Why you don't give your tablet to friends

Dear diary, today i was a pretty little fairy princess. The prom is drawing closer and closer but no boy asked me out yet. I really hope for bobby prince to ask me. He's so cute and no boy on the whole campus has as much swag as he does. But i heard he's going with Jessica she so stupid she stuffs her bra and she already kissed 3 boys, what a sluuut! Why can't i be as pretty as Emily, she was asked out the first day we even knee about the prom. I love her but sometimes i hate her because next  her no boy ever looks at me. I could just well stay home and get fat and be forever alone. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day, daddy said he'll take me shopping :-) until then, thanks for listening diary, sometimes i think you're the only one who understands me.

EDIT: Im going to leave this masterpiece, to remind myself to put a password on my tablet. On the bright side, the guy who wrote this for me forgot to log off HIS facebook

The Dumb Decision Theory

I see some explicit irony in the fact that a professor cant decide who to pick to hold a presentation about the decision making processes. So since, I don't have internet right now anyway, I might as well make the post-sketch.

So while he is figuring this small issue out I guess I might just as well take care of the blog. I recently started watching the big bang theory. The plot is cheesy, however it's funny enough too watch, despite the horrible laughing-background-noises. I mean seriously, they should at least take the effort and record some new laughter sounds. As a engineer and geek, I also can relate to the issues and brought up topics quite well. Interesting enough though - I often feel like "nooo this is wrong, physics doesn't work this way!". Also the series causes me to start reading about quantum physics just for the hell of it (also watch Battle star galactica).

Goddammit now they are arguing about the definition of a word that describes decision process classification types. Why did I ask why he calls a photo a descriptive model for decision processes - now I was stuck in a discussion if a photo can be a decision making process model or is a model overall.

Talking about decisions, the series has the mean downside of mocking the engineer for not having a P.H.D. and just being a master, which is sorta offensive towards me (less offensive then the fact that he is a perverted, failing, womanizer due to some reason). I do envy though the friendship that is going on in the series. While, I do have some geeky friends with similar interests, somehow they are either far far away or we never manage to get together, because only some want to hang out with other, know each other or even like each other. Which is sorta sad, the environment shown in the series, is pretty neat.

Aaaand here we go again, "but if we're in Wismar, you cant sell a million of bread chunks, so the formula is a parable". This guy always has to argue during the last minutes of a lecture? Classic, though he's sorta right, the break even point model is overly simplified it cant be ever a linear function and we're not in bachelor anymore to oversimplify things, especially consideri... Oh cool, this guy is playing torchlight 2 in front of me - I really gotta get this game.

I also find it very fitting that the most (IQ-wise) clever character of the series is displayed as a OCDing, crazy something. It seems like sanity is a common price for intelligence, either that or happiness. Crazy enough, this is more of an observation, then a emo-thing, since I can't complain about most things right now. Now I just wish deciding upon a new tablet (I still weep for my old one) would be easier, since I still havnt learned anything about a proper decision making process, since the time was spent on discussions on the decision what criteria is most important for a decision making algorithm...

Oh finally it's over, now I just have to pick where I'm going to eat today...

Competence

Ohai,

so during the last week, i had to choice a multimedia project for this semester.

I decided to stick with doing part of the programming work for a new upcoming educating game. Now I clearly didnt expect anything with the word "education" to be fun to play, especially since its a point and click adventure and it's a state funded project.

Neither did I expect it to be succesful or something.

However, what I heard and saw from people beign responsible for it is outragous and sorta sad. A trio was responsible for the project. Each of them is representing some sorta of data security or police department, but neither of em is a real programm, designer, writer or anything remotely fiting for a game designer. In addition each of them had the great idea, that apparently they have to teach kids of the age category "10-16" (I dont get how 10-16 can be one category by the way), the dangers of internet, privacy theft, the importance of firewalls, routers and how bad cloud computing, facebook and torrents are.

So they came up with some abstract concept of a "point and click adventure" (2 of 3 didnt even udnerstand what that term means), that would get going on a spaceship "protect privacy". Seriously, why dont we just call the nemesis "Book Face" and the protagonist "Cpt. Propaganda"?

 Some collegues and my minority suggested some alternative approaches that seemingly have blown their minds. But seriousy - I still dont get hopw such people just start asuming that they can make some random, not fun game, filled with boring material and asume it will be a hit o.o

Starcraft II - HOTS

Initially I was going to sum up a discussion about arts here, but after rereading it again I noticed, that I can't even properly sum it up, so instead I'm going to talk about the new Starcraft 2 changes, coming with heart of the swarm and complain to my hearts content.

Now I'm a Zerg player. So this whole post might be slightly subjective. The changes coming to starcraft are sorta strange.

The terran and the protos both got their early game and late game enhanced a lot, while the Zerg Swarm really doesn't feel that outstanding.

Terrans recieved a strong new mechanical walker unit, that can be produced early game called the warhound. Now, while I sorta agree that the terrans really lacked some straightforward unit that they can produce from their factory, this one seems overly strong.
It's fairly cheap to produce, while its one of the first units you can build, has formidable defense, high range, high speed and looks like a stronger version a maraudor. I'm not entirely sure what I'm suposed to think about this guy, but he's taking down a stalker with 3 shots.

At the same time terrans are now equiped with spider mines, helion transformers that offer more survivability and higher damage and some new researches.

In all honesty, this sounds like a nightmare for any zerg player. On the bright side however, it'll provide quite a bit of additional challenge and blizzard doesnt tend to balance its strategy games badly (as long as there is no paladin in starcraft 2).

Well at the very least terran mech play is a lot more exciting now.

Protos on the other hand, recieved midgame updates. A mothership core allows quick retreat and quite some gimmicks (for example a strong defensive weapon), to play the early and mid game more risky, the oracle provides a lot new harassing options, like entombing the enemy minerals and denying resourses, while the Tempest gives the protos a nice chance for lategame air superiority, without all the awkwardness of carriers.

To be honest I like the Protos changes most.

Now I'm really not sure what to make out of the zerg changes.... but I'm going to play SC2 for now, I'll finish later :p

Winter Mountain House

Romania

Romania is a strange country.

Strange is being used in all of it's contexts and meanings at once. I've yet to see such scatter of both good and bad madness at once in another place.

You might walk down a street in Bucarest, obeserving the different architectures coming from different times and countries next to each other - because Romania battled in a lot of wars and got invaded frequently afterwards - looking at the rich and nice state of mansions there, being built right next to a completly ruined and overgrown house, next to a electricity lampost, with hundreds of tangled elecricity wires, of which half is broken and riped in pieces.

You could see lifesized replicas of famous houses, done out of marble, that are inhabited by hundreds of gypsies who still refusre to pay for power and water (and obviously get none). Also you could spot the same hundred gipsies chasing eight policemen, while being armed with swords and clubs.

The statistics about Romania are also incredibly strange. The country has a very high percentage of incredibly gifted kids, but also a scary high percentage of uh... "less intelligent kids", even the president itself mentioned: "romanian schools produce idiots".

Talking about presidents. During the last vote, the amount of fake votes and the "techniques" employed would make the russian 140% look poor in comparison. Foreigners were allowed to vote: in each city once or mroe. Dead people were being caught voting. etc. etc. Funny thing is that the last vote about if the suspended president should return or not, was ignored, becuase each size had equal ammounts of invalid votes.

Romanians have a very distinct look, (same as most nations), but they also dress a lot more wilder than I'm used to seeing in Germany and even Ukraine, Ireland or other countries. If you think you've seen short shorts, no you havn't. If you think you saw high heels, no you havn't either. And if you think that red green, is too contrastful and colorful, it for sure aint.

The stores offer a variety of interesting things (interestingly, the shirt i liked most, that was hanging all over the window and store, was a "Promotional item" they were not wanting to sell). The streets have more pharmacies and banks then you would ever expect. (you will never ever find a crossing in bucarest that doesnt have at least 5 different banks in sight).

At the seaside (which was awesome btw, including bars, beach and water, but watch your purse!), you might run into a restaurant selling selfcaught fish (yes, with boats, no they dont catch fish with bare hands), which is delicious and very affordable too. However you might get surprised to see that the fish has actually green bones (as in grass-bright green, not just "slightly green"). It'll still be very delicious and most likely you'll be completly consumed by it, until you discover a log hanging from another log on a string, with the caption "Mobile chair".

There is a lot more one could say and quite some more things I will say, but for now I'd prolly just sum it up, that it's a adventure. A nice one too.

I like em fresh

Been a while since I last wrote here,

mostly because I was lazy, but also because I was not sure what or more like how to write about things that were worth writing about. So here I am now, back from another trip to Romania (actually 2 trips, in between the time I didnt write anything), doing my usual thing:

balancing on a hairstring between doing productive things and falling into the abyss of gaming and "applied" lifestyle - a state where ones activities decide ones plans, instead of plans deciding activites.

So in order to snap myself out a little bit out of the situation, I'm going to try to apply some more advanced planning techniques. Most likely I'll burn the house down in the process of planning, considering how good I am at this, but hey, there is no science without victims (don't believe those who tell otherwise!). And thus it has been officially decided that I write something here on fridays, less I will forget about this place once again.

So what IS worth writing about. A picture says 1000 words they say. Probably it does, however I don't have a picture right now. But after reading multipple digital art books and installing and trying out the new Photoshop CS6, the desire is strong in this one to start doodling again (which I allready did).

There are quite a lot of thoughts on my mind regarding happiness, relatives, foreign relatives (all people are equal, but some are less equal!), relationships, friendship etc, however I feel like I need some more time before geting to the more serious topics. Probably next friday.

I could write a trilogy on Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2, but I still don't have enough gaming toxins in my blood at this point, to waste this ammount of time for such topics.

After deleting the last/current line and rewriting 50 different versions of it (you'll never know what was there mwahaha), I decided that the next writing topic will be Romania - general impressions.

That being sad I'm gonna chicken out and go sleep.
Because sleep is good.