Yes, this blog can exist without me posting any needlessly-controversial or heavily thought out material. In fact, I’ll prove that by just posting a list of random garbage that makes me happy. Why? Well, I don’t know, it’ll be fun though (for me, at least).

• Comics: A few of you probably know this already, but I’ll spell it out for those who don’t. I love my comics. I don’t really read into the superhero guy-in-spandex genre, but I am pretty well-rounded otherwise. I’ve never liked those types of comics that are purposely marketed to women either. I hate that, in fact. I don’t want forbidden love, loss, and drama. I want a plot with a purpose, a character with flaws, and a good dosage of violence in between. I don’t see comics as a form of escapism. If I did, I’d want the exact opposite of what I just said. I’d want boring Mary Sue characters who are the pinnacle of everything great in the world. In reality, I just want a story that is believable in its characterization (of course, suspension of disbelief is needed to read pretty much any comic). Here are some of my favourite comics: Serenity: Better Days, The Surrogates, The Umbrella Academy, Lords of Avalon, Preacher, Fables, and Rex Mundi. All of them are highly-recommended on my part.
• Trying a recipe out for the first time: No, I’m not the domestic type, but it’s always so exciting to cook something for the first time, even if it doesn’t always turn out right. Such an example would be the first time I tried to make bread. My goodness, I don’t know how many of you have tasted unrisen bread, but it is disgusting. There was..erm..what could best be described as confusion over what constituted “warm water” for the yeast to activate in. But then again, you learn from your mistakes. Baking bread can go wrong for so many reasons though. This is why I like cooking stuff in a crock pot.
• Anything mint-scented: Mint’s often considered a somewhat masculine smell, but I like it anyway. It has such a naturally soothing quality about it that I wonder why people pick lavender scents. I guess it could be considered odd if people walked around smelling overly of mint though.
• Tea: Speaking of mint, I love my mint tea. In fact, I like just about any type of tea that isn’t fruit flavoured. If I wanted to taste mango and blackberries in my tea, I’d go out and buy the actual fruit instead of having it ground up in my drink. The thought of it is almost as offensive as dinner in a pill. I don’t take sugar or milk with my tea either. Hardkore. I hate coffee, but love the smell of it. I mostly stay away from coffee because it literally makes me feel..unlike myself. I don’t feel awake from the caffeine, I just feel jittery. And hyper.
• Small book stores: In Germany, there’s Buch Habel and in America there is Barnes & Noble (I don’t know wtf you all do in England or the rest of zie world), but if you ever go into one of those conglomerate chains and ask a “sales associate” to fetch you a book that’s “a little bit of fantasy, but with a non-Lord of the Rings type plot, along with themes of love, hardship, friendship, and redemption”, you’ll get a blank stare. If you go into a small bookshop, you’ll most likely be met with, “I think I know a book that fits that description”. At least I did (and, yes, that was my exact description of a book I wanted. Take a look at King’s Man and Thief by Christie Golden if you don’t believe me). Shops like these are dying out and it’s a real shame.
• The smallest bits of kindness from strangers: Sure, I’d like to be saved by some daring person if I should ever fall in front of a bus, but holding the door open for me will do just fine. People who move through their world conscious of those around them and willing to offer their respect without forethought, but as a natural reflex to seeing another human being are worth mentioning here.  Actions like that, even in their tiniest forms, are proof that humans are versatile creatures. We don’t need to be best friends or lovers in order to show decency toward others. Of course, I’m not implying that we’re saintly for these minor actions. Just present.
• Quotes that are unintentionally motivational by their honesty: Sure, advice like “reach for the stars!” is wonderful and all, but there are so many words out there that go unnoticed when written down or spoken by a truly wise person. It’s because we want to be told that everything is okay and if we just “be ourselves” and “try, try again” we will succeed. In honesty, I don’t think there is a formula for succeeding. Sure, hard work helps, but not all people who work hard are successful. A quote I think that sums this up best is from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog where the protagonist (Dr. Horrible) assumes that his friend/crush is going to dispense an age-old saying about fate:

Penny: But, you know, everything happens–

Dr. Horrible: Don’t say ‘for a reason’.

Penny: No, I’m just saying that.. everything happens.

Well, that’s all I feel like typing for now.

“Duh” statistics are those profoundly condescending studies that are released by social scientists and university students that seek to prove something that is assumed to be self-evident. Care for an example? While reading an article in Wired about the impact of voice chat in World of Warcraft, I couldn’t help but let out a groan of frustration after reading this paragraph:

This is particularly a problem for women, because often women thrive in MMOs precisely by downplaying their sexual identity. When Krista-Lee Malone, a student at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, did a study of the impact of voice chat on online worlds, women all told her they were treated differently once other players — particularly younger men — could hear their voices. (”They got hit on a lot,” Malone says.)

Krista-Lee is a DOCTRATE student from the University of Wisconsin. I can understand that she might’ve been on a deadline for this “study” and thought to herself “Hey! Why don’t I write about my favourite MMO?” No. A search of her name brought up a study on the economics of Dragon Kill Points. Hey, Dr. Krista, why didn’t you write your thesis on how most Night Elf Hunters tend to be fat and greasy in real life? Subjects like these are filler posts for blogs, so why publish them as actual studies?

Now, I’m not picking on poor Krista-Lee just to be a mean, mean person. There are thousands of published studies out there that are counteractive to the concept of discovery and sharing knowledge. While writing this, I realised that there is another category of studies as well. “Who cares?” studies also pollute research databases with results of findings that only serve to be an amusing tidbit shared at the dinner table (ie “Why people yawn”).

There is no point to these studies other than to gain a spot on the evening news where the anchor tries to make the story interesting by saying “Believe it or not, studies show that reading helps improve vocabulary!”The sad thing is that most of these studies are done by universities using funds that could have otherwise been used to greater benefit. Ridiculousness ensues!

I find this to be very exciting, even though I don’t play the game anymore. Jagex are finally getting with the times and realising that, yes, they do need to do something about the graphics. Now, it’s not really possible to push Runescape a step higher in terms of introducing higher polygon models, but this is a great start. What made Runescape look so..cheap.. were the block-like textures on the trees, ground, et cetera. If you haven’t already seen from the site, here is the difference:

I don’t have to tell you which one is the “before” and “after”. It’s a significant improvement. Along with that, the ability to play the game in full screen mode? Amazing. It almost makes me want to resubscribe, except for the fact that their choices in altering the game play don’t make things worth it.

This new project to update the graphics will do more than just make the game look pretty. By being able to play in a full screen mode, you will have high resolution images to work with. It’s so much better than the limited space offered currently. It’ll also bring more of a believable environment to Runescape. Being able to identify and feel a part of the Runescape world does depend on how the game is presented. I never really identified with any place in Runescape looking “pretty”. The prettiest place I saw was a church in Port Sarim where sunlight was shining through the stained glass window (cheers to whoever modeled that).  Now, the entire game will feel more like an experience.

The only obstacle in Jagex’s way (in terms of appearance of the game) is sound. They really need to get up to date with new ways to make small, but realistic game sounds. After that, Runescape will definitely still have a solid and viable future.

This post is not about Evolution, nor is it about the existence of God. It’s safe to say that I, as a 21 year old university student, will never solve that dilemma (and neither will you, mystery visitor). I want to clearly and wholly write about my view of the state of belief and how it’s viewed by people these days. There’s my mission statement + disclaimer.

There are two states of being that our minds rely on. The first is the concrete world where we use our physical senses to evaluate our surroundings. The second is the formless state where physically undefinable things, such as ideas, hopes, dreams, etc lie. Belief exists in the realm of the formless and we all possess beliefs. When you believe something, there is no imperative to introduce evidence to “prove” anything. A belief is really just a container for what we see as the truth of something. I believe that vegetarianism is a fad. I might believe that because I see a lot of young people choose that lifestyle, but I really have no proof. I know that vegetarianism is a fad. Sorry, but even I can’t prove that statement.

That example outlines the fundamental difference between believing and knowing. We cannot prove our beliefs by saying that we know something and vice versa. I’m free to believe that Jesus turned water into wine, but I can’t say that I know that. How would I know that? The answer is that it’s impossible for me to ever know, even based off of the content of the Bible. The Bible is a collection of beliefs and it’s often demeaned because of this. Yes, there are people who believe that the Bible is a firsthand recount of “actual” events that “really took place”, but it is impossible to ever confirm that since the Bible is not a firsthand source. Is it wrong to believe in it then? No.

Humans believe all sorts of things. We believe in aliens, reincarnation, karma, Heaven, true love, time machines, and countless other things that are very real to us in our minds. Belief isn’t a horrible thing at all. I believe that the saying “”People who live in glass houses should not throw stones” is a good reminder for me to look at my own life before judging someone else’s. Beliefs are what allow us to bring our perception into the formless realm without feeling the need to explain ourselves. They’re something that we’re comfortable in asserting without explanation.

The trouble begins to stir when we try to rationalise and prove our beliefs. I can’t prove to you that God exists. I can tell you though that I’ve had times in my life where that belief has helped me through problems. Belief is part of who we are. We can discriminate in which beliefs we want to choose to accept, and which not to. When dealing with abstract things, it’s impossible.

I must duly stress that discrimination against abstract beliefs is not acceptable and even borders on hypocritical. The only time that the challenging of beliefs is acceptable is when something physical is being disputed. If someone told me that they believed that atoms didn’t exist, I would help them to understand that they do.

In the end, we all believe something. Some of us believe that our parents love us unconditionally, others have their own reasons as to why that’s not true. It’s never down to us to dispute a belief though.

– Unrelated Note –

What is up with people replying to their own “Leaving” topics in the Sandbox? If you’re leaving, you’re doing yourself an injustice by being totally unable to walk away.

In my spare time, I really enjoy looking at the feedback on the RSBANDBUpdate! podcast page on iTunes. Expecting to see a list of podcasts when I typed “Runescape” into the search engine, I noticed that there were songs for purchase by a certain artist named “Bubsa”. It had to have been a mistake, but song titles like “Varrock, Varrock” and “Hit Me With Your Abby Whip” definitely solidified my biggest fear– that someone actually made a musical album dedicated to Runescape.

Nervously, I decided to listen to a few of the samples to see whether or not someone did this as a complete joke or if they had some modicum of talent along with an insane obsession with Runescape. Let me say this here and now: it was completely entertaining. All of the songs are parodies of hit songs like (”Dance With Me” by Justin Timberlake, “Bohemian Rhapsody” Queen, just to name a few). The album is obviously a joke on the various aspects of Runescape and it does have a weird charm about it.

The album isn’t just merely a joke though, despite its silly lyrics and rather lewd cover photo (NSFW, or if you’re scared of seeing an almost completely nude male dancing in a crowded pub). For every song purchase made, Bubsa has vowed to donate the proceeds to a range of charities. He is not only willing to subject the world to his mediocre singing skills, he even goes so far as to run nude in the London Marathon. What a guy!

I probably missed the clue train on this since he’s been known quite well for over a year, my excuse is that I never visit Tip.it. Either way, I think I would prefer listening to this over the garbage MIDI songs that Jagex seem to put out by the dozen.

Sources:

RuneScape Reloaded - Parodies for RuneScape (available at the iTunes store).

Tip.it forum topic (apparently Bubsa got banned for having “changed” and being not nice to other members of the forum).

That’s right. The majority of tutorials teach you nothing that you couldn’t learn on your own. Most tuts exist to “teach” amateur “graphics designers” how to make “AWESOME LIGHTNING EFFECTS!” Let’s actually take a look at this tutorial that I saw on WikiHow and its end result:

Before you waste your time starting a tutorial on “How to make _____”, take a look at the END PRODUCT before wasting your time following the 6 steps of idiocy to produce a garbage looking lightning effect. What lightning looks like that? I wasn’t aware that lightning was hairy.

Photomanipulation tutorials can be even worse. Especially when they have titles like “How to make Dark style art”. If you need a “How to..” on how to make a style of art, give up right there. People who write tutorials like that only do so because a) They suck at art and think that they’re good enough to be teaching you and b) They want you to make crappy looking art. Here’s an example of a tutorial you should never follow.

I’m sorry, but that looks like something I made when I was 14. The saturation is out of control, the lost/lonely/emo angel-girl has no directional lighting on her face whatsoever. The whole thing looks like a bad CD cover for a failing gothic metal band (you know, bands with names like “Charlemagne” or “Black Unicorn”..stuff like that). It’s fine if you want to make something that you think looks pretty, but for God’s sake DO NOT UPLOAD IT AND WRITE A TUTORIAL ON IT.

Another thing that annoys me are tutorials about how to make sunsets with crappy fake grass in the foreground. Example:

The tutorial for this image is meant to be made into a web site, so I have serious sympathy to any of the misguided people who used it thinking that it looked good. Let me explain this in a delicate way that hopefully makes sense: making little “grassy plain with a sky in the background” images just look bleh. I’ve seen several examples of this theme used in signatures and art and it hardly ever looks any good. This is because the grass just looks flat and crappy and the sky is always made using some horrid filter (Render Clouds).

I’m not saying that you should never use tutorials. I’m asking you to not use tutorials that teach you how to make ugly things. If you follow these types of tutorials, you’ll be bound to make amateurish stuff that no one, but amateurs, will think looks nice.

And I feel like a complete jerk for really not noticing it sooner. I don’t normally spend my time reading topics in Runescape General Discussion since I don’t play RS anymore, but I’ve realised that the RS sections of our site consist of really good and interesting people. In some blog posts, I talk about the immature people on RSBANDB who act like sarcastic morons, but after really looking at the individual replies to topics in Runescape General Discussion and Runescape Questions, I really do think that we have a great and helpful community.

Because of this, I know that our community hasn’t really changed. When I first came to RSBANDB, I felt that there was a lot of really good and interesting discussion amongst people who typed well and were helpful. In the RS Questions forum alone, each question usually has about 3-15 replies from people who know what they’re talking about. Things haven’t changed. If you step outside the world of the Sandbox and Non-RS discussion, you’ll see good discussion going on. The only difference is that since I no longer play the game, I don’t really connect to what’s being said there. So the change is really just me, not any of you guys.

Wow, yes, I’m sort of babbling. But my main point is something I said in a blog post a really long time ago about how communities really don’t change, we do.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Well, after reading a news article on the BBC, I noticed it mentioned that the AOL Netscape company recommended its old Netscape users to switch to Firefox or Flock (as it is based on the same platform as Netscape).Well, here I am thinking “What the heck is Flock?” I’ve heard of Opera, Camino, Safari, and every other less-famous browsers, but never this “Flock” thing.

I went on a whim and gave it a try. After using it for a solid three hours, I can say that I am pleased with it. What sets Flock apart from other browsers is that it integrates some of the most common Web 2.0 websites into your browser. In essence, you log into these sites and Flock pulls information from them and displays them within the browser for convenience. That sounds like a pretty simple idea, right? Well most users of different browsers have to download add-ons in order to get some of the same features that are offered in Flock. Those of you who use Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Photobucket, and WordPress (plus a few other 2.0 sites) can greatly benefit from using the browser.

What Flock brings to the table:

• A unique sidebar linking your social networks and RSS feeds.
• A “media bar” which drops down and allows you to easily view your own media (video from Youtube or images from Photobucket) and access the public collections of other people’s.
• A feature called the Web Clipboard serves as a little scrapbook of images, links and text that you want to save for later use (it resides nicely tucked into the sidebar).
• The ability to post and manage your blog (if your blog is on a major blogging network such as WordPress or Blogger) and write/save posts via the browser.

Now, you might tell me “Yes, MQ, but you can just as easily download features similar to these as add-ons on Firefox/Opera” and I would tell you that these non-native add-ons are such a freaking annoyance that nobody bothers. A while ago, I decided to download an RSS reader for Firefox and it drove me crazy after twenty minutes. The integrated services in Flock look, they hide away easily, and they’re neatly organised.

Things that need Flock needs to work on:

There are a few minor annoyances with usability (especially in the blog post window). For example, the browser is a bit top-heavy. I like have three skinny toolbars in Firefox so that I can make the most of my page space. Flock has pretty big top toolbars and that is a small annoyance to me. Also, upon starting the browser you get a short loading screen. Let me stress: it’s short. But people don’t want loading screens on their browsers. We use browsers because they’re efficient and easy to use. When my browser shows a loading screen, it tells me that the browser isn’t efficient. Hopefully, they can find a way to fix that. Firefox has the right idea in that it just opens.

Who should use Flock?

I don’t recommend Flock to my mother. That’s because she does not use the computer for social networking at all. If you use 2+ social networks, then this browser may be beneficial to you. I’m not very big on social networks and Web 2.0 sites, but I found that this browser rekindled my interest since everything is all in one place. So, if you’re a casual user of these social networks, I really recommend this browser to you. It’s built off of the same technology as Firefox is, so I haven’t seen any page rendering issues.

I’m also not going to recommend that multiple people use Flock. This is because you input your username and password for the integrated services to work. I wouldn’t want my brother or parents snoop about in my weird collection of images on Photobucket or my favourites on YouTube. You can solve this by not telling them, but I see Flock as essentially a one-person browser that centered around you. The folks at Flock should look into introducing profiles for users of the browser, but that might just complicated things even worse. Either way, be forewarned that you will have to log out of your services via Flock to ensure your privacy on a shared computer.

So, I’m basically going to start using Flock from now on. I’m part of the flock, if you will. If any of you decide to give it a try, please tell me what you think of it!

Update: Apparently you can remove the Splash (”loading screen”) by altering the Target line in the shortcut properties and adding in “–no-splash” after the quotation marks. Woot.

Blogged with Flock

So, I haven’t written in a very long time in here. I just honestly haven’t had much to say about anything. A lot of it has just been because I’ve been busy in the real world with work and university. The other half of it is that I’ve been sort of detached to what’s going here. Whenever I do happen to visit the forums to do my mod stuff, I just feel overall uninterested and even annoyed at some of the stuff that’s posted.

It’s not the uninterestingness of the posts that’s getting to me, it’s how people are acting. There are two types of personalities that are surfacing on the forums and it’s genuinely tiresome. The first type is the “I’M LEAVING BECAUSE SO-AND-SO DID THIS AND SAID THAT”. Get over it. We’re not your parents and we’re not going to go get back that toy shovel that the neighbourhood bully stole from you.  Half of these posts are just people who, I feel, are in desperate need of the attention of online strangers. People on this forum just want to talk about normal stuff to normal people. We don’t need to hear that you had half of your intestines removed (and how you subsequently were able to make it back to the forums to post about it 18 hours later).  Cut it the hell out.

The second type are the people who, as Brad eloquently said once, are so insecure that they need to argue about every little thing to everyone. News flash: No one thinks you’re funny or witty because you manage to write a sarcastic reply to anyone who posts on a topic.  You may think you look elite because you’re showing your awesome brain powers by putting people down, but you end up just making yourself look so pathetic. These people are such social rejects, that they can’t even get along with people online. It’s sad, just stop acting like this.

I like coming to RSBANDB and I never see myself leaving anytime soon. I just hate how I used to really like talking to all of the members on a normal basis (hell, I even had a lot of you on my MSN). Now, I just feel like people are dividing themselves into two groups. The first group consists of normal people who use RSBANDB as it’s supposed to be used. The second consists of people who come to the forums just to act like morons and start fights where there are none. This community has gone to crap because of this. I hate having to be strict and tell people to be nice to each other as if they’ve never learned how. And worse? When I ask some people to follow the rules and I get met with a) a sarcastic reply b) a sarcastic PM.

I’m frankly just tired of engaging any contact with anyone on the forums and because of this and I don’t know how long it’s going to take to change.