Jar Of Eyeballs

I went to see Transformers today. Even though I liked the movie, there are a few things that made me wanna throw up. Few movies escape from them: clichés! Of course, Transformers had a few of them and all of them were lame as hell. They were the kind of clichés you see coming from far away and are very predictable. Here are the absolute worst:

• The pain-in-the-ass government official. You have the good guys who are very dedicated to their job, and then some arrogant government official in a suit shows up who’s only purpose seems to be to make their task as difficult as possible and to be an annoying pain in the ass. Usually he will get disposed of in some hilarious way.
• Resurrection by love. If someone dies, don’t bother with reanimation. It won’t work. Instead, ask his girlfriend to whisper “I love you” to him and then kiss him. Don’t wonder how he can hear her even though he’s dead. And make sure the girl is crying, otherwise it won’t work.
• Retards who are supposed to be funny but aren’t. I’m talking about the twin autobots. Clumsy, stupid characters that don’t die, even though their stupidity would get anyone killed in a few seconds. Characters like that aren’t funny, they are annoying and embarrasing! Remember Jar-Jar Binks? You probably do, but wish you didn’t.

I wonder why directors insist on putting this crap in movies. All of these situations are predictable, done too many times and plain and simply stupid! I once read a book titled “The big book of Hollywood clichés”. A better title would have been “Things you deserve to get shot for if you’re a movie director”.

While I’m working on a few game prototypes, I’m also making some game graphics that can be used for any sort of game. Here’s my first content pack: Rocket Pack 1. It containts five rockets, all drawn with Inkscape in SVG format. All these drawings are released as Creative Commons works, under the Attribution license. This means you can use them, alter them and redistribute them for free, for any purpose, including commercial use. The only thing I require is a link to this website. If you use them for commercial purposes, a small donation is highly appreciated.

Get Rocket Pack 1

No, this isn’t about hacking a gaming console. One of my hobbies is brewing my own beer. Today, I made something I hope will turn out pretty great. I got started with homebrewing not so long ago, so I’m not yet starting completely from scratch. The very first step in brewing is heating malt in water, wich turns starch in the grains into sugar. This process, called “mashing”, is the most difficult and critical step, and requires you to keep a very close eye on the temperature and time. I don’t do that myself, yet. I use a kit wich contains a dried malt extract wich has already undergone the mashing process.
So here’s what was left for me to do. The kit contained the dried extract, hops, spices and dried yeast. I had to dissolve the dried extract in water and then boil it with the hops and spices. After boiling, the solution (now called “wort”) is cooled down. This has to happen as fast as possible, because when warm it’s very susceptible to bacteria. After cooling, the wort is transferred into a large fermentation bucket and the yeast is added.

The last batch of beer I made tasted like crap, to be honest. I have some ideas of why this is, and here’s what I did different this time:

• I used bottled water instead of tap water (wich contains chlorine). Even though all the chlorine probably evaporates during boiling, I’m not taking any chances. I used the cheapest bottled water I could find.
• I used liquid yeast instead of the dried stuff that came with the kit. Liquid yeast is considered a lot better, but it has a limited shelf life. That’s why the kits come with dried yeast, wich keeps for a very long time.
• I put the fermentation bucket in the basement where it’s a few degrees cooler (around 19°C at this time) and the temperature is very stable. Higher temperatures can have an effect on the taste of the beer. It will probably take a bit longer to ferment now, however.

The fermentation will probably take a bit over a week. After that, the beer goes into bottles, and that’s when the hardest part of it all starts: waiting. The beer has to ripen in the basement for about two months. With one of my previous batches I had opened a bottle sooner and it really makes a huge difference. This means I’ll probably have to wait until september to find out how I did!
All I need now is a name for my brew. Any suggestions?

Okay, so there are already plenty of “top X novels” lists around on the internet, but I’m gonna post one myself anyway. These are five books every true geek should read at least once. I’m gonna start at five and count down to one. Ready? Here we go! Oh, and I warn you, the list might contain minor spoilers.

5) “Ringworld” by Larry Niven. An expedition consisting of a two humans and two extraterrestrials explore a gigantic ring built around a star, hoping it can be used as a refuge from a deadly shockwave from the galactic core that will destroy most of the galaxy in the distant future. They discover the remains of the civilization of the Ringworld builder, who turns out to be the ancestors of the human race. It won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus award, popularized Larry Niven’s Known Space universe and was an important inspiration source for Halo. After his fans pointed out such a structure wouldn’t be stable and drift away from it’s star, it got several sequels.

4) “Snow Crash” by Neil Stephenson. The United States has disintegrated into a multitude of privately owned city-states, each with its own laws and army. Hiro Protagonist, a hacker, swordfighter and pizza courier, discovers a dangerous drug wich only seems to target hackers, but is a part of a conspiracy by a powerful cult. Stephenson invented the term “avatar”, and his Metaverse (a 3D virtual world) inspired Second Life (wich, by the way, is a piece of crap imho). Great book, even though my copy has a crappy cover. An American flag with a biohazard symbol would be better for a Tom Clancy novel than a scifi story.

3) “Microserfs” by Douglas Coupland. The story starts when a Microsoft employee starts a journal because he has trouble getting to sleep. Realizing he has little or no future at Microsoft, he decides to quit his job and join his friend’s new company, where he works on a Lego-like design program. Geeky and funny, packed with sitcom-style humour and characters. In fact, it would make a cool sitcom. It’s sequel, “JPod”, actually did spawn a short-lived sitcom.

2) “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. Aliens demolish Earth to make way for their new galactic bypass. Sounds crazy? It sure is! Earth is destroyed and only two humans survive. They are picked up by the president of the galaxy, who turns out to be a complete moron (where have I heard that before? president…. moron… ). Together, they go on a journey wich leads them to a civilization that builds custom-made planets (wich includes Earth) and leads them to the real meaning of life (it’s not what you’d expect).

And the winner is (drumroll)…

1) “Neuromancer” by William Gibson. The most epic masterpiece of all time! Winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick award, this is the one scifi novel every living soul should have read at least once. A hacker is recruited for a mission wich turns out to be led by an artificial intelligence. The aim of the mission? Disable the systems that prevent the AI from getting smarter, thus creating a true godlike intelligence. A truely prophetic writer (compared to Jules Verne by some), Gibson invented the term cyberspace and was one of the main inspirations for The Matrix. According to many people, Neo and Trinity are based on the main characters from Neuromancer, wich Gibson considers a compliment rather than plagiarism.

So there you have it. My personal top five. An interesting fact: even though my native language is Dutch, I have read all these books in English (some also in Dutch). In almost every case, I found the story much easier to follow in the English version. Also, things often got fucked up horribly in translation. For example, in Snow Crash, even names were translated. “Hiro Protagonist” became something like “Hiro Main Character”, even though protagonist is a real word in Dutch. The horror!