by GothNinja | May 9, 2011 | Twitter, Charity, Blog
Greetings and Salutations Dear Constant Reader, Can I call you CR for short? Why? Oh its because I am lazy that’s why. In university they group I hung out with would shorten everyone’s name to just three letters out of laziness (e.g.. mig,sal,pen,col,mem,ben,bob,etc..) As a more experienced Adult I have improved on this system and reduced everyone to just two letters.
But to more serious matters. KIDS NEED TO READ!. Reading is an amazing experience, it opens up new ideas, lets your mind travel to distant lands, or times, it allows you to experience all kinds of adventures in that most powerful of virtual realities “The Human Imagination“. Therefore it is the utmost importance that we all do whatever we can to help encourage and enable the newer generations to discover the wonders of a good book. And as part of doing our bit, we here at the Ninja Temple would like to bring your attention to the efforts of “Hyde and Geek” @hydeandgeek and his 36 Hour Tweetathon in aid of “Kids Need To Read” Which you have to admit is a very noble and worthy cause. He raised $2000 for them during the 2010 Tweetathon, so lets see if he can do better this year.
Now, I shall hand you over to Scott courtesy of his Blog over at hydeandgeek.blogspot.com Or you could just jump to the link giving this years details HERE. The text below is taken directly off Scott’s site.
The 2011 Kids Need to Read 36-Hour Tweetathon is officially going to take place from Thursday, May 19th at noon through Friday, May 20th at midnight.
For those who missed out on the fun in 2010, I’ll recap the basic idea. (More details can be found in the FAQ.) I will be sitting in front of my computer for 36 hours straight and tweeting at least once every 10 minutes for the duration of that time to encourage people to donate money to Kids Need to Read through a charity page that will be set up specifically for the Tweetathon. What will I do for 36 hours? That’s sort of random. Last year, I asked geek trivia questions, posted photos (some of them embarrassing) and made a general fool of myself. This year, well… we’ll just see how it goes, shall we?
Just be sure to follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss out on all the geeky fun!
by GothNinja | Apr 27, 2011 | WebSite, Practical Joke
It’s just occurred to me, that I missed out on a brilliant opportunity to really mess with someone’s head for years. Sit down comfortably and I shall explain.
Back in 1998/99 When I was writing the Insanity Test I added the following two questions :-
138: Have you ever mailed ‘pen@penddraig.co.uk’?
139: If so did you announce your undying love to this person?
At the time they were just throw away Questions, Implying Jokingly that you would have to be insane to email me. Little did I expect to be receiving a vast amount of decelerations of Love, and some extremely insane ramblings to be constantly popping up in the Inbox associated with that account for more than a decade (I’m still getting them today) In fact I keep saying I intend to make a small book of the more bizarre, funny ones (Plus those from “Interesting” People/Places) and make as mall eBook.
Now consider if I had picked a random persons email address, think of how confused they would be at the amount of almost “stalkeresque” love emails they kept receiving. I could really have messed with someone’s mind. and had years of amusement. I guess this proves that contrary to popular belief I am not after all “Evil” (EDIT: “Or you just did not think of it at the time, Proving Nothing!!” CN)
Links:
The Insanity Test
The Insanity Test Store (I was bored)
The Insanity Test Book (When I finish writing it)
by GothNinja | Mar 28, 2011 | xbox 360, Games
Modern Warfare2 (MW2) is the sixth instalment in the Call of Duty (COD) Series. And its a game I’ve been playing a bit of recently, since it is the lowest common denominator among the group of :- PlanetPete, CampyPhil, MIAdave, StabbyJason & Myself. And since we’ve been playing private matches a lot, I’ve been plying TDM online to unlock better weapons/perks.
Playing online I have noticed the voice channel is now mostly filled with insults, threats, and abuse (a lot more than it ever used to be). And its all aimed in the same direction. Against anyone staying in one spot (Camping) or using sniper rifles, or scopes, thermal, claymores, or any tactic or action that is not just running around with a high unlocked gun and shooting (Run N’ Gun)
Now the main contention seems to be, that if you do anything other than Run N’ Gun you are 1)Cheating, 2)Not playing the Game correctly, 3)Scum, 4)A noob, 5)INSERT ANY DEROGATORY TERM, 6)Not worth playing with, 7)etc. And you should just quit playing the game since your cheating is ruining it for everyone else.All this with more filth and swear words than I ever heard working on building sites.
This abuse has got me thinking. If snipers, scopes, thermal, are cheating and are not to be used then why does the game have these weapons, accessories, & perks? Why in the default class list you are given is there a sniper? since you can not Run N’ Gun with a sniper rifle?
Also why is anyone not doing the Run N’ Gun wrong? the game is set up to handle multiple types of game play. Some people like running about and shooting when they see people mindlessly, where as other people prefer the more stealthy killing of snipers, knives, etc. Why is either one wrong? the games Modern Warfare, and warfare has many ways?
So can we please just accept everyone plays games in different ways, and just get along, If you keep getting killed by a Camper when you run into one building, stop running in, try throwing a grenade, or run about another part of the map.
The one that gets me is I’ve seen some of these people who verbally abuse campers until they quit the game, hide in a corner and shoot people then a bit later run to a different corner and hide to shoot people, well is that not “Camping“?
So people, we are all gamers, lets learn to play nice together, and if it really bugs you people using the weapons, perks, & tactics the game providers, then maybe you should find a different FPS that does not have those weapons and go play there, and let those of us who don’t mind what tactics people use to be able to play the game without listening to the abuse.
Footnote:
I’m adding this out of fairness, I do like the sniper in COD, I like sneaky, stealthy, clever kills. I like using my brain, and I remember my ACF training, “see without being seen, kill without being killed“. But saying that, I have 1of5 classes set up as a sniper, the other 4 are run n’ gun classes, so I play both, and I don’t mind what other people do.
Hell, maybe we should start accusing those with huge HD TV’s as cheating as they can see better than those with small old TV’s?
by CodeNinja | Mar 24, 2011 | Tablet, Hacks
The latest toy useful tool at the Ninja Temple is a nice little 7inch Android tablet. Now, being new to the Android OS, it was not long before the question was raised. “Is it as easy to Root a ‘Droid as it is to Jailbreak an iPhone?”
It was not long after this question was asked that we put life & limb on the line (well we risked bricking the new toy tool) to find out the answer. For those of you interested its Stupidly easy.
This is a walk-through of how we rooted out 7inch scroll tablet (and unlike the iPhone Walk-through no beer was involved).
(more…)
by GothNinja | Feb 25, 2011 | Family, Technology
Does anyone remember the old TV series (Or the book it was based on) called “Logan’s Run?” You know the one set in the future where every person has a small jewel in the palm of their hands that starts flashing when they reach a set age. I think we need something similar today, not to “put to sleep” those who reach thirty, but have a cut off age when people are no longer allowed to get new technology.
Let me tell you know why I have decided that this is the course we should follow. This morning before going to work, I popped over to see my parents as I’m looking after their dog for the weekend. Now my Mother has just got herself a new mobile phone, and decided to go for a “smart phone“. So just as I was leaving she asks me “I’ve got a weird shape thing on my phone, what’s it mean?“, I enquire to what it looks like “its a sort of thing, with a bit, and another thing” *turns phone at different angle* “It kinda looks like old video tapes”
I took the phone off her to check and informed her she had a voicemail, and if she clicked on it she could hear the message. So she clicked on it and started listening to the first time use recording, you know the one that tells you how to set a pin, and use the voicemail system. Only my mother removed the phone from her ear as the recording explained what to do “There’s a woman talking about pin’s and hash and stuff, I don’t know what she’s on about”
I sighed and explained you had to listen to the whole message to understand what she was saying, but not to worry as I’ll set it all up later for her. It was then that the voicemail started playing. I know this from my Mothers half of the conversation. “Oh HI, I was just going to call you.” “hello?”, “oh, you’ll be arriving then, do you need a lift” I interjected here “Its a voicemail” I was shusshed with “The woman said I had a message“. “right see you there then“. For my sanity I tried again “Its a voicemail, a recording!”
I then left the house laughing my head off as my mother was saying goodbye to the recording. Old people should not be allowed technology!
Click Image to enbiggen (Or see in full size).
http://xkcd.com/627/
by CodeNinja | Feb 15, 2011 | Technology
So Yesterday I noticed my Windows machine was misbehaving a “tad bit” and as such could no longer collect or send emails, or properly access webpages. Now this is not a major problem as my primary machine is Linux, and I keep the windows one for testing & game playing reasons. So I decided to reboot the machine since it had been up and running solidly for a month or so. As I selected reboot, I was asked did I mind it doing some updates? “Whats the worst that can happen?” I thought, and agreed.
Updating 1 of 67
OK. Maybe I should update the machine more often? Ah well, what can you do? What I did was read for the hour it took for the full 67 updates to be applied and the machine to reboot. Upon rebooting I attempted to log in, only for windows to hang at the “loading your preferences” screen. I tried multiple reboots, multiple accounts to try and access the machine every attempted failed. I then had to spend four hours bouncing in and out of safe mode trying to find the actual error, and repair it.
Now my machine is back up and running, I have decided NEVER AGAIN! no more updates for me, its not worth the hassle!
