Topics

76

Off Topic / World War Z: An Oral History of The Zombie War

« on: September 08, 2011, 07:55:47 PM »

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a 2006 post-apocalyptic horror novel by Max Brooks. It is a follow-up to his 2003 book The Zombie Survival Guide. Rather than a grand overview or narrative, World War Z is a collection of individual accounts in the form of first-person anecdote. Brooks plays the role of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission who published the report a decade after the Zombie War. The United Nations left out much of his work from the official report, choosing to focus on facts and figures from the war rather than the individual stories that form the bulk of Brooks' novel. The interviews chart a decade-long war against zombies from the view point of many different people of various nationalities. The personal accounts also describe the changing religious, geo-political, and environmental aftermath of the Zombie War.

Thanks Wikipedia!

This book is a great book, I'm not going to give anything away in this post unless it's transparent, everyone else in this topic please follow suit.

LOL SPOILERS I found this novel great because it portrays the zombie apocalypse in a way we can all relate to. No country in the world is prepared for this apocalypse, but Israel is the first to respond with quarantine and closed borders. The underwater swarms of zombies were unexpected, but I liked that added touch on the story, it made the story much more interesting. In most other zombie lore, the US army is shown as prepared but outnumbered. I enjoyed how Mr. Brooks changed that by making the army outnumbered and unprepared, with an added touch of mental instability. SPOILERS OVER

Read this book. Now. You will not regret the decision.

The personal accounts range from smugglers, to blind Japanese men living in the mountains, to Russian soldiers forced to kill their own as disciplinary action. While some stories have more action or might pique your interest more, all are worth reading, they all tie the story together. Half of the stories are military/government campaigns, and the other half are civilian survivors who made it by sheer luck.

Discuss this awesome book.

77

Off Topic / Abandoned Asylums

« on: September 05, 2011, 10:55:13 PM »

My fascination with these particular buildings is quite obscure, so I shall try to explain it simply, as society's long forgotten mistakes are my obsession. If you were to see something obscenely disgusting, you might turn away in disbelief, but you have to turn back and look again, it's an instinctual thing. That's how I feel about these buildings. An individual could be stuck there for many reasons, for something as simple like OCD, which I have, to things like psychopathic rage. To think that years ago, if I was alive, I might have checked into the building I'm standing in, maybe never to check out is just so revolting that it becomes fascinating. I would have probably been given a lobotomy in an attempt to change the disorder, and that is why the surgeries are the most fascinating rooms of the lot. These buildings are practically everywhere, but nobody ever looks. Where I live, I can go to three in less than a half hours drive. You can feel the emotional distress from years long gone in the air, it is so scary that it again becomes fascinating. Unless you have ever been in one of these mistakes of society, you don't know what I'm talking about. Here is the first one I went to that sparked this strange obsession inside of me. inb4weirdthoughtsyougotthere, this is partially the reason for my weekly therapy.

78

Off Topic / Why do all music videos take themselves so seriously?

« on: September 05, 2011, 08:35:48 PM »

Today, I watched Yellowcard's music video for Hang You Up, and I questioned "Why does every music video take itself so seriously?" I swear, this music video is the MLB Slugfest of music videos, it manages to stick with the original theme, but still made me laugh. Why can't music videos have something in them to make them unique like this instead of having some person in a dark room or on a beach singing while a band can be heard but no other people are present?

79

Off Topic / Hurricane Irene

« on: August 25, 2011, 05:40:18 PM »

Goddamn this hurricane is one badass motherforgeter. I've been watching a livestream of it flipping buildings and stuff. Apparently, Maryland has been evacuated and a state of emergency has been declared in four of thirteen new england states. It's supposed to be category four by the time it hits NYC. Hot damn, this is the worst storm I've seen.

80

Off Topic / Youtube Thumbs up whoring- I'm sick of it

« on: August 23, 2011, 08:09:04 PM »

On youtube, the thumbs up/thumbs down feature was added for a reason- so helpful comments stay at the top and flame stays at the bottom. I'm tired of looking at the comments and seeing things like:

thumbs if your reading this in august 2011

or

ⓣⓗⓤⓜⓟⓢⓤⓟⓘⓕⓨⓞⓤ©ⓐⓝⓡⓔⓐⓓⓣⓗⓘⓢ (thumps up if you can read this)

or

thumps if you saw 0:01

Half of these friends can't spell for stuff and can't tell the difference between a "thumb" and a "thump". One is an extremity whereas the other is a noise. Worst of all, these friends push all of the helpful comments back down with their downright handicapped, thumbwhoring comments, so it's more difficult to find helpful feedback. All you're doing by thumbwhoring is making youtube worse by shunning those who post helpful comments. If you see a comment asking for a thumbs up, please give it a thumbs down to discourage this kind of behavior. [/rant]

81

Off Topic / Nicknames Thread

« on: July 16, 2011, 05:44:33 PM »

Post your nicknames here, and the story behind them that explains how you got them.

My nicknames are Ghost and The Reckless Industrialist.

Ghost was a name I used at summer camp in our Unreal tournament many years ago. The name has stuck since, somehow travelling from camp to school. Every student refers to me as "Ghost".

The Reckless Industrialist came from a friendly classroom debate about profit versus pollution. I held the stance of "profit over pollution" and I surprisingly won the debate, and my teachers all use this nickname when talking to me, usually shortening it to "reckless".

82

Games / Where did the MLB Slugfest series go?

« on: July 11, 2011, 12:34:57 PM »

Does anyone remember the games MLB Slugfest 2003-04? They were a series of baseball games where you could do crazy stuff, like kick opponents in the face to make them drop the ball so you can advance a base. If one of your players was playing well, he would start steaming. If he made another good play, he'd light on fire and run like a cheetah and throw baseballs at 200+ miles per hour. Where did this series of games go? The last one I know of is 2006. These games were so damn fun to play. Here's the 2003 game trailer Slugfest 2003.

83

Games / Star Wars Conquest: Best Mod You'll Ever See

« on: July 08, 2011, 11:00:02 PM »

Allrighty, listen up you lazy friends, cause today I've got a special report. I've found a mod for Mount & Blade called Star Wars Conquest. It's Mount & Blade, but with moar Star Wars (not the stuffty new movies, the older ones). There are three factions, the Empire, led by Emperor Palpatine, the Hutt Cartel, led by Jabba the Hutt, and the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia. You go around, do randomly generated missions, start bar fights, shoot Jawas in the head, and more in this masterpiece. Earn money, upgrade your ship, get good stuff, take over the galaxy, maintain a stranglehold over every pitiful planet. Trailer is here.
More info, images, and mod download here.



Tips

1. Upgrade your ship, it's your only hope of smuggling/traveling efficiently.

2. The Empire has the best soldiers, the Hutt Cartel has more money, and the Rebels have more territory. Pick wisely.

3. Mandalorian armor is where it's at. Also, carry a melee weapon for when your blaster ammo runs dry.

4. You don't need to carry additional blaster cells because they recharge after each battle

5. Read whether blaster ammo is for pistols or rifles and use them accordingly

6. Cantina bartenders can get you good mercenaries, just ask them (and don't shoot anyone unless you want a huge bar fight)

Discuss this mod.

84

Off Topic / Seriously, WTF is this Anime?

« on: June 24, 2011, 07:09:58 PM »

I was watching a video on youtube and was prompted to post it here because it is so forgeted up it's ridiculous. The video is here. I thought that this episode would be "normal" by the standards of Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan. It wasn't. Discuss.

85

Off Topic / Holy stuff Dudleytown, y u so scary

« on: June 20, 2011, 05:37:34 PM »

-Snipped-

86

Off Topic / Paranoid Parents Meme

« on: June 11, 2011, 01:35:38 PM »

I found this meme, the Paranoid Parents meme. It's hilarious, especially if you actually have parents who say stupid and uneducated things all of the time, like how irritated, red eyes are obviously a sign of drug usage.


Post some good ones. http://paranoidparents.tumblr.com/

87

Off Topic / Fender Stratocaster Get!

« on: June 05, 2011, 12:04:29 AM »

Today, I acquired an orange Fender Stratocaster guitar and a small Fender Amp. The guitar has a maple neck and an orange sparkly paint job. It looks something like this

What are some songs I should play on it, somewhat easy ones because I don't want to be sliding my stinging callussed fingers all over the strings a thousand times per second?

88

Off Topic / It's all so clear now... (aka supply and demand FTW)

« on: June 02, 2011, 02:32:22 AM »

After going to three schools throughout my school career, I have realized that any given school has some system of supply and demand. My friend, for example, buys Beats earbuds in bulk on Amazon and sells them at  a little lower than retail price in his school, making ~$30 each pair in profit. At my school now, it's websites. I have been experimenting in HTML after hearing these complaints, and I already have one buyer, and a three page unhosted website going for $30, all pure profit, and the website only took around 20 minutes to draft and ten more polishing, and the buyer loves it and will pay me tomorrow and take their code. I'm sure if you listen around your school and do a bit of research, you could be making a butt load of money very quickly, and that number will only increase due to rising demand.

89

Off Topic / Website Opinions

« on: June 01, 2011, 11:34:02 PM »

I started working on a website, InfamousToaster, as a side project a few months ago. My hard drive crashed, so I decided to start again today. I have this after ~1 hour of work. What do you think? I used to have so much more stuff on it, decide what will go on it besides what is already there as filler.
inb4research

90

Games / Pocket Frogs: That Game Where You Breed Stuff

« on: May 31, 2011, 02:52:19 AM »

What is this?

Pocket Frogs is a game for iOS devices about collecting frogs. It may seem simple, but there's much more to it. What you want to do is try to breed frogs, trade them, and get better frogs. You can buy new frogs in the game's store using coins you get from playing mini games and finding them on the pond. There are new frogs every day.

How do I play?

You start the game with two very basic, common frogs. You can breed these frogs into some combinations, sell them, and repeat. You'll want to buy more frogs as soon as you can, because rarer combinations are worth more money if you want to sell frogs. You can either find frogs while playing the pond mini game, win them in races, or buy them from the store. Each frog has three basic attributes that determine what the offspring will be like. There is the base color, the pattern color, and the pattern.
Hee are the colors available.

As you can see, there are so many colors, and we aren't even on patterns yet. Here are some patterns.


Pro tip: breeding frogs with the exact same attributes makes that exact same frog. This is useful for quick money.


Is there multiplayer?
There are certain features, such as gift giving and the ability to view others' frogs.


How much is this wonderful game?
Free, my boy.

If you want any frogs of a certain pattern/color, I have too many frogs, so I need to get rid of some. Post a username and pattern/color requests and I will do my best to get you something of the sort.