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After we got home from grocery shopping today, we had an ad in our mail from ÖoB. Something caught Nero's eye... They were advertising Pringles at a mere 11 kronor a pop, which is a good deal as it is... but what she noticed was in that one of the three Pringles they used in the photo was the blue (salt and vinegar) one.
So as soon as I figured up smoking the water pipe, we hopped back in the car to check it out. We were both a bit skeptical... I was thinking they were just using some stock-photo of Pringles for the ad and that it wasn't an accurate reflection of what flavors they had in, but damn was I lucky it was for real! 
Sure enough they had Salt and Vinegar Pringles!!! I bought 10 cans at a f*cking hell of a good deal.
In case this is all confusing to you, or you're wondering why I'd get so excited about this, it's really simple. Swedes don't like flavor. The chip selection they sell over here usually sucks. There's only one store that we know of within a 30 minute drive that even sells Doritos, and it's been at least 3 or 4 years since I remember seeing Salt and Vinegar Pringles at a normal store. I say a "normal" store, because if we drive all the way out to Malmo we can buy them at the American store Grays, but like everything else in that store - it's a f*cking rip off @ 39 kronor a can.
In other words, I paid about the same for these 10 cans of Pringles as I would pay to get 3 cans of them if I went through the American import store! Now you should get why I am excited!
Oh and for the record... there is a Swedish company that makes Salt and Vinegar chips again finally.. They started with it a little over a year ago (and I of course bought like 20 packs then in case it was a temp thing) - those chips suck. There is barely even any taste of vinegar in them, and I'm sure it's simply because the tame-taste-buds Swedish folk have. Salt and Vinegar Pringles are $h!t loads better than them, so I'm a happy camper!
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I am so frigging sick of this game by now.
It's been close to a year since I last touched the thing, actually. I played it for a week after it's release last Autumn, and it was quickly beaten. Since there wasn't a whole lot to do, and since I encountered several annoying bugs (one in particular with moving your family to a new house), and - more importantly - since Fallout 3 quickly came out, I haven't touched Fable 2 for about a year.
I know I know, that's kinda blasphemy when I've been preaching about how awesome the sequel to one of my favorite games would be, but well - I hadn't really anticipated many of the disappointing factors associated with the game (particularly its unpolished nature).
In any event I had been going through Fallout 3 again. I've been playing through the various expansion packs, and since I basically have completed them all now, I thought I could give Fable 2 another try.
I'm quickly regretting that I did.
When I first fired the game up, I got a sigh of relief seeing there was an update available for the game. I thought "wow, maybe they finally fixed up some of these bugs". Sadly, things have only gotten worse for me now, and I'm quickly wanting to smash the disc in, and write a big rant telling Peter Molyneux what I really think of this broken and half-assed "masterpiece" of his.
Okay, maybe that was a bit much, but here's the thing.
I've been TRYING to play a new game of Fable 2, but about 50% of the stuff I play doesn't get saved.
I tell it "save and quit" every f*cking time, and about 50% of the time it will save, and 50% of the time it won't save.
It never gives me an error when it "saves", but I have recently discovered that if I don't shut the system down right away and go back into the title screen of the game I get this nice big error (as seen in the screen shot).
After clicking the error away, I will no longer have the "Continue" option (acting as if all my saved games are gone), but if I exit the game and go to the dashboard, and then go back into the game, the "Continue" option is there again, though any progress I had been making in my game is NOT saved.
I am quickly regretting downloading this "patch" because from my experience so far, it's made the playing experience all that much worse (hard to imagine with the already considerable number of bugs present).
For the record, I don't even touch my damn system, which has a 120 GB hard disc (with over 85GB free). The system is not being bumped, moved or touched and I've never had a single issue with saving video, pictures, game saves or anything else EVER.
I even went into the dash board and removed about 20-25 game saves from Fallout 3, probably 5 demos, and all my videos.
Still, it happens about 50% of the time.
Needless to I've been playing less and less, and I'm about to stop playing it altogether now. After all, I mean, what the f*ck is the point of pumping a bunch of time into becoming wealthy or buying lots of property, or even completing missions, when the odds are that the next time you play you'll have just as good a chance having nothing saved as you will having your game saved.
Seriously. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
The fact that Fable 2 already has a number of glaring performance and design issues really suggests to me that this is NOT a hardware problem but a software problem with Fable 2. Further, the fact that the "Continue" option always disappears when seeing this error, and always re-appears when coming back into the game (without even shutting off the system) really seems to support the fact that something (else) is up with the game.
Normally I'd be willing to forgive the fact that the actual gameplay experience of Fable 2 was a lot more disappointing than I imagined it could have been, but with the compounding presence of so many darn performance issues, I'm finding myself being a lot less willing to forgive this game.
After seeing someone else created a thread for this on Lionhead's forums for Fable 2 technical issues, I thought I made my own to show them - "look, it's not just one person". Here is that thread I made:
http://community.lionhead.com/forums/thread/3416246.aspx
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I knew Firefox 3.5 did this when I originally downloaded it back on Ubuntu 9.04. Because of this, I stopped using Firefox 3.5 right away and went back to Firefox 3.
Today I went ahead and updated to Ubuntu 9.10, which comes with Firefox 3.5 as default.
Grrr.....
Damn is it f*cking annoying. What gives?!
My guess is it was done out of memory management, since there is no other practical reason for removing it.
I remember when I noticed this when switching from IE 5 to IE 5.5 (or was it IE 5.5 to IE 6?), and damn was it annoying then. Well, it was worse then with IE because Microsoft doesn't let you downgrade to go back.
In any event, it's frustrating and annoying as hell. Did the developers just decide, "hey, GUI cues aren't all that important"?
I know I'm not the only one, because a quick google on "firefox 3.5 hourglass" will return pages with lots of other angry folks.
Maybe it's just me, but they really made a hugely stupid mistake here. Implementing something that is going to make people more frustrated and a lot happier with the browsing experience isn't going to justify performance - if that was why it was removed.
Damn, Mozilla... come on and get this back already!
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Okay, this has kinda pissed me off, and really isn't helping me get over the incredible anti-Apple sentiment I've been gaining the few weeks.
A lot of the time at night, I like to play around on my iPhone and check out new programs from the Apple App Store.
I stumbled upon one called "Drug Addiction", and was intrigued enough by its "noble" aim to educate people on awareness of drug abuse, so I downloaded it and gave it a look.
Holy crap, have I not seen so much flagrant misinformation since the film "Reefer Madness". My biggest gripe with the program wasn't its complete partisanship, or even its scarce scope of information, or even the fact that most of the information was incredibly outdated, irrelevant and antiquated. My biggest gripe was that no where do I remember seeing the word "use". Anytime anyone drinks a beer or smokes a joint, it's "abuse" - well, at least according to this program. No where in any of the few substances listed was there the slightest distinction between use and abuse.
Nope, just more of that outdated fear-mongering we've all grown up with.
So I thought - heck, even though the program already has a 2 out of 5 star rating out of more than 10 ratings already, I felt it was necessary for me to have my say. So I did, and guess what?
My score seemed to have been accepted, but my written review was NOT added.
Being all the wise to many of the other disgraceful ways I've learned Apple conducts its business (overly aggressive DRM that can make Microsoft look like a saint, planned obsolescence with iPods and iPhones, unjustified and zealous program review process, removing threads critical of them or their partner companies in forums - to name a few), I felt it was necessary to copy my review and paste it into the notes program in the event that Apple would play big brother.
So here it is, my review of a crappy propaganda program - which seems to coincide very well with what other people thought of the program (judging from its score):
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First of all, there is an enormous difference between use and abuse, but this app fails to ever make a distinction of the two. Many drugs CAN be used recreationally without necessarily abusing them.
Nothing but a lot of antiquated misinformation and scare mongering.
Yes, drugs CAN be bad, but let us not forget we all use psycoactive substances, whether it's for a headache, boost of energy from a cup of coffee in the morning, to sleep better, for depression, etc..
Some illicit substances are not nearly as damaging as they are often made out to be, so how about we finally stop with all the scare tactics and focus on factual information from places like www.erowid.org (which focuses on educating and not mindlessly scaring)?
The last thing the world needs is more falsified information, which does far more harm than good - by giving people the mentality that if one thing they were told about something is a lie then maybe it all is.
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Am I the only one who finds nothing worth censoring here other than my idea? No obscenities (like many of the reviews they allow to be posted), no personal or defamatory slander (like many reviews they allow) - nothing. Just a little bit of reality, that for whatever reason, doesn't coincide with Apple's world vision.
You know; commercialism, spending, waste, consumption. All those things that make society tick. Could it be simply that ideas like what I've expressed are not popular by conglomerates simply because they challenge the established structure of society itself? Think about it; we're supposed to buy into the concept of finding happiness through buying things, and all of our super technologies - it doesn't seem a very popular idea to find happiness in a glass of beer, a pill, or a joint, because that undermines the entire foundation of how we have created our economy. "We" don't want people to be able to use substances that make them happy and content with life, because then they aren't going to want any part in much of what "we" think is important in life - namely: commercialism, spending, waste and consumption. So I guess, arguably supporters of drug prohibition may very well be right that drugs may hold a power than causes people to drop out of many social institutions. And maybe it's just my view of the world here, but I see that as a good thing. We *need* more people who's focal point in life is feeling good and happiness, and not all those things we are conditioned into thinking are important.
So yeah, let's just keep spreading misinformation, and scare-mongering. It's doing a whole lot of good, isn't it?
Screw you, Apple!
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Even before I ever experimented with hallucinogens, I've always been intrigued by this man. He went - overnight - from being one of the most respected names in psychology to one of the most hated people in America because of his ideals.
I guess I empathize so much to him because I, too, am often disliked for some of my "radical" ways of thinking, and overall attitude against the system.
Anyhow, I felt it was only suiting to create a portrait image dedicated to his memory and how he has changed the world and continues to change people's minds about the way we think about life, happiness, sanity, peace, government and beauty.
As you can see, this is a major work in progress... I've only gotten down the basics, and it will all be painted when I'm done with it (acrylic simply because this is all I am comfortable with now).
If you think it kinda resembles Medusa, that's okay, because me and Nero also got that thought!  But those are not snakes; they are Liberty Caps (Psilocybe Semilanceata - one of the most potent magic mushrooms).
I plan on painting in an upside down rainbow over his mouth as well, as to give off the impression of the rainbow surrounding his smile.
I'm thinking about using either swirled colors in the background, or some sort of prismatic effect, or maybe I can use the "fish effect" I always see when I am broadening my horizon.
I'm also thinking about throwing in some text in the background (faintly)... I'm going to go with either just one of his famous sayings or several of them in different places (such as: "turn on, tune in, drop out", or "in order to free your mind, you must go out of your head").
His birthday is coming up on October 22nd, so I am hoping to have it ready then, so I can send it to a few sites (maybe erowid too) so his spirit continues to live on.
In the words of Pink Floyd, "Shine on, you crazy diamond"!
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They suck!
There, I said it.
Energy efficient light bulbs... everyone has heard the term, and probably most of us even have switched from our old energy wasting light bulbs to the newer "environmentally aware" cousins. Well, all of us have probably heard about just how "efficient" they are, while all of us have probably also wondered how true it can be when we see the obvious noticeable difference with our own eyes.
And if you're anything like me (distrusting everyone and everything around you), you may even begin to wonder if this is all some scam against every consumer worldwide, simply to hawk a new product at, and justify, and in fact encourage it, by stating it's good for the environment.
Yeah, I know, less energy being wasted is good for the environment, but you know what's even more effective than energy-bulbs? No bulbs at all!
If you understand the irony in that statement, then I think you are getting onto my point now...
You see, the term "efficiency" does not automatically assume something has been sacrificed. In fact, one could argue this isn't efficiency at all; just a sacrifice. For something to be "efficient" it needs to do all of (or in the sense here: both of) the various aspects surprisingly well. But "energy bulbs" don't.
Granted they consume significantly less energy; they also produce significantly less light.
Thus, one could argue nothing efficient is even going on. You're simply getting much less because you're putting less in. That's not efficiency; it's just a sacrifice.
I'm sure every single person who has used energy bulbs has thought to themselves one of the following:
1) wow, that took a little longer than I thought to turn on
2) doesn't that seem dimmer to you
3) how long does it take to reach its full effect
I performed an interesting test today to see if the claimed wattage effect of these energy bulbs was in fact what was claimed. From my testing, I've learned that energy bulbs simply do NOT produce anywhere near the same level of light as non-energy efficient bulbs do.
For my test I used one of those gadgets that tells you a plant's moisture level in the soil, it's PH level - and what's relevant here - the amount of light it receives. You could probably do this same experiment with various other gadgets and tools - it just needs a photon-detector, with a meter to understand what it finds.
In this experiment I used three different light bulbs:
- 60 Watt old-school bulb (day white / active)
- 60 Watt old-school bulb (relaxing / yellow)
- 11 Watt (claimed 60 Watt effect) energy efficient bulb
There was an incredible difference between the amount of light detected from the energy bulb and the non-energy bulbs. As I held the meter about 6 inches from the light bulb, the meter indicator would go as far to the right as it possibly could - when using the non-energy efficient bulbs. Actually, I was expecting a bit of a difference between the white light and the yellow light, but both of these bulbs produced nearly identical results.
The new, energy efficient bulb, yielded completely different results. For one, I made sure to leave the lamp on for a good minute before measuring (as we all know, energy bulbs can take a long time before they even reach their maximum effect). After a bit over a minute, I started measuring, and I was blown away, because it was like comparing an apple to an orange. When holding the light detector basically one inch from the light bulb, the meter's indicator was only 1/5 - 2/5 to the right, whereas with the old school bulbs it was as far to the right as the meter would allow.
So here's where I tie this whole stupid rant together... You can't expect people who have been accustomed to something for generations and generations, just to make a quick trade-in, for something which does not work as well. It's understandable for governments and social institutions to encourage and in fact, disallow the use of older technologies when newer ones are present that have all the angles addressed. Our current generation of energy efficient light bulbs are still nowhere near that point. They really seem like more of a trade-off than anything, which is not what they are portrayed to be. We are all told that they are just as effective, but I think anyone of us who have ever spent a good deal of time around these lights know that's a damn lie. If we are to fully make the transition from energy wasters to energy savers, then we need to focus on the how well it works, and not just the energy usage.
The light produced by energy bulbs is NOT equal to, or even in the same range of light produced by energy wasters. I love the environment, and I don't want us all to damn our future by using ineffective and obsolete technologies, but before we are to move forward with a technology, we need to ensure that we are not sacrificing something we had before that technology came along (namely: decent light). So please, let's not kid ourselves. We can do this if we really want to cut back on our energy consumption, but for the love of it all, can this nonsense that they are just as effective please cease now?
I've got high hopes for LEDs. After tinkering with them for a while, I suspect they may actually be far more efficient (because they consume little energy *AND* produce vibrant light ).
"Energy bulbs" only do one of those, and for that reason I can't call them efficient.
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NeroAnima bought me a mature venus fly trap today!
I'm really excited cause I've wanted one for a long time, and the seeds/kit I got didn't go so well. 
I also got another carnivorous plant, but I'm not sure on its exact name.
Will take some pics soon..
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Man oh man it feels like it's been ages since I bought my last game. Well, when you figure I used to buy games almost once or twice a week it has been a while, cause I can't remember buying a game for a couple months at least.
Anyhow, that's what got me to opening my wallet a little today. We were at GAME and I saw they had the Fallout 3 expansion. I know you can probably get it online for a little cheaper, but I'd rather have the box and manual for my collection. It wasn't too expensive, and I think it came with something other than Broken Steel.
After I had already broken into my wallet we went over to another music/dvd/bluray shop. We wanted something new to watch tonight.. we haven't bought a bluray (excluding that Advent Children import) in a while either.. Well, all the blurays sucked. I've looked at two places now for "The Wall" on bluray, and I don't think it's out yet... I asked the cashier and they did have it in on DVD so I felt I had to go ahead and get it anyhow. The Wall is a f*cking insane movie... I love it.. I saw it first just about a week ago.. downloaded it. I think Nero and my video collection reflects pretty well that piracy does not cause people to stop buying things altogether. It just makes most of us stop buying CRAP. I'm guessing I'm not the only one here who may end up purchasing DVDs or CDs of stuff I originally downloaded.. I just have to feel it is justified to pay for it, and most stuff I think isn't! >_<
Anyhow, i think The Wall is a great movie. Even better than Tommy (sorry, I just had to compare it to that since I've seen that a few times lately and it's another rock opera from roughly the same time). The Wall is reaaaaaaaaaallly psychological. It's probably one of the most psychological movies I've seen in a long time... And it's amazing because even though I knew the focus was on a rock star going into it, this never felt obvious or played out more than it needed to be. In fact, there was only one or two clear parts of the movie where there is some obvious allusion to the character being a rock star (which is good, because I'm one of those few people who really hates the whole rock-star obsession; because in my eyes it's basic simple-minded loathing based on superficial perceptions). I mention this just because with this in mind I would have expected to have myself to not enjoying a movie about a rock star, but I really did. I think it had a lot to do with some allusions I drew in the movie to my personal life, and the and all the amazing imagery and the incredibly way that Pink Floyd seems to have mastered using music to manipulate responses.
Yeah, ever since shrooming I finally get Pink Floyd music! haha... I always liked a few of their songs, but all the long instrumental solos and what not make so much more sense to me.. Anyhow, it's a great movie in case you are interested.. It's pretty much themed around depression, hate, isolation, conformity and going mad from it all in the end.
I was stoned when I first saw The Wall, but I'm probably gonna shroom tonight and watch it (if Nero is up for it).
Oh yeah and we also picked up a Bad Religion dvd... haven't seen this one yet either.
So I got a little good time ahead of me.
It's only a f*cking bitch cause it's like 2or 3 days before I'm supposed to release the new Theia, and I still need to do the language pack xml crap. blehhh.
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I really haven't been posting here nearly as often anymore... but that's just because I find myself occupied most of the time. >_<
It's a good thing though because it means I always have things to do to improve Theia. Lately, it's been with the friendship system. I started using jquery; I had looked into YUI earlier but it wasn't as clear what files needed to be included for a variety of different things, so I made the move to jquery when I saw how light-weight it was (half a meg) and how it still had most of the features I wanted (the first being drag & drop).
Soooo, there's going to finally be some drag and drop stuff in Theia. It's working out well so far. The friend's page at TT is slowly becoming a pure drag & drop AJAX oriented app that saves everything as you move things around. Really slick! 
Obviously, this means Theia will start getting a user-end makeover in many areas by inheriting new interface systems!
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It's been a good week since I got so darn much in Theia in a single day. But, damn is it nice when it happens, because I can sit back and feel like I really deserve to kick back. Even though I've probably worked solidly for close to 10 hours, it never seems to stress or bore me out, when I progress comes so quickly.
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This past Friday, I got a call from my handler at the unemployment office over here, and she told me that they have made their decision and have decided that I do get to start my own company, and they will support me on it.
What this basically means is that I will be continue to receive roughly (if not the same) amount of money that I do know from unemployment. But, instead of seeking work, I am expected to use my time to build and run the company.
I believe I will be covered for like six months, and after that point it is expected that you should be self-sufficient, which I really don't think should be too much of a problem.
Super good news for me, because it means I'm finally one humongous step closer to being independently employeed, and finally I no longer have to feel guilty for spending all my free time coding, when I should really be looking for jobs.
It looks like I'm gonna have to list the Swedish government offices of Arbetsformedlingen and Forsakningskassan on the Theia thanks... page. Never thought I'd be thanking a government for anything, but if these people are putting their faith in me enough to believe that I have a chance at succeeding with this, then they deserve my gratitude.
So anyhow, I have an appointment tomorrow morning with my handler at Arbetsformedlingen to go over some things with the company and all... I still need to register the company, and to take care of various little things, but it's all looking pretty good from here.
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Weeee!
I got a package in the mail from my mom for my birthday.. Well, actually I got it 2 days ago and forgot to post the picture and mention it...
I got loads of my favorites from the states from here, and I tagged along with Nero for a job interview in Malmo, and bought a box of Captain Crunch (for more than 10 bucks!) the same day. Captain Crunch is good (though I haven't had any of this yet), but still Fruity Pebbles is the best!
Thanks ma!
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It's been a real long while since I got anything on ebay, but somehow I stumbled upon pages showing me the Advent Children bluray import (which has the FF13 demo). I think it all started off by me checking into some import sites to see if you could start importing FF13 yet or not.
I didn't find FF13, but I did find the FF7 Advent Children Bluray that comes with the FF13 demo. It was a bit pricey, so I checked out ebay and found someone who seems fairly trustworthy (though I kinda expect a lengthy delivery time) selling it for a bit cheaper.
With that being said, I finally just bought it. I know it's been out over in Japan (the demo that is) for a while now, and I'm dying to try the f*cking thing out.
Damn... I really can't wait now!
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I've just released a new version of Theia (1.0.0b4), which you can download @
www.sikosoft.com/item/theia_100b4
For a list of new features look @
www.sikosoft.com/item/whats_new_in_100b4
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