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Monthly Archives: August 2008
Run Lola, Run (Lola Rennt)
How would I describe this movie in one sentence? Let’s see. Maybe “Groundhog Day on Crack”? Hmmm… No that’s not it. In fact it’s not even close. The movie does bring up similar questions about time, chance, cause and effect … Continue reading
POP+SMTP Setup is on it’s way out
Here is a prediction: in the next few years traditional POP+SMTP email setup will become virtually extinct. I’m basing this on several factors. For one, no one actually remembers what these things are anymore. My students think that POP is … Continue reading
Diceless or Dice Heavy RPG?
Do you like to roll a lot of dice when you play RPG games? This is not really an invitation to discuss the Big Model or the GNS Theory. You can discuss them but be aware that my attitude and … Continue reading
Posted in rpg and tabletop
9 Comments
Terminal Insomnia
Did you ever go on a Wikipedia click rampage? It usually happens when you look something up, then you click on a link in that article, then on a link in the linked article and etc. 2 hours later you … Continue reading
Phising Prevention
Not so long ago my university’s email got blacklisted by Comcast and Microsoft due to large amounts of spam streaming from our network. This lovely email explains the details of the situation: To Our Campus Community- Information Technology has received … Continue reading
Primer: The Movie
Some time ago, Freelancer recommended Primer to me somewhere in the comments of this blog. I don’t recall the exact post, but the movie landed on my “to watch” list. I just wanted to say, thanks a lot buddy – … Continue reading
Communicating With College Students Using Their Own Media
Over the last 2-3 years I noticed that making students read email is almost as hard as making them do homework assignments on time – if not harder. It’s like pulling teeth. And yet, we sort of rely on this … Continue reading
Posted in school and teaching
11 Comments
I Am Legend: Alternate Ending
When I reviewed I Am Legend with Will Smith I ranted at length that the ending of the movie was so incredibly bad that it ruined whatever value was there in the movie. If you haven’t read the review, I … Continue reading
Posted in movies
11 Comments
Enabling Polish Letters (Ogonki) in Vim
This is one of these things that I always need to look up. I know this tip will probably have no relevance for 98.5% of my regular readers, but I wanted to put it here for future reference. Also, since … Continue reading
Posted in technology
10 Comments
The Familly Life of Orcs
Recently I realized that traditionally evil races such as Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds and etc. in RPG games rarely have fleshed out social backgrounds, or detailed descriptions of daily lives. It’s as if every member of each respective evil race was … Continue reading
Life of Pi
It is very easy to write an entertaining review of a really bad book, or a bad movie. Conversely it is hard to write anything meaningful about something that is really good without sounding a tad boring. Thus I am … Continue reading
Open Letter to the History Channel
Dear History Channel, I wanted to start this letter by politely saying: WHAT THE FUCK? As you may or may not know the name of your network (“The History Channel” in case you forgot) sort of implies that your programming … Continue reading
Posted in tv
19 Comments
No One Uses GPG With Outlook
Some time ago my boss found himself a new pony, named it SECURITAR and decided to ride it around office every other week talking about policies, improvements and all that jazz. I don’t really mind – it is a positive … Continue reading
Casters Don’t Need Separate Game Mechanic
Have you noticed how most RPG games (both pen and paper, as well as video games) always seem to introduce some sort of additional game play mechanic to handle spell casters? In most cases wizards and mages always have an … Continue reading
Posted in rpg and tabletop
13 Comments
WoW: The Grind
Yes, this is going to be another WoW post. You may see couple more popping up in the next few weeks but I’ll try to space them out so this blog doesn’t look like some fanboy love fest. I have … Continue reading
[Rec]: Good Zombie Movies Don’t Need to Come from Hollywood
Some people claim that good zombie movie is an oxymoron. In part I agree, because the concept of zombies in itself is a little bit cheesy to begin with, and let’s face it – most of the movies in this … Continue reading
Stealth Survival Horror Game – Make One
The other day Shamus complained about an odd tendency to inject military characters into Survival Horror video games as evidenced in the new Silent Hill title. I completely agree. Playing as a battle-hardened mercenary does not make a game of … Continue reading
Porting Stuff to Google Apps
Recently I wrote this lengthy on Google App Engine and new avenues of opportunity such ventures open up for us. It seems that I’m not alone in thinking about this stuff. The gist of that post was that Google App … Continue reading
Configuring Python’s Easy Install on Windows
I ran into an interesting issue with easy_install the other day. What is easy_install? Let me answer by analogy: easy_install is to Python like Gems are to Ruby. In other words, it is an apt-get like application that will automatically … Continue reading
KOTOR 2: Final Thoughts
I realized that I never really posted conclusion to my KOTOR 2 ramblings which can be found here, here and here. I actually finished the game some time ago but never got around to putting my final thoughts about it … Continue reading