11:00

Okay, so basically it was Boxing Day and what better to do than watch a movie with some friends. Maybe get smashed. But we didn't have the means nor the need because we were going to watch the Golden Compass....despite my warnings that reviews for it have been disappointing.

Last time I ever let my friends take charge.

Well, in short, the Golden Compass is crap. I'll explain:

The film, based off Phillip Pullman's book 'The Northern Lights' aka 'Golden Compass', is directed by Chris Weitz of >insert multiple movies< fame. Oh wait. He doesn't have much fame. Although credited for his help in writing screenplay and scripts, he doesn't actually have much said experience when it comes to directing. And that would be one of the major flaws when it comes to a big budget movie such as Golden Compass.

The movie is constrained within a rushed feel as if the audiences need to come preprepared with knowledge of the book. This never allows the full characterisation of the cast who seem to be lost without definite command by the director. And of course if the script wasn't great the acting couldn't have been much better.

The need to please younger audiences also seemed detrimental to the film as there was a lack of religiouis depth and edginess. Or just lack of depth over all. What? Is it too confusing and hard to explain to teenagers on film than on books?

Phillip Pullman craftily inserted everything from the ideas of atheism to the authority of the Church and combined it in the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. Chris Weitz took it and urinated over it...then added special effects.

So maybe if you haven't read the books and don't plan on doing so, then I would suggest you might want to borrow it on dvd only if you are bored out of your brains and have nothing better to do. But that would be like getting a razor blade and eating it compared to reading the books.

Rating: 5/10

Well that wasn't really an extensive review, I lied. But the advertising promised me a good movie and they lied.

Minor Spoilers below.
Some good points for discussion: Was it just me or was there an overabundant use of phallic imagery or ideas (oh come on when you saw those giant balloons you thought about it too).
When the bear says "So you want to ride me?"

Black people - how Koreans perceive them

2007-12-25T15:13:00.000+11:00

backup version (slower)

lol...gota love those Koreans

Blame Halo 3

2007-11-01T14:23:00.000+11:00

http://view.break.com/390565 - Watch more free videos

Hilarious video

"I Am Legend" trailer

2007-10-25T16:03:00.000+10:00

The new "I Am Legend" trailer starring Will Smith

Zero Punctutation - Orange Box

2007-10-18T19:50:00.000+10:00

Yahtzee is my hero :D, but for someone who has the title of "Zero Punctuation" he sure uses alot of punctuation.

New Full Length Theatrical Trailer - The Golden Compass

2007-10-11T19:55:00.000+10:00

Yes I have put a trailer for The Golden Compass (Northern Lights for non-Americans out there) previously, but this is the new, full length preview. So enjoy.

Personal thoughts: It looks excellent, darker moods present making it more than just a "kids film". Hopefully it'll be half as good as the book (which is still pretty damn awesome).

Poster:

Click for Full Picture

It's Daniel CRAAAIIIG (of Casino Royale face)

Fuck you Sony, Fuck you Nintendo

2007-10-09T14:14:00.000+10:00

That's right, I'm blatantly put it out there.
Fuck you Sony, Fuck you Nintendo...and don't think Microsoft is getting away with anything, but at least their doing a half-arsed job.

Why? Some may ask. And the simple reason may be concluded from the fact that the writer of this article lives in Australia. Down Under. Filled with jack all.

Bullshit you may cry! We have Kanga-fucking-roos! We have Steve...no wait we don't.

But facts don't lie.

Firstly let me put the cards on the table.

This continent known as Australia is only about 10000km away from America and Europe yet for some unknown reason, it takes a couple of months to ship games consoles over. What do they use? Turtles? NO WAIT! Turtles are faster. (Haven't you seen Finding Nemo?)
We get the same releases as Europe, all encoded in the "Pal" region code. Yet for some unforeseen reason we always get it a few months later than they do.

So why, I ask, is it so hard to fill a country with eager gamers with what they want? I mean Sony has upped the stakes and made it ILLEGAL for us to import games and consoles.

Industry says that America may be awarded with $399 PS3 by the end of November, but when will Australia ever see the light of this?

As of now, combo packs for the PS3 still cost around AU$1000, heavily overpriced for the shit amount of games there are (which are also, full of shit).

Well as of now it seems it's a pretty one sided argument, no? Some may argue: "But Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft have to their hands full trying to fulfill demand in America, Japan, and other more important countries."

Oh fucking bullshit. 2007 hasn't been the first year that demand shortages have occured, this issue has been happening for far too long and non of the companies are pussy enough to do anything about it.

Now it may seem that I've only taken the piss out of Sony (they deserve it...come on you know it too) but rest assured, Nintendo and Microsoft are at it as well. I just can't be bothered.

[Editor: The irony is that the author neither has a PS3 or Nintendo Wii or ShitBox360 and thus cannot be pissed at the lack of games, he claims "I am waiting until the prices drop."]

Make Your Own Multi-Touch Pad

2007-10-05T13:15:00.001+10:00

Music: Sahara 7 by Shadow of the Beat.

Download the Software here: http://www.libavg.de/

Wish i knew how to do it

2007-09-18T22:39:00.001+10:00

Seth Green's Parody on Crying Girl

2007-09-18T17:06:00.000+10:00

ROFL,

Top Ten David Letterman By Napolean Dynamite

2007-09-11T20:09:00.000+10:00

Enjoy

Neils Bohr - Beast

2007-09-01T23:12:00.000+10:00

Okay, I really enjoyed this story so read it. Now.

..."Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected. I read the examination question:

"SHOW HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER."

The student had answered, "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring the rope up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building."

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."

"Fine," I said, "and others?"

"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units."

"A very direct method."

"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."

"On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".

"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem.

Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

The student was Neils Bohr and the arbiter was Ernest Rutherford.

What Not To Wear in an ER Room

2007-08-26T13:25:00.000+10:00

Unfortunately, it's not true.

Claim: Photograph depicts a wounded KKK member being treated by an all-black emergancy staff
Status: False

Origins: This photo appeared to be a posed or fabricated image intended as ironic or humorous political commentary, and the crease down the middle of the image suggested a picture scanned from another source, such as a magazine. (Despite many viewer's mistaking it for such, this image is not a screen capture taken from an episode of the popular television hospital drama ER, nor is the doctor shown in the center of the picture actor Eriq LaSalle, who portrayed surgeon Dr. Peter Benton in that series.)

To read more please visit: http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/klaner.asp