Randox

Here, we call them Shish Kabobs. I hate warm fruit, and I'm pretty sure putting pineapple on pizza is like some sort of hate crime against the very concept of good tasting food :lol: Not only does the pineapple taste bad warm, but it leaks warm pineapple juice onto the pizza ruining everything else. Probably my favourite pizza would be bacon under the cheese, and pepperoni on top. Cheese pizza would probably be my favourite after that though, assuming a lot of cheese. You can't have too much cheese (says the person who makes taco shells out of cheese, and then fills them with more cheese). As for the BBQ sauce idea...do you still put cheese on top of it? I feel like that could be good, but it would also be very different. I think I'd still have to have normal pizza too.

Wrote up a draft for my final english paper for the peer review process. Have to say, I really enjoyed having such a detailed outline done already (because that was part of the assignment). Usually I find you are sitting there kinda wishing that you had already done some annoying task in the past to make the present more enjoyable. I guess it follows the same line of reasoning where the brain has trouble grasping that future you and present you are the same person, and that you will become future you in the future, just as past you was once present you (Kudos to anyone who followed that). It's a lot more fun to realize that past you already did all the painful work (thanks past me! I remember how much that sucked!), and all you have to do is retype your bullet points into paragraphs and slap a conclusion on it. Don't have a full intro, but the thesis is already crafted. I'm pretty much out of creative juice at this point, so I'll deal with that tomorrow. I still don't have my sources all worked out, which isn't good, but I think I managed something fairly solid as is. Also made major inroads to cleaning up my room today. It started trending towards a warzone look after midterms, so it's nice to make a dent in that. Should be all done by the weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a room can turn into a disaster zone if you neglect the basic 5 minute daily cleanup for a week. It also never ceases to amaze me how much dirt accumulates under carpets that never move or come off the floor in any way. I'd think they would be like the clean patches if I lifted the carpets up, but nooooo. Even managed to fit in a doctors appointment today, so all in all, I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I got a lot of stuff done. I'm still not thrilled that the day started at 8:30am, I like to sleep in a bit on class free days, but whatever. That was a problem for morning me, because present me is doing just fine. Present me is also baffled as to why every single playlist The Devil Dog gamer has made is chronologically backwards (it's a bit of a pain).

Frustrating robot lab. We've come to the realization that we no longer know exactly why, or even how, our hall navigation program actually works, since we can't follow the sequence of events at the start. As it stands, at least on some robots, it tries to drive into the wall on the return trip, but it doesn't slow it down too much, so we've decided to leave it for now, since all attempts to actually fix the problem have broken something else. It's still fun, moving onto a program where two robots compete for a position in the center of a bullseye. It is however quickly becoming a complicated program, and the maze program the other half of the group is doing it's complete yet either, though it has the makings of a really good one. Still fun, but debugging a robot is a royal pain.

I started in engineering, I've switched a couple times, now a computer major minoring in economics (I want to do computer security). My Chemistry background is what I remember from high school and engineering. The english literature is me finishing up my writing requirement.

There are a few theories on what makes a compound an acid or base. I was working with the Bronsted-Lowry definition, which defines a base as a substance which can accept an H+, so that the acid base reaction is the removal of the H+ ion from the acid and it's addition to the base. There is also the Lewis definition which goes on to remove the need for Hydrogen ions as well, defining a base as a compound which can loan an electron pair, and an acid as a substance which can receive them. This of course only makes acids and bases that much more complicated. Anyway, NH3 is only a base under those definitions, not the Arrhenius definition which defines acids in terms of Hydrogen ions and Bases in terms of Hydroxide ions (or whatever the proper name is). Phosphorous is the same family, so assuming you can get the compound to exist, PH3 and so on should also be a base.

My entire day has vanished into posting on the forums (the RSOF for the first time in a while). I need to stop posting on topics that prompt me to do research or think so much. I think I spent more than an hour trying to remember what I could from chemistry class because someone was looking for a fictional compound that would kill all organic life without harming anything else (in retrospect, I'm not sure they realized that nerve agents are already pretty much as scary as possible without gaining sentience or radioactivity). I ended up with CsPH(C6H5), which I aimed to make both as a caustic base (I started with Lye, NaOH), and adding on 'scary' stuff like Phosphorus and hydrocarbons. Replaced OH with NH2, then made it PH2, then removed an H so I could attach Phenyl. Maybe if someone actually still remembers chemistry can inform me on just how wrong that compound is (and assuming I didn't totally botch it, is that actually a base?)

Actually, group work might one of the most effective things school does to teach you about life after school. The world is full of lazy people who are hoping you will drag them along to greatness with you. It's not a good lesson, but it certainly has some truth to it. But no, group work can suck. Not always though, when it works well, it works really well.

Keeping in mind that I haven't played in a while, and I played as a mage... Unlike Diablo 2, magic damage in Diablo 3 is based on weapon damage yes. In Diablo 2, you could drop skill points into the same skill up to 20 times, and the damage or potency of a skill was based on that level. The problem is that some skills even at level 20 became totally irrelevant to the game. In Diablo 3, everyones damage is now tied to weapons, so far as I know, as a mechanic to allow everyone to scale up properly, and prevent skills from becoming irrelevant. Of course, just like the Barbarian or Paladin from Diablo 2, it also means everyone is at the mercy of their equipment, and it shows at Hell or Inferno difficulty quite a bit. The prevailing thought is that inferno was specifically designed to force people into giving Blizzard money to use the Auction house, since the only way to get through it is pretty much to have certain items. Hell can be done without resorting to the auction house, but it's going to be painful. If the Diablo 3 wiki is to be believed, and my recollection is that this is indeed accurate, for the Witchdoctor and Wizard, each point of intelligence is a 1% boost to spell damage, and each 10 points is another point of resistance. Just read http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Character_Attributes'>this page, though at least in the PC version, mousing over the stats will give you the same information. That or I know it from the Diablo 3 page itself (the one Blizzard made).

Buyers remorse. Picked out a new GPU and PSU for my computer to get for Christmas. To be clear, I really have no issues with what I picked, but that damn buyers remorse. I guess electronics are prime for it, you have so many options that each have their little edge, and there will always be a better deal in just a little while. No matter what/when you buy, there will always have been a better way I figure. Buyers remorse sucks, but I got free games to help me get over it :lol:

Fantastic story, and the (first) game also has The Elevators. Don't worry, if the thought of elevators gives you the urge to go postal by the end of the first game, you are not crazy. It's a perfectly normal response, healthy even. The elevators must die. Seriously though, the series is absolutely worth playing from start to finish. You get so much more out of the games by playing the preceding ones that it's crazy. A word of advice: When I played the first game, I started to rush it, and just focused a lot on the main mission stuff because I wanted to see how it all ended. In retrospect, it takes a very long time to play through all three games, and it is absolutely worth taking a couple extra hours to do a few side missions, even the ones that seem totally inconsequential. I found that what I did do really added to the story aspect down the line, with stuff I did in the first game even cropping up in the third game. Trust me when I say that if you are in it for the story, the third game in particular really benefits from a more complete play through of 1 and 2 (and don't pretend you aren't going to play the third game. It's everything they got right form the first two games). The elevators suck though. But don't worry, they don't come back in the second game. Also, I would very very much suggest that you absolutely do not look the game plots up before you finish them all. The games will ask you to make choices. You only get one shot to play the games blind, to not know what all the fallout from a choice is going to be. Don't blow that chance. If there is stuff you wish you had done differently, then you go back to the very beginning, and you play it all over again.

Finally finished up watching MI-5 (Spooks). It took me a while, there was one death in the show in particular that really didn't fly with me. Never watching that episode again. I've also not seen at least one of them, the series 9 finale. Saw what was coming, decided I didn't need to see it. Might be one other episode I never saw, one that I skipped, think I went back for it though. Really is a fantastic show though. I wouldn't hold it as a perfectly accurate representation of anything, though it definitely tries to keep things in the neighborhood of possible (as always, computers are portrayed as slightly more magical than they should be, and the protagonists are perhaps just a little too good), and I find that sometimes it has me just thinking about all the stuff that almost certainly does go on in the world that we don't know about.

Halloween was interesting. I guess I hadn't really considered the part where the poetry reading/party was in a bar, and I wouldn't be going with anyone I knew, and I probably wouldn't know anyone there. I'm glad I didn't think about that though, I might not have bothered if I had. Pretty much joined a group based on them having a free chair, turned out one of them had entered in the contest and they ended up with second place. Was actually pretty fun. Also, the whole thing is sponsored by a former student who is a lawyer someplace in the States (read: not short of cash), so not only was he funding the prize money, but he also funded an open bar of quality wine. That might be the first time I have ever had wine that was nice enough to realize it would taste better chilled (like it's supposed to be).

Think I've settled on going to an English poetry combination/halloween party this year, because apparently the arts are corrupting me. Honestly, I just wanted to try something different, and it's early enough that I can still do something after, and late enough that I don't have to. Options. Only thing is, it's a gothic party (since all the poetry is Gothic and whatnot), and I have two costumes. My backup costume, the Grim Reaper, is pretty much perfect if not terribly groundbreaking. The other possibility is a storm trooper costume, contingent on it arriving in time. I figure that works too, since it's been pointed out that by going as a stormtrooper to a gothic party, I would implicitly be making the argument that stormtroopers are gothic. Why not? Anyway, should be interesting, and certainly different, and at this point, I'm pretty happy to try something new. Also, there should be quality wine at this party, and it's also in a bar, so no fear of sobriety. Bonus points for being within walking distance to home without passing through 'you might get mugged' territory, which is always nice. Not that it's particularly dangerous here, but not advised to go certain places at night without a possy.

Wrote that linear algebra midterm. Not as bad as I was expecting. On the downside, that studying consumed more time today than I was expecting, and work really piled up. I have a book report (paper) to write, and some calculus to do. If nothing else, I am going to sleep like a brick (or pass out). Actually afraid to close my eyes, two solid hours of math midterm really doesn't leave a lot of thinking left in the tank, so I'm also anticipating missing my morning classes to make sure my paper makes sense (I'm hoping I can get the computer to do my math. If I do it now, it's not going to make any sense when I wake up). Planning!

Now I'm trying to think, I don't think I ever looked at any of the good plans that aren't contract based. Maybe they aren't too bad, since the defining difference is whether you buy a phone through the plan or not. I might be confusing it with the cost of a new phone, which all at once, is quite substantial. My next phone might be coming from the net if I can find another one in as good shape as the one I have. Robots are neat, though a little painful to get started in a new language, as always.

I don't see how no contract makes sense in the long term. I could see doing it for a month or two to see if there are any issues with the provider, so that you can bail, but at least here, sailing without a contract would be tantamount to handing your provider free bags of cash. You can save money if you don't use your phone much, and know how much you will be using it in advance, but to match most contract planes without the contract part is just scary. That's how they get you to sign on. Anyway, have my own linear algebra midterm tomorrow. Should be interesting, but I'm feeling alright about this one. Covering Much Ado About Nothing in English this week, and it never hit me before just how much is going over my head in Shakespeare. Without any background in archaic english, or a sound understanding of the culture, reading a play from that era would be like running a novel through google translate into Chinese and back. Today we start our robot labs in Computers, so I am pretty stoked about that. Robots!

We have double yellow lines on the side of the road here in England. I'm too sane to walk in the centre of a road. :lol: I guess it's one of those things that get's lost in translation. Here, you can only find double yellow in the center. The sides of our roads, if marked, are all single white lines (though they tried pink lines for a bit to see if they would be visible in the winter).

Not a particularly big update for me, but it's nice to see that the game is at the point where the developers feel it's time to really start working on the game, and not just the framework the game is set in. Progress! And the lights and clouds look lovely.

I seem to have a superpower that allows me to hone in on people in my classes who don't live on, or near, campus. Even my randomly assigned group in computer labs was composed entirely of people who live no less than 20 minutes away through their available means of transportation. It's not the end of the world, but I would certainly enjoy meeting more new people who live within walking distance. Getting old games to work is always fun. I've learned that 16 bit games don't work on 64 bit operating systems. I have one of my parents old computers that I think runs XP. It might see a second lease on life at my hands as a retro gaming box depending on what it can do, and how well it still works for some of my oldest games, because VM's have so far either been unable to game at all, or way too good at it (running games super fast making them unplayable). I think the oldest games my PC has running as is are from 2003, but I should be able to get at least some of the earlier ones going (Dark Forces will be interesting. That was out of date on Windows 95, it runs in MS-DOS, so I'll have to look up an LP'er who got it working).

While you do get the pedestrians who take really long diagonals (or just walk down the middle of the road between lanes), yeah, drivers in parking lots should be considered crazy until they prove otherwise. Lack of signaling, rampant cutting through spaces, and in a busier parking lot, you also get a lot of road rage: parking lot bonus edition. That said, having driving in parking lots myself, I can testify that all parking lots everywhere come with invisible parking lot sirens that lure you into driving like a lunatic. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying (about having driven in a parking lot more than a couple dozen times), or such a nervous driver they think their car will explode if it crosses a line (maybe they think they have those magical force fields that all crosswalks have when navigated by university students). I poke fun, but in all honesty, I think everyone has had their moments in a parking lot, whether they are driving or almost being run over. @Star, please tell me that was in jest, and you didn't actually walk down the yellow lines in the center of the road.

Sounds rough Prets. Are they just doing a bit of work to try and patch the knee up to give you some mobility or what? Sounds like you need a new knee, but I know they don't like giving young people artificial ones because they don't last forever.

I'm sure that there are people for whom this update will be incredibly useful. I need to re-99 a skill (for at least double the total XP) like I need a hole in my head. I'm not terribly excited for the market impact either, but I am hoping that most people just aren't that eager to throw that much money at skills for nothing more than high scores, at least no more than already do, so the market impact will be minimal. I do like it though for keeping track of the top players, since it handily get's around the max xp problem, at least until someone max prestiges (if I were Jagex, once someone reached the point where it would be more than 200m xp, I'd just set it to 200m and let them keep prestiging at that xp amount as many times as they wanted, removing an upper limit that could be feasibly reached in a human lifespan (it would be roughly 859 trillion xp before someone could prestige more times than can be tracked with a 32 bit integer under that system, in a single skill, or ~188,000 times the total xp of the current top player).

Trying to get into minecraft a bit again. This time using the Voltz pack, since universal electricity sounds like a good idea. I need to find a way to automate mining though, I already did my 10x12 down to bedrock, and my hands hurt enough from that, I'm not doing that every time I need another 15 iron (seriously, it's not easy to find which is bad because I need a tonne of it). Buildcraft isn't in this one, so I am hoping another mod might be able to help, and if not, spawning things in is going to happen. I'd rather cheat than not be able to type. Still, I am enjoying the getting back into the game, and this time I wasn't so frustrated by the whole mining thing, though I ended up resetting the sun a couple times while moving out of the frozen biome I tried to set up in (can't mine in it, just ice that turns to water). I'm nicely setup with a little tree grove I set up in front of my house, and my roof is a 6x7 wheat farm (less the 2x3 water in the middle), so food is not an issue. I am set up against a mountain, and going back through that I end up in a frozen river biome. If I leave by the front of my house and cross the desert, I end up in a great forest biome and a village that got the really short end of the spawning stick (I had to dig into most of the buildings, and one had it's door 5m above the ground just to change things up). The results of my mining were not encouraging, only something like 15 or 20 iron found. Just miserable. A stack of copper and tin though, which I also need way more of. Still, the whole survival thing is pretty much taken care of. I am happy to see that you can carry uranium around in this mod pack again, though I did get some radiation while mining it, possibly because there was too much ore around or something. I'll probably need a lot more of that too, I found 12 of them. Still, it's good to be back in minecraft.

The Yogscast are starting up a Galacticraft series by the looks of it, to act in the stead of the old tekkit one. Actually really looking forward to it, and also started watching Duncan do Hexit. Half tempted to get back into the game. If I did, I think I would create a little village over some underground tunnels, modeled after a sort of bomb shelter or something. I am oddly excited for this. I am liking your village Dizzle.

That's like a crime against gaming to limit GTA multiplayer like that. This is why we need the PC version, so we can jettison that bull right out the airlock. That there wasn't a cheat to turn off the police in GTA 4 was infuriating for me because I like to pretend to the be the police sometimes. Then I found the LCPD:FR mod and some related stuff and all was good in the world. As for only one true belief, we recently read Reason in English (one of the stories of I Robot). Certainly gave me some stuff to think about, it's a pretty deep story, and really made me go back and look at how I, and others, view the world. I still hate pedestrians and cyclists with death wishes. Crosswalks do not have magic force fields, and riding your bike through one is about as legal as me using the sidewalk as a carpool lane.