People I can do without

List of people I can do without.

1. Anyone who looks like Marilyn Manson.

2. Anyone with more than 30 siblings on facebook.

3. A dentist with blood in his hair.

4. Any guy wearing slim jeans, oversized sunglasses AND checkered scarf.

5. Fans of justin bieber.

6. Any girl smoking cigar.

7. Any girl with eating disorder.

8. Any girl with eating disorder who thinks its fun.

9. A stressed workaholic carrying a gun.

10. Anyone who celebrates G.Bush birthday.

11. Anyone who considers golf as a real sport.

12. Any guy wearing a pink ‘I’d rather be naked’ t-shirt.

13. A doctor who looks like a butcher.

14. Anyone who celebrates Mickey Mouse birthday.

15. Any girl who looks high everytime.

16. Any person who quote marks in the air with their fingers.

17. Any driver who’s turn signal is on since 200 metres.

18. aNy1 wh0 tlk lyK zIs.

19. A person with an of IQ of below 100 who thinks he’s a genius.

20. Someone who pronounce ‘Espresso’ as ‘Expresso’.

21. Finally, anyone who hates George Carlin 

A Beautiful Deception

As I extend my hands unto thee, the whisperer awakens.
My words transmute into an edgeless object.
Aiming for neither solace nor assistance.
My charm sustained by a distinctive and mesmerising aura.
Out of curiosity, I drift towards the unfortunate one.
Again, aiming for neither the skin nor the flesh.
Piercing the unscathed corpus seeking for incorporeality.
As I reach for the firm, yet delicate heart, a sense of pride is felt.
The closer to immateriality, the greater the influence.
A pathetic and breakable soul, right into my hands.
Allowed to be touched, fondled, amused, or irritated.
Allowed to be tampered for the sake of emotion.
A pleasurable deception, seduction and manipulation.
A game, with no winner.
Or no losers.
Like fire co-existing with water.
Like a stony-heart getting used to a faint-heart
Like a robber sleeping with the sheriff.
Or an eagle fallen in love with its prey…<3

Ridwan Khodabux M. I

Gaming in South Korea : A National Sport

South Korea is one of the countries I would like to live in, most probably because of its high living standard, but also because of its ‘technology culture’. They became first in problem solving, third in mathematics and eleventh in science worldwide. Everything there is very different from other countries including the strange laws concerning properties. The Republic of Korea has among the best gamers among the world and the gaming industry there is quite amazing with about $4 billions spent on games annually. A third of the population are gamers.

Gaming became popular with the advent of broadband in the country. Huge investments were made in that field and around 70% of the population now have broadband at home. The internet services they have are impressive with wires that can transfer data up to 50 mbps and they are still upgrading their services. Their gaming culture is interesting due to the fact that most of the gamers spend their time in ‘pc bangs’, most commonly known as internet cafes. They are able to socialise, eat, drink or smoke and at the same time they are playing with their friends. Those places are crowded with chicks and many pc bangs are equipped with ‘love seats’ where couples can play games together. PC Bangs charge only about $1.5/ hour, but they are highly profitable.

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Koreans are known to be addicts of MMORPG such as World of Warcraft. Some other games they play are Warcraft 3, Counter-Strike, Fifa, Kart Rider, Maple Story, Diablo and Lineage. They are enjoyed both by males and females. However the game that changed their life is definitely Starcraft and its expansion pack Brood War.  It was released in the late 1990′s and is still widely played today. Korea is considered as a home to Starcraft where major leagues are held involving lots of money and rewards. It is played on a professional level and enjoyed by spectators as well. It is the first game to have been accepted by the World Cyber Games and it is shown on cable tv. The country has now 2 TV channels exclusively for video gaming.

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As such Starcraft II : Wings of Liberty is THE most anticipated game in South Korea. It will be released on 27 July 2010 and is expected to have a huge impact. Yet many people think that it won’t last as long as the original game due to lack of LAN feature that contributed greatly to Starcraft’s success. Gamers have been waiting for this game for about 10 years and hope not to be disappointed by it. Blizzard also entered in a c0-marketting agreement with Korean Air that will last 6 months. Two of their airlines will display Starcraft 2 advertising.

However, online gaming brought also the problem of addiction. Korea is actually the first country to impose curfews and limits on gaming in order to fight game addiction.  There are many cases where gamers collapsed due to playing continuously for long hours. In other cases some people even died or children died because they were neglected by their parents who were addicted to gaming.  They take gaming very seriously and this is why their culture is so different from others.

Advice : If you encounter a Korean gamer online, don’t bother playing against him You’ll get pwned!

Right Handed vs Left Handed

Handedness is an attribute of humans defined by their unequal distribution of fine motor skill between the left and right hands. An individual who is more dexterous with the right hand is called right-handed, and one who is more skilled with the left is said to be left-handed. A minority of people are equally skilled with both hands, and are termed ambidextrous. People who demonstrate awkwardness with both hands are said to be ambilevous or ambisinister. Ambisinistrous motor skills or a low level of dexterity may be the result of a debilitating physical condition.

There are 4 types  of handedness, but only 2 of them will be considered here; right-handedness and left-handedness.

In fact, the way we see the world is said to be determined by handedness.

Right-handedness is the most common and about 70-90% of the population are right handed. The right-handed individual is going to be more influenced by the left part of the brain. He is also at an advantage since we are in a mostly right-handed society and many tools are adapted for them such as scissors, knives, keyboards, baseball gloves,etc..  The left hemisphere is associated with analytic thought, logic, rational decisions, language and communication, and science and math. 90% of right-handed people process language in the right hemisphere while only 70% of left-handed does that. Right-handed invidivuals are great speakers and can handle words more easily.

Left side of the brain recognises : words, letters and numbers.

Left-handedness on the other hand is less common with about only 8-15% of the population. Before, left-handedness had negative associations. It was considered to be evil or unlucky. Yet, more and more tools are being developed for left-hander from tracker balls to firearms. Researches proved that left-handed people are more vulnerable to allergies, depression, epilepsy, sleeping disorders,etc.. The left-handed individual is dominated by the right hemisphere of the brain which is associated with creativity, artistic, spatial skills, imagination and holistic skills. However, they seems to have poor spatial skills and are more susceptible to accidents and car crashes. left-hander are known to have problems in learning how to write.

Right part of the brain recognises : faces, places and objects.

There is still an ongoing debate about Left-handedness and Intelligence. It is said that there is a connection with creative genius. In fact many of history’s most creative minds were left-handed. for e.g Leonardo Da Vinci, Beethoven, Newton, Einstein, and even Charlie Chaplin. Also left-hander tend to be more successful than righties. Other researches from Simon Forbes determined that lefties are no more creative than righties. He concluded that each person is creative in his own way as each of us has some unique talents.

This is why there exists many great left-handed mathematicians and many right-handed artists.

As for myself I am left-handed and that gave me the inspiration to write this article.

Houseisms – Some Quotes

House M.D has become undoubtedly my favorite TV show and I followed each of the six seasons (and hopefully the on-coming 7th season too). Gregory House, portrayed by Hugh Laurie, is one of the most electrifying character ever created. It would take too much words to describe his personality. In short he is a cynical-genius-addict who seemingly does not care about anyone. Yet his actions sometimes proved the opposite. His curiosity, sarcasm and unethical behaviors (such as use of unconventional treatments ) make the show even more interesting. House is a polyglot, atheist and he only takes complex cases and expect to find a rare diagnosis.

Most of this best quotes (and dialogues) are :

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Everybody lies.

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As the philosopher Jagger once said, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’

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“If he gets better, I’m right, if he dies, you’re right.”

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Dr. House: He did however get hit with a bullet. Just mentioning.

Dr. Cameron: He was shot?

Dr. House: No, somebody threw it at him.

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Is it still illegal to perform an autopsy on a living person?

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“Thirteen, go stick a needle in your girlfriend’s pelvis–and no, that one’s not a metaphor. Suck out some marrow. That one was.”

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“If her DNA was off by one percentage point she’d be a dolphin.”

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“You know me. Hostility makes me shrink up like a- I can’t think of a non-sexual metaphor.”

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“If he gets better, I’m right, if he dies, you’re right.”

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“The simplest explanation is almost always somebody screwed up.”

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“Did you come for my feelings? Because I left ‘em in my other pants.”

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“I’ll be in my office. By myself. Lots of porn piling up on the Internet. It doesn’t download itself.”

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“It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.”

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Cuddy: “Is that Vicodin?”

House: “Breath mint. Thought you were going to kiss me.”

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“I teach you to lie, cheat, and steal, and as soon as my back’s turned you wait in line?”

“Treating illnesses is why we became doctors. Treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable.”

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Foreman: “You stash your drugs in a Lupus text-book.”
House: “It’s never Lupus.”

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Team: “We got rectal bleeding.”
House: “What, all of you?”

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Dr. Cuddy: You don’t prescribe medicine based on guesses. At least we don’t since Tuskegee  and Mengele.

Dr. House: You’re comparing me to a Nazi? [admiringly] Nice .

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House: You know why you’re black?

Patient: God loves me more than he does you?

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Dr. House: [to black Senator] You’re not going to become President either way. They don’t call it the White House because of the paint job.

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Dr. House: Someday there will be a gay president. Someday there will be a black president. There might even be a gay black president. But one combination I do not see happening is gay, black and dead.

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House: The only thing you know is that I’m a genius who got a dog to pee in your toilet. You don’t know how I did it, or more interestingly, where I peed.

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House: [Sees Cuddy's breasts in a low-cut top] I’ve forgotten it.

House: I guess it’s no big deal since I was only using it as an excuse to come check out Patty and Selma

Cuddy: I feel bad. I haven’t named your testicles.

House: Word on the street is you set a new personal best for low-cut.

Cuddy: I don’t know why you chose to give them names of somebody’s aunts.

House: It’s a compliment. They’re always smoking.

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House: This envelope is oddly medical-license-shaped.

Foreman [Chase and Cameron walk into House's office]: House is back in charge. We get to treat a porn star.

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House: So when you watch Star Wars, which side do you root for?

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Dr. Cameron: What about sex?

Dr. House: Well, it might get complicated. We work together. I am older, certainly, but maybe you like that.

Dr. Cameron: I meant maybe he has neurosyphilis.

Dr. House: Heh, nice cover. [winks]

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Hello, sick people and their loved ones! In the interest of saving time and avoiding a lot of boring chitchat later, I’m Doctor Gregory House; you can call me “Greg.” I’m one of three doctors staffing this clinic this morning. This ray of sunshine is Doctor Lisa Cuddy. Doctor Cuddy runs this whole hospital, so unfortunately she’s much too busy to deal with you. I am a board certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology. I am also the only doctor employed at this hospital who is forced to be here against his will. That is true, isn’t it? But not to worry, because for most of you, this job could be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Speaking of which, if you are particularly annoying, you may see me reach for this: this is Vicodin. It’s mine! You can’t have any. And no, I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem… but who knows? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m too stoned to tell. So, who wants me?

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Patient’s Mother: How can you just sit there?

Dr. House: If I eat standing up, I spill.

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Dr. Foreman: I think your argument is specious.

Dr. House: I think your tie is ugly.

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Lucas Palmero: This is a good hospital?

Dr. House: Depends what you mean by “good”. [looks around] I like these chairs.

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“Half the people I save don’t deserve a second chance.”

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Nun: “Sister Augustine believes in things that aren’t real.”
House: “I thought that was a job requirement for you people.”

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“Almost dying changes nothing. Dying changes everything”

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“If you’re here to kill me and rape me, please do it in that order.”

“I’m a jerk to everyone. Best way to protect yourself from lawsuits.”

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“Are you comparing me to God? I mean, it’s great, but so you know, I’ve never made a tree.”

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Wilson: “Did you know your phone is dead? Do you ever recharge the batteries?”
House: “They recharge? I just keep buying new phones.”

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Dr. House: I didn’t know it was possible for a woman to be unusually irritable.

Dr. Cameron: Nice try, but you’re a misanthrope, not a misogynist.

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“I had a heart attack this morning. I can’t do any more drugs till at least lunch.”

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“That arrogant son of a b*tch is the best doctor we have!” Cuddy

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“Idiots are fun, no wonder every village wants one.”

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Cuddy: What are you doing here? A patient?
House: No, a hooker. Came to my office instead of my home.

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Dr.Foreman: The kid was just taking his AP calculus exam when all of a sudden he got nauseous and disoriented.

Dr.House:That’s the way calculus presents.

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“If you talk to god, you’re religious. If god talks to you, you’re psychotic”

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Dr. Cuddy: You know, there are other ways to manage pain.
Dr. House: Like what, laughter? Meditation? Got a guy who can fix my third chakra?

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Dr. Conway: Dr. Jamie Conway. I’ve heard your name.

House: Most people have: It’s also a noun.

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House: You have a brain tumor.

Emo-Punk: You’re kidding, right?

House: If I was kidding, I’d be dressed like you.

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Dr. Wilson: What the hell happened in Baltimore?!

Dr. House: Sorry. Never kiss and tell.

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Dr. Weber: Do I know you?

Dr. House: I know your math skills…they blow

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Dr. Weber: I know…I know you.

Dr. House: Sure you do, Dick.

Dr. Weber: The name’s Philip.

Dr. House: My bad. Something to do with your face – I always think your name is Dick.

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Dr. Wilson: How’d you get here?

Dr. House: By osmosis.

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Dr. Foreman: Why would your mind go to abuse so fast?

Dr. House: I had a funny uncle.

Dr. Foreman: You were abused?

Dr. House: What? No. Why’d your mind go to that so fast. I just had a funny uncle. Great stories, always filthy.

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Dr. House: Put your clothes back on. I’m going to cut your balls off, and then you’ll be fine.

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Dr. Cameron: His right testicle is almost twice as big as his left.

Dr. House: Cool!

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[Wilson is buying a box of chocolates]

Dr. House: Who’s the lucky woman?

Dr. Wilson: My wife.

Dr. House: I don’t want to know who gets the chocolates. I want to know who you’re having the affair with.

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Woman: [Marches up to Dr. Cuddy and annouces, without preface] I am not having an affair with my daughter’s karate instructor, and I did not give my husband herpes.

Dr. Cuddy: [Grabs a passing nurse] Go find out where House is.

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Dr. House: You wake up in the morning, your paint’s peeling, your curtains are gone, and your water is boiling, which problem do you deal with first?!

Dr. Foreman: House.

Dr. House: None of them, the building’s on fire!

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Dr. House: [to Chase, in front of a girl he's talking to] Hey! How’s that anal fissure? Did it heal yet, or is it still draining? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d come back for seconds. I figured after that girl in the stairwell, you’d be done for the night.

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Dr. House: I fear for the human race. A teenager claims to be the voice of God and people with advanced degrees are listening.

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Boyd: The nurses talk about you a lot.

Dr. House: Don’t believe them. I keep a sock in my pants.

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Boyd: I have a gift!

Dr. House: A gift is jewelry, socks – what you have is herpes encephalitis.

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(House has just shot a corpse.)

Man: [peering in] Did anyone just hear a—?

Dr. House: I shot him! He’s dead!

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Dr. Cameron: Foreman is black.

Dr. House: What?! How long have you been sitting on this information?

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(about fat patient.)

Dr. House: Start treating Jabba for Pickwicken Syndrome. His 96 double Zs are probably putting pressure on his chest and suffocating him….what’s normal for a hippopotamus…Lets see what Shamu’s been up to besides eating. This conversation is over because I’ve officially run out of clever things to call the guy.

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Dr. Cuddy: You can’t lift your arm.

Dr. House: You can’t pee standing up.

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Maddy: Are you high?

Dr. House: Higher than you.

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[Cuddy pulls the guitar cord out of the amp]

Dr. Cuddy: You’ve spent the last two weeks doing absolutely nothing. Concert’s over.

Dr. House: In what twisted universe does mastering Eddie Van Halen’s two-handed arpeggio technique count as absolutely nothing?.

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Gaming Nostalgia – Part 1

Today’s Google Doodle (21 May 2010 – For Pac-Man 30th Anniversary !  ) remembered me of my ‘gaming history’ and that  made me feel nostalgic as gaming is (or was? 0_o) an important part of my life. Those days things were different. I was still an innocent child just looking to have fun. I really missed those times, when gaming was a culture, not a business.

Games are no longer as they were before. In the past developing games was a passion for people and they devoted lots of time refining the gameplay of their games. Unlike today there were technology constraints and each developers had the same restrictions. Nobody cared about graphics. It was all about having fun playing. And these games were pleasurable and exciting. You could have spent a great deal of time on them contrary to today’s games which are very short and much more expensive. If you want more, you have to pay more.

I was introduced to gaming in around 1996-1997 and the first game I remember to have played is of course the original ‘Prince of Persia’ on my late uncle’s computer loaded with MS-DOS!   The game was available on a floppy disk and I recall those wonderful moments spent playing it. My cousin and I used to memorize each command by heart (e.g : cd.. ENTER, cd Prince ENTER). In fact we didn’t even know what was an OS or how to use it, we just knew how to load the game and play it(even with cheats ).  The game was launched using the command ‘PRINCE MEGAHIT’. Then in-game we used ‘Shift+T’ for extra lives . At that time we did not know these were cheats but elders just taught us to play it as such and we just thought it as the usual process.

Prince of Persia is still a great platformer today and the dos version can be played for free using the emulator DOSBox : http://www.dosbox.com/. It was also released for different systems such as the Super Nintendo and Amiga. In my opinion the most beautiful version is the Macintosh version. I managed to run it, but it was quite tricky (and somehow not legal) requiring Mini vMac, a macintosh emulator, and a ROM image.

Another game I remember to have played is Mortal Kombat 1. This was my first fighting game. It was a cool game, but I found it very difficult to play(probably for a 4-5 years old child ) and the fatalities were even more challenging; only my older cousins could accomplish them. Mortal Kombat had an advanced gameplay for its time with also a good plot. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to play it again today, but I was a fan of its sequels, specially Mortal Kombat 4 on PSX.

In short these were some of my first and best ‘video game moments’. I would have loved to be part of the Golden Age of Video Games in the early 1980′s, but I was born too many years later.

Best WWII Flight Sim

I recently acquired the ‘IL-2 Sturmovik 1946′ compilation pack for pc and I am largely impressed by its content.

This pack contains:

- The original Il-2 Sturmovik

- Forgotten Battles and Ace expansion pack

- Pacific Fighters

- Operation Barbarossa pack

And 3 new expansions : Pe-2, Manchuria and 1946.

All these merged together into a single installation containing a total of 347 aircrafts with 256 being flyable (including prototypes not deployed in during war).   You can choose from over 10 nations (Soviet, Germans, British, French, Polish, Japanese, etc..). It features about a dozen of campaigns with around 1000 missions. There is also the Full Mission Builder which extends the game replayability and with online multiplayer you will never get bored.

I played several flight simulators before and I consider this one to be the best due to its realism and nearly unlimited gameplay time. The learning curve is a bit steep, but Il-2 Sturmovik is a must for every fans of World War 2 flight sims. Besides dogfighting (which is really intense ) it also offers ground-attack missions such as blowing up bridges, moving trains, airfields. The graphics are still good even after all these years and the damage model is very accurate. However casual gamers may prefer eye candy visuals. This game is more aimed towards hardcore flight sim fans, but anyone with enough patience to learn the basics will surely love it.

Besides Il-2 Sturmovik, other nice flight sims that are worthwhile to try are : Red Baron 3D (WWI Classic), Falcon 4.0 Allied Force(modern jets) and Flight Simulator X ( civilian aircrafts).

Update – New Screens : Battle of Britain Phase 1

Geek vs Nerd !

Many people consider geeks and nerds to be the same. Some of their characteristics do overlap, but they are definitely different. The definition of the ‘geek’ has changed over time, but the ‘nerd’ remained the same person and he is the one easier to characterize.

Basically here’s a nerd :

A nerd is a person with above-average IQ who has a fascination in particular a field of study (often subjects which others find too boring or  too complex such as quantum mechanics, astrophysics,etc..). They usually study and experiment things that take lots of time and have no practical benefits for them. Nerds are highly intelligent and can solve difficult problems, but they have little to no social skills. They are highly critical. Consequently they have difficulties to get around other peoples and may tend towards being introverted. Their specific field of study is their  ‘love’.

Nerds look weird and act weird. In a conversation they can talk only about ‘nerdy subjects’. They like stuffs like science-fiction (star wars, star trek), fantasy, video games, comics, strange music or even classical, D&D  games, extraterrestrial discoveries,etc.. However nerds contributed greatly to inventions and discoveries. Thanks to their intelligence they are the one who fill the ranks of the NASA, they become professors, renown researchers,etc…

And remember to never challenge a nerd’s knowledge, you’ll be surprised about what he knows

Now here’s the geek :

As shown above a geek is much cooler than a nerd

A geek is sometimes defined as a ‘nerd with social skills’. Yet their hobbies and field of study differ. A geek is more practical and learns for pleasure rather than accumulating lots of knowledge that would be useless for him. He usually obtain good grades at school, but unlike a nerd he does make an obsession of being the first in class. Geeks are generally extremely good with computers and most of them are hackers. They engage in activities such as engineering, programming, novels, electronics, trance music, gaming or some odd activities ( but cool ones ). Someone can be a geek in a specific field : computer geek , engineer geek,  math geek,etc..

Nowadays people started to be envious about geeks. Geeks think differently; they are usually interested about issues in a broader scope than nerds. A geek exceeds the expectations of everyone.

They are not very trendy. Nevertheless they don’t look weird. In fact some of them have great social and dating skills. Geeks usually have a prominent career (though not as good as a nerd) and are the one who manage to date and/or marry the sexiest women.

This is my definition of Geeks and Nerds. In reality they may differ.

Some famous nerds/geeks are : Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Steven Hawking and John Carmack.

Backtrack 4 Final

Backtrack is a linux distribution used mainly for penetration testing and forensic. It is originated from two formerly competing distribution : WHAX and Auditor Security collection. Although it has been specially designed for pentesting, many people use it as their main OS.

Backtrack 4 is currently its latest release and is available as a LiveDVD, but it can also be installed on you hard disk or vmware machine.

Download link :

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/

For this post I have used VMware Player which is free.

Tools:

Backtrack contains more than 300 tools ready to be used. With these you are able to perform various task such as sniffing, information gathering, network monitoring, scanning vulnerable ports, sql injections, exploiting, tunneling, spoofing, both online and offline password cracking, etc..

A large number of people make use of Backtrack for the specific purpose of cracking wep keys on a wireless network. I am not against that, but don’t forget that Backtrack  has many functions besides wep cracking.

Some popular tools are : Nmap, FastTrack, MetaSploit, OpenVas, Aircrack-ng,aireplay-ng, Wireshark, Ethercap, Hydra and John The Ripper.

For those who want to try it here is how to activate your ethernet connection. ( assuming you use myT)

In console :  start-network

Or : /etc/init.d/networking start

Tips:

To list all your wireless devices  type : iwconfig

To list  you networks interfaces type : ifconfig

eth0 is your primary network interface, to activate it type : ifconfig eth0 up

United Gamers of Mauritius

Last year a friend of mine created a gaming community called ‘United Gamers of Mauritius’ in order to promote video gaming in Mauritius and to group all Mauritian gamers in a same place. Recently we’ve been having some members and started to become active.

We have a group on xfire as well on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101005414310&v=info

http://www.xfire.com/communities/unitedgom/

At the same time we are also promoting the use of xfire which every hardcore gamers should have

Don’t hesitate to join us, whether you’re a casual or a hardcore gamer.

As shown in the second screenshot, some games we play are :  Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1, 2 , Counter-Strike, Dota,etc..