Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Prey Limited Edition announced

(via Joystiq)
I missed this when it first came out, but I’ll post it anyway for any other folks who might have missed it as well.  3D Realms has announced the Limited Edition of Prey, now available for pre-order.  For a mere $10 above the standard edition, you get Prey on DVD, a shiney metal box, a book of artwork, and two (three for pre-orders) pewter figurines.

Prey is one of the few shooters I’m interested in trying.  I didn’t get into Half-Life all that much, and still haven’t tried Half-Life 2.  I have SiN episode 1 (it was $8 at Circuit City on Sunday – possibly all this week), but haven’t installed and tried it yet.  And I haven’t even wanted to play Doom 3 after trying it for 5 minutes on my brother’s system.  But Prey just sounds cool to me.  I may have to order this one.
[tags]Prey, Limited Edition gaming, DVD games[/tags]

How not to remove a tick

A recent Snopes posting debunks the myth of removing ticks via cotton ball covered with liquid soap (and other invalid methods), So if you now know how not to remove a tick, would you want to know how (and why) you should remove it?

First, the spurious email whcih lead to the Snopes posting:

A School Nurse has written the info below — good enough to share — And it really works!!”I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a tick. This is great, because it works in those places where it’s some times difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.

Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20), the tick will come out on it’s own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away.

This technique has worked every time I’ve used it (and that was frequently), and it’s much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me.

Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can’t see that this would be damaging in any way. I even had my doctor’s wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn’t reach it with tweezers. She used this method and immediately called me back to say, ‘It worked!'”

And now some information from the article on how/why you should remove a tick:

However, those in the know about tick removal warn against these home remedies. Countermeasures of such nature do little to encourage a tick to detach from skin and in fact may make matters worse by stimulating the creature to release additional saliva or regurgitate its gut contents, acts that increase the chance of its transmitting a pathogen to its host.. . .

As to how to remove a tick:

  • With tweezers, grasp the parasite close to the skin and pull it straight out.
  • If you must use your fingers rather than tweezers for this operation, cover them with a tissue during the procedure and wash them after the tick has been dispatched.
  • Do not twist or jerk the tick; this could cause the creature’s head to separate from its body, leaving its mouthparts lodged in your skin.
  • Wash the bite with antiseptic and place the tick inside a plastic container marked with the date in case it is later needed for verification of illness.
  • Nail polish and petroleum jelly are not good ideas for tick removal because the tick has enough air to complete its feeding before dropping off.

Also in the article are tips for avoiding ticks and reminders to check yourself, your children, and your pets after going someplace you might be exposed to ticks.

[tags]Snopes, Ticks[/tags]

Multiplayer Oblivion alpha released

(via Joystiq)
This is the kind of information you pass along as soon as your hear about it.

multites4-quest-box.jpg

While Xbox 360 players will be out of luck, PC Oblivion fanatics can now travel through Cyrodiil together. A computer science major at Charles Sturt University has just released an alpha version of MultiTES4 (“Multiplayer [for] The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion“). The alpha release is very, very minimal right now (two players running around, cognizant of one another but with no synchronization and limited participation options). Not bad for a one-man team, though.

The programmer, known online as the_FERRET, has been working on the project for just over a month (he started May 7th). The next release is promised to include eight-player action with some simple forms of deathmatch and maybe capture the flag — keep an eye out on the official forum for more information. You can download the mod via the official page here.

Must. Play. Mod.

Too bad I only have one system at home capable of playing the game. This would be awesome fun to play with my older son sometime.

[tags]Multi-player Oblivion, Oblivion, Gaming mods[/tags]

Joystiq’s top 10 gaming top 10 lists

Mocking all the recent top 10 gaming lists, Joystiq has posted its top 10 list of top 10 lists.  Here are a few of the list items that I liked.

So, check out the top 10 list of top 10 gaming lists, and then check out the lists themselves (if that makes sense to you).

[tags]Joystiq, Top 10 lists, Gaming[/tags]

Cat bathing as a martial art

I wish I could remember where I first saw this link. If whoever initially posted it sees it here, please understand I’d attribute it if I could recall where I got it. That said, please go read the hilarious (to me) guide to bathing a cat.

Some people say cats never have to be bathed. They say cats lick themselves clean. They say cats have a special enzyme of some sort in their saliva that works like new, improved Wisk – dislodging the dirt where it hides and whisking it away.

I’ve spent most of my life believing this folklore. Like most blind believers, I’ve been able to discount all the facts to the contrary – the kitty odors that lurk in the corners of the garage and dirt smudges that cling to the throw rug by the fireplace.

The time comes, however, when a man must face reality; when he must look squarely in the face of massive public sentiment to the contrary and announce: “This cat smells like a port-a-potty on a hot day in Juarez.”

. . .

Know that a cat has claws and will not hesitate to remove all the skin from your body. Your advantage here is that you are smart and know how to dress to protect yourself. I recommend canvas overalls tucked into high-top construction boots, a pair of steel-mesh gloves, an army helmet, a hockey face mask and a long-sleeve flak jacket.

Use the element of surprise. Pick up your cat nonchalantly, as if to simply carry him to his supper dish. (Cats will not usually notice your strange attire. They have little or no interest in fashion as a rule. If he does notice your garb, calmly explain that you are taking part in a product-testing experiment for J.C. Penney.)

More at the site linked. Well worth the couple of minutes it takes to read, I think.

[tags]Pet Rescue, Cat bathing[/tags]

Whoa! Dust art

This link comes via Bill Harris (at Dubious Quality), who got it from Brian Pilnick.  Head over the Statesman.com and view the awesome dust art done by Scott Wade on the rear window of his Mini Cooper (a car, by the way, which I would love to have for myself).  The images are also available to purchase, but I haven’t followed the link to see exactly what/how you get these.

I have no sample images, because they are all contained in a Flash viewer, and I don’t have a Mozilla extension installed to let me capture Flash output.

[tags]Dust Art[/tags]

North Korea test fires at least 3 long-range missiles

(via boingboing)
This doesn’t sound good. Reports carried on CNN and Reuters today indicate that North Korea has test fired several long range missles this morning. The different reports indicate anywhere from 4 to 10 missiles were test fired. The upside is, the one missile with the range to reach the US failed to launch and fly successfully. The bad news is North Korea has already been warned that missile test firing would be considered an act of aggression.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — North Korea test-fired a long-range missile and five shorter-range rockets early Wednesday, but the closely watched long-range test failed within a minute, U.S. officials said.

That’s the good side I mentioned.

The tests began shortly after 3:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. Tuesday ET) and lasted for about five hours.

The Taepodong-2 missile, which some analysts believed capable of hitting the western United States, failed after about 40 seconds, U.S. officials said.

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley described the missile launches as “provocative behavior,” but said they posted no immediate threat to the United States.

And there’s the bad side. More, from the Reuter’s report.

On Monday, the North’s main news agency quoted an unidentified newspaper analyst as saying Pyongyang was prepared to answer a U.S. military attack with ”a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war.”

And here is what concerns me most. We have an enemy nation which we know for a fact has weapons capable of truly threatening the US. We have a President who has repeatedly stated he will protect the nation against any real threat, even going to war against one which may or may not have had provably threatening weapons technology depending on which intelligence report you believe. For two years I’ve been saying if his convictions are indeed real and his claims of protecting the nation are true, we will end up in a war with North Korea. Now we have a visible act of aggression which has occurred after the country was warned that missile firing would be viewed as an act of aggression.

So, if the President really is at war with Iraq because it was necessary to protect the US, then the President will have to prepare for war with North Korea. North Korea is currently provably more threatening to the US than Iraq was according to the intelligence we had at the time Mr. Bush started the war. That’s my view – if Bush is really serious about protecting us and that’s why he went to war in Iraq, then he must be making preparations for war with North Korea – the greater threat from North Korea is provably true, not just my view.

And honestly, I want to be wrong about President Bush, because I don’t want to believe he’s as bad a President as I’ve been saying since he was first elected. I’d much rather be a kooky conspiracy theorist (alhtough I don’t try to convince anyone of my beliefs, which separates me from my such kooks) and find out that Mr. Bush is as sincere and honest as he claims. I’d rather I (and the rest of the country) find out he’s a good President who has not appeared good because of how bad things were when he took charge. But I’m still waiting for the proof of his sincerity and how wrong I am.

Let’s see how we handle this, though.  Maybe I can be proven wrong about President Bush and we can avoid another war.
[tags]North Korea, War, Missile test firing[/tags]

10 manliest games of all time

(via 4ColorRebellion)

In a recent required reading post, the folks at 4 Color Rebellion linked readers up to a listing of the 10 manliest games of all time.  While what 10 games are manliest really isn’t worth knowing, the reasons behind the games making the list is sometimes worth checking out.  Here are a couple that caught my eye.

#3: Custer’s Revenge
System: Atari 2600
Developer: Mystique
Year of Release: 1982

Had Custer’s Revenge come out in the robot-heavy early 1990’s it probably would have been called “Rape Simulator 2000”. That’s right, this is the only game in the history of the interactive entertainment (to my knowledge) where the goal is to rape a helpless woman! While we don’t condone rape here at Arthur’s Hall, it suddenly becomes pretty damn harmless (not to mention hilarious) once you put it in the context of a Atari 2600 video game that was released over 20 years ago.

The gameplay is simple… you are a naked and horny General Custer with a big fat 4-bit boner. On the far right of the screen is a naked Indian maiden tied to a stake. The goal is to have sex with her as much as possible without getting hit by the arrows falling from the sky. The action button is the “rape button” and can be pressed once you work your way over to the maiden to ravage her. If you rape her for two long, you will no doubt be hit by the falling arrows. It’s best to move away and wait for an opening to rape her some more. You are awarded points for every thrust of course.

Yes, this is sick and depraved, and whoever programmed this game should probably be sent to prison. Still, who else would have had the balls to make a game like this? The whole concept is just insane. Custer’s Revenge just might be the most politically incorrect thing I’ve ever witnessed, and that makes it manly as hell.

Yup.  Sick and depraved.  I’ve never even played the game, but the description sure makes it sound tasteless.  Fortunately, the video quality of the 2600 wasn’t enough to really show this disturbing game in its full, um, glory.

#6: Ikaruga
System: Multi System (Arcade, Dreamcast, Gamecube)
Developer: Treasure
Year of Release: 2000, 2002, 2003

There is something really primeval and manly about those old-school space shooters. I’m talking about great games like R-Type, Gradius, and Sidearms. They were simple, impossibly difficult, and quite demanding when it came to old-fashioned pattern memorization… a very manly trait indeed.

Ikaruga is quite likely the greatest space shooter ever designed. It is impossibly hard, dense, and one of the greatest and most meticulously designed video games ever created. Ikaruga takes the ideas of decades of vertical and horizontally scrolling space shooters, improves on them, and then turns them on their head.

There is more to this game’s description.  Just in case you aren’t familiar with Ikaruga, know that it is considered one of the hardest old-style scrolling shooters ever made.  I’ve looked for this game, but never found it at a price I could afford.  Sadly, it wasn’t highly available in the US.

One final note about the article – Contra is listed as the #1 manliest game ever.  I won’t argue yes or no on this, but I will mention that the latest Official XBox Magazine includes the news that Contra will be available for the XBox360 in the near future.  I don’t have the magazine in front of me now to check the details (and I skipped reading it initially except for the headline), but I’m guessing it’s an XBox Live title, and probably available in classic (i.e., original) mode and some enhanced graphics mode.  So if you missed it first time around, you should have a chance soon to play this great game.

[tags]Manly, Gaming[/tags]

More potential problems for Sony/PS3?

I have not seen Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD videos, so I have nothing to say yes or no to this, but Robert Scoble is seeing techies suggest HD-DVD as the better format. What he has seen in the AVSForum apparently is making it to bigger tech news sites now. I should point out that at least a couple of comments in response to Scoble’s post suggest “WTF? Are you on crack” response from proclaimed techies. I’m just pointing out that if what Scoble says is true, then Sony may have just found an added hurdle to getting the PS3 as game console and center-of-your-AV-world device accepted.

I was hanging out on the AVSForum the other day and saw several posts from people who said that in their comparisons HD-DVD is far superior to BlueRay tests.

Today those posts are getting reported in CentreDaily.

See how the grassroots could be changing popular opinion?

And a snip of the Centredaily article:

Based on the first round of reports, the HD-DVD format is garnering praise, but Blu-ray is garnering almost universal scorn from reviewers and enthusiasts alike. Reviewer Evan Powell, of projectorcentral.com, commented of Blu-ray: “The image quality does not measure up to what we would expect from a high-definition source, and it certainly falls short of the hype.”

At the AVS Forum, home-theater buffs had even harsher reactions. A sampling of their comments: “There’s no getting around the fact that, at this time, BD is not as good as HD-DVD”; “I watched one and a half movies when I realized that they look horrible. … needs to go to the scrap heap”; “This has to count as one of the greatest AV disappointments I can remember!”; “I took it back after two days. … I just couldn’t justify keeping the Samsung when I considered what I’m getting from the Toshiba at half the price”; and “Too much money, too little performance. It went back!” You can read these and more comments under the Blu-ray player and HD-DVD player forums at www.avsforum.com.

[tags]Robert Scoble, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, PS3[/tags]

Worlds first instant camera

Well, I don’t think this idea of nearly instant viewing of your photos will ever catch on, but the folks at Modern Mechanix have a scan from an old article trumpeting this new-fangled camera from Polaroid that gives finished, dried photos in 60 seconds. Why, in my day, we had to wait days – sometimes weeks – to get our photos. All you crazy kids and your instant-this and instant-that.

cropped-polaroid.JPG

YOUR present camera performs only one of many steps—developing, fixing, printing, and so on—involved in making a photograph. Edwin H. Land, 38-year-old president of the Polaroid Corporation, has invented a one-step process in which the camera does everything. With his camera, you snap the shutter and turn a knob; 60 seconds later you have a finished, dry print. The Land camera takes its pictures in the conventional way, but inside it, in addition to the film roll, there is a roll of positive paper with a pod of developing chemicals at the top of each frame. Turning the knob forces the exposed negative and the paper together through rollers, breaking the pod and spreading the reagents evenly between the two layers as they emerge from the rear of the camera. Clipped off, they can be peeled apart a minute later.

Ordinary chemicals are used, but the negative is not transparent and light is not required for printing. The unexposed portions of silver halide are transferred from the negative to form the positive image.

Land says that ordinary transparent film can be adapted to one-step photography, but he sees no need for it. If additional prints are desired, the easiest way is to make additional exposures. If necessary, the original print can be rephotographed.

[tags]Polaroid, Instant camera, Modern Mechanix[/tags]

Massive (well, massive-ish) list of freeware utilities

(via Freeware wiki)
Here is a list of 450+ freeware utilities to solve many of your pressing (and not so pressing) software vexations. Everything from anti-spyware/anti-virus to audio/video tools to office work to programming tools and plenty more.

protect the computer against viruses : AVG Free

password protect a text file : Steganos LockNote

view images in an album folder : Irfanview

see 3d space simulation : Celestia

That’s just a tiny sample of the variety of freeware you can see on the page.

[tags]Freeware, Utilities[/tags]