/writings/

Official blog and geeky manifesto of The Ruku

Things I’ve learned during my time as Chow Yun-fat

July 16th, 2010 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, Humour, Rants
Jul, 16 2010
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There’s something to be said about video game storytelling. Not to jump on the games = art bandwagon (by the way, fuck you Roger Ebert), but an exceptional game can whisk you away and provoke just as much emotion from someone as much as any movie or any book.

Also, higher chances of cleavage of epic proportions

On the other end of the spectrum, you have your mindless shooting games where your main goal is to turn anything not nailed down to a squishy, bullet-absorbing pulp. While fun in their own right, can you honestly consider Macho Dudes With Guns III: Requesting Backup something that would engage you emotionally? No? Okay, what if you were Chow Yun-fat?

Stranglehold is considered the spiritual sequel to the John Woo movie Hard Boiled; A Hong-Kong cop action flick. In Stranglehold, Chow Yun-Fat returns as Detective Tequila for a hard-hitting seven hours of shooting people in the face.

I learned a lot from this game, more than what they taught me at school. So I thought I’d share with you all my experiences:

1) Everything even remotely horizontal has oil all over it

As I ran through the Hong Kong markets; Checking out what’s on sale, trying the local food and shooting people in the face. I noticed that a lot of the benches were rather slick. So much so, that I could slide across one of the stalls with pretty much no effort required.

This wasn’t just for benches, either. It’s like part of the opening ceremonies in these places seem to be “cover fucking everything in KY Jelly”. Even the peaceful joy of sitting at a fountain and taking in the atmosphere was hampered by all the sliding around I had to do. While I didn’t get a chance to sit down and relax, it provided me with a rather decent tactic when it came to shooting people in the face.

2) During a standoff, everyone takes turns (except for you)

So I encountered a few angry locals. It probably didn’t help that I kept shooting them in the face. Occasionally, you will be surrounded by a heap of these guys. But fear not! They’re all very polite and take turns shooting you in the face while you can shoot them in the face to your heart’s content. Just be careful of bullets flying your way! Remember your upper-body Yoga training when you inexplicably lean in ways that would make any normal person break their spine.

3) Everyone is an enemy (who wants to shoot you in the face)

No, seriously. I asked this one guy where the bathroom was and the pulled a gun on me. So far, no sign of the “old granny with a shotgun” comic relief, but give it time, I’m sure.

4) Your thighs are powerful instruments of death

When I was still a nearly-jobless slacker trying to make you laugh about how small my dick was, any time I accidentally smacked my leg into a table I screamed bloody murder. When I was Chow Yun-fat and shooting people in the face, they may as well be made of Balsa-wood. The more sturdy they looked, the easier they broke. It’s as if my thighs were circular saws or something.

5) Explosions solve everything

Michael Bay haters take note! The guy might be onto something here. This one time I was reading a book, right? and these guys were shooting me in the face. So I took aim and shot a barrel nearby which someone conveniently placed there. I never got through so many pages of “American Gods” in a long time.

6) Drug dens are numerous and easy to find

Much like one could easily find their way around by taking note of all the McDonald’s stores in an area, you can easily spot a drug lab by the plumes of black smoke being pumped out from all the drug equipment. Given that apparently raiding a drug lab back home was a big deal, maybe they should have Chow Yun-fat go around and randomly shoot people in the face

7) Rockets emit blue smoke

So this one time I was up in a helicopter shooting people in the face and on the odd occasion, there was this guy with a rocket launcher. Thankfully, disarming him (and the rocket) was easy to find thanks to all the neon blue smoke it was pumping out. It was kinda like “whack a mole”, but instead of a hammer, I had bullets. Lots of bullets.

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Ruku’s Picks: YouTube Edition

March 19th, 2010 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Misc/Other Posts
Mar, 19 2010
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Seeing as I’m totally on my way to being TubeFamous (and because I’m far far too lazy to do a real update), thought I’d suggest a few other YouTubers out there. Some you’ll know, some you might not know, regardless, all are worthy of Ruku’s Seal of Approval:

Shut up, I'm a comedic genius

Michael Buckley/BuckHollywood

Michael’s the host of the ‘What the Buck’ show, which focuses mostly on celeb gossip. He also has two other accounts (BuckNews and Peron75) which he also posts to.

Tessa Violet/MeekaKitty

‘Meekakitty”s channel could be easily described as a bastard child of skits, personal vlogging with a dash of some good old-fashioned randomness and editing trickery.

Nick/Arthur40TwoDent

Found this guy through Angry Aussie. He’s done travel vlogs, personal vlogs, reviews and music videos -Most notably, four very creative videos for the song “Drive” by Johnathan Coulton. Awesome stuff.

Wayne Gladstone/Gladstonew

Yeah, okay. If you know me, you saw this one coming from a mile off. Gladstone is the host of the hugely popular web show ‘Hate by Numbers’, a columnist for various comedy websites and the owner of the website Kafka Lives in Maine. While his channel is mostly HBN-related, there’s a few other gems in there worth watching.

M.A.Ludwig/JudeMaris

JudeMaris mostly dabbles in original music pieces and photo restoration, with the occasional personal blog for variety. Being a photoshop geek myself, I find her photoshop work really interesting. She also has a bunch of stuff over at her other channel, TheBlueOracle

Well, it’s nearing 2:30am and I have to pretend to have a day job tomorrow. So I’ll call it here. Be good, kiddies! Don’t make me come over there!

Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking

Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking is pretty much what it says on the box: A vegan cooking channel, but smattered with the awesomeness of metal. Even Dethklok would be proud of this one.


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Something else to add to the resume: Beta tester.

March 5th, 2010 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Entertainment
Mar, 05 2010
1 Comment »

Can't argue with the classics.

Did this in a new WordPress plugin that Sally over at Antimatter Charge has designed called ‘Chibipaint for WordPress‘.

‘Chibipaint for WordPress’ allows you to draw images right onto your wordpress blog, via the “add image” prompt.

It’s still in beta, but still worth a download. Especially if you’re not like me and actually talented at drawing

For now, fear my Trogdor fanart, as it goes forth and burninates!

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More Symbian Love Action!

June 14th, 2009 Posted in Computers & Electronics
Jun, 14 2009
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So since my last entry, my Nokia useage has waned somewhat in favour of my recently-purchased HipTop Slide. While I was thinking of getting another phone or changing my contract to keep the number, the lure of unlimited text messaging was a little too much to ignore. I still, however use it for some newly-purchased applications here and there.

The main one I’ve been using of these is Gravity, a Symbian/S60 client for Twitter. You can do everything you need to in Twitterland (including upload photos to Twitpic and a few other places) and a few other odds and ends. It also supports multiple accounts, themes, custom tabs and the ability to connect to another service known as Laconica which I’m unfamiliar with.

While it took a bit of fiddling, Gravity is one of the most intuitive and easy to use applications I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with. My main problem is that searching through your friends list is a bit of a pain, but that could be more of a PEBKAC error than a fault on the application’s part.

However, this little package of awesome comes with a pricetag of AUD$12.71 as of this writing. Not all that expensive, but if you’re one without disposable income or prefer a free Twitter experience, one may be turned off by the price.

The other application on the list is RDMPlus. RDMPlus is a remote desktop application that allows you to connect to a computer with the required desktop client. At first it all looks a bit daunting, but configuration and setup is pretty easy when it comes down to it.

The program itself is set up pretty well for use in a mobile client, and -with some shortcut modifications, I could do pretty much anything I wanted as if I was sitting at my computer… That is, if I wasn’t retarded and set up RocketDock to handle most of my programs.

That’s not to say the program is a breeze to use. I’ve noticed a bug where the application stops allowing you to zoom in and out, and a lot of commands are menu-based. There are ways around having to go into menus to do things, but it takes a little bit of work to set up it seems.

The one major gripe I do have is the cost. It’s US$34.95 for the full license and unless you’re actually in the market for a program like RDMPlus, the novelty wears off pretty damn quickly.

At the end of the day, RDMPlus is a pretty good program. Does what it’s supposed to and aside from the occasional glitch, not much has gone wrong with it when I’ve used it. I do, however recommend you have a data plan or are near a wireless network when you use it though. RDMPlus eats up a fair bit of data, and you’re going to rack up a pretty meaty phonebill otherwise.

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Symbian S60 Applications Roundup (and a quick review of the Nokia N95-3)

April 20th, 2009 Posted in Computers & Electronics
Apr, 20 2009
2 Comments »

After deciding that the Sharp Hiptop wasn’t really the uberphone I wanted in the end (though the contract you get with the handset is pretty freakin’ sweet), I went on a quick hunt for a new smartphone.

The end result was the Nokia N95-3, essentially the original N95 with a few cosmetic and hardware upgrades. Armed with an 8GB microSD Card, I immediately went on the hunt for nifty little applications to check out and play around with.

In the short time I’ve had it, I love the phone to bits. While it certainly has it’s faults, it’s quite possibly the best phone I’ve had to date. It includes a 5.0mp camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and digital zoom, DVD Quality MP4 video recording, WiFi, GPS, Music player, Office applications and more. Armed with 3D hardware accelerated graphics and 128mb of RAM, the N95-3 is pretty much up there with last-generation computers in terms of processing power (seriously, you can run Quake 3: Arena on this thing).

Sadly, all the praise I’m throwing at this little phone of awesome comes with a price. The battery life clocks in at about 3 or so days of moderate use, the menu lags a bit and I’ve noticed the WiFi to be a bit touch-and-go with some applications. Firmware updates have amended the menu issue -among other things, but it’s still a bit of a problem if you’re without a charger for an extended period of time. The N95-3 also seems to be getting a raw deal when compared to it’s other bretheren, the N95-1 and N95i, Unlike these two, the firmware updates lack a few features and -for some inexplicable reason, lacks N-Gage support it seems, with my attempts only installing the base application and not have any games load properly.

Like seemingly every other Nokia on the planet, the N95-3 is pretty simple to get the hang of. The menu system -powered by the Symbian operating system is really intuitive and fully customisable. Being on the Symbian/S60 platform also means you can add your own applications and increase the basic featureset of the phone… Which brings me smoothly to the main point of this article.

For the sake of keeping this article informative, I’ll only be listing applications that provide added functionality to the phone. Later on I might do one for other applications, but I’d rather focus on some useful applications for now.

Gmail for Mobiles

While the minimalized website m.gmail.com provides a pretty decent service for the person on the go, Google have bought out a dedicated application for mobiles.

Gmail for Mobile's main window

The Gmail app provides basic email functionality, hotkeys for searching for or composing an email, support for multiple accounts and a special offline mode so you can read your existing email without having to connect to the internet. I couldn’t really find any faults with the application at all, though admittedly, it’s hard to bugger up a basic email application.

Gmail for Mobiles is available for Nokia Smartphones here

Google Maps for Mobiles

While the N95 and other phones already come with a working GPS, there’s nothing wrong with looking for an alternative, especially considering how the “Nokia Maps” application tends to be a bit finicky when it comes to getting a signal.

Like the Gmail app, Google have bought out their own “Google Maps” application for mobiles. Google Maps provides both overview and street view modes, Turn-By-Turn directions, business listings and a new feature called “My Location”, which provides you with your location within 3000 metres even if you don’t have GPS on your phone. When you need to head somewhere, Google Maps gives you directions for not only driving, but walking and public transport too.

overview mode

While the app certainly works and has a lot of features the Nokia Maps app doesn’t, it tends to be a bit dodgy at times in finding places. I’ve also noticed that the “My Location” feature is sometimes off by a long shot, though “My Location” is still in Beta at the time of this writing.

Google Maps is available for Nokia Smartphones here

You Tube Mobile

The last app I’m reviewing that’s associated with Google is the new YouTube application. The application provides very basic functionality for YouTube viewing. You can search for videos, see related videos or look for “most viewed” videos. That’s pretty much it. Other features are available on the m.youtube.com website that aren’t on the application for those looking to login to their account and upload movies.

YouTube Mobile, main window

YouTube Mobile, main window

I’ve also noticed not a hell of a lot of content is really available for the application. I’m not sure if the case is the same for the youtube mobile site, but it’s still a bit of a letdown.

The most I’ll say about this application is that it works well, but for those out there who want to do more than just watch videos are better off with the website. I’m hoping this is amended in later versions of the application.

You Tube Mobile is available for Nokia Smartphones here

Calcium

Calcium is a calculator application by S60 developer mtvoid. Calcium takes an already pretty simple application and makes it much more streamlined and easier to use. All basic fucntions (addition, subtraction, etc) are done via the directional pad with the “confirm” button being the equals-sign. Calcium has the look and feel of a normal calulator and in extremely intuitive to use.

Calcium is available for S60 devices here

Opera Mini

This is the second time in about 3 years I’ve dealt with the web browser Opera. The first time was back when I did a reinstall of my desktop PC and gave it a go before switching to Firefox. Thankfully, my opinion of Opera Mini is somewhat higher than the PC variant.

Opera Mini is a minialistic web browser for java-based phones and boasts improved speed and peformance over the Nokia N95′s default browser. From the looks of things, all of the boasting seems to be correct. The data sent to the browser is compressed before being displayed, so it improves load times by a lot. It’s also capable of displaying full internet pages with little or no slowdown and suggests the user where to start. The homepage also lists your last-visited pages and bookmarks for quick navigation, and supports RSS feeds as well.

Opera Mini is also skinnable, allowing you to customise the look of your browser if the default white isn’t your thing.

I haven’t played around much with Opera Mini, but so far I’m happy with it. I’ve noticed it does spaz out a little when using a WiFi connection and tends to switch to the default browser when downloading files. Aside from that, nothing particularly major to report in the faults department.

Opera Mini is available for Java based phones here

Fring

One thing I missed about the Sharp Hiptop (aside from the full QWERTY keyboard) is the built-in MSN Messenger software. Sadly, the Windows-developed application is subscription-based, so I -being the incredibly stingy person that I am, decided to look for a freeware alternative.

I happened to come across a nifty little program called Fring, which -while it sounds like a euphemism for a multitude of swear words, is a multi-platform chat/IM program that supports Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and other services and social networking sites. It also allows voice-over-IP calls via Skype.

The latest version is their most stable and feature packed yet. On previous versions I had multiple dropouts and the Twitter feature wasn’t all that great. This time around they’ve included Twitter 2.0 (which looks more like the site itself, rather than a chat window) and it seems to drop out a hell of a lot less.

Fring’s UI is a little bit intimidating at first, and you’ll need to sign up for a Fring account to use it, but other than that I can’t think of any major issues I have with it.

Fring is available here

That’s it for this entry. Stay posted for a few more Symbian apps to check out and some other odds and ends.

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YouTube has its violence in Hi Def Ultra-Realism.

December 10th, 2008 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Entertainment
Dec, 10 2008
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In the beginning, there was YouTube.

YouTube essentially gave the video-blogger community a place to upload their videos, connect with other users and an ability to speak out to a potentially wide audience. Effectively giving anyone with a camera and entry-level video editing software a chance to have their fifteen minutes of fame.

Some YouTube users have also been snapped up by industries for their videos. A recent example being Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, famous for his ‘Zero Punctuation‘ series on The Escapist.

As time moves on, things change and evolve. The downside to this is you can’t swing a dead cat around YouTube without smacking firmly into something filmed on a dodgy camera phone nowadays, but change also means something awesome has happened: YouTube has stepped into the realm of High-Definition video.

The “watch in HD” feature -alongside the addition of widescreen videos occurred late last month and allows users to watch videos in true HD format with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels. Naturally, you need to be able to record and encode your video in HD to fully use the feature but all the same, it’s a brilliant feature for people looking to produce professional-looking content.

Nate "Blunty" Burr in all his bearded glory. Standard Youtube quality
Nate “Blunty” Burr in all his bearded glory. Standard Youtube quality
To compare, the same picture (or as close as I could get it), this time in High Definition
To compare, the same picture (or as close as I could get it), this time in High Definition

While it may take some time for people to start using the feature, I’m already impressed with the results. The screenshots above really do no justice to the actual video itself which is available here. The downside to the higher quality however, is the fact it takes longer to load the content depending on your connection speed.

As someone who spends a considerable amount of time on YouTube (and intends to start using his account for a bit more than game videos and stick figure cartoons), this is one major step in providing original content on the internet that could rival network television -among other forms of entertainment.

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Application Review: 3D Desktop Double Header

October 20th, 2008 Posted in Computers & Electronics
Oct, 20 2008
5 Comments »

One thing that’s always stuck in my mind, was the scene in Johnny Mnemonic where the title character dons some nifty internet goggles and a pair of datagloves and accesses this fully interactive 3D internet.

“That’s awesome!” I said, gazing at the TV screen. “Mum, can we get the internet?”

What? I was 13 at the time, I didn’t know better.

Sadly, despite the fact it’s now 2008, the human race as a whole is missing out on three things:

-Flying cars

-Robots sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor

-Full 3D immersion with computer programs.

However, if we want to get the Johnny Mnemonic/Hackers experience happening, there are a couple of programs that can set us on the right track in terms of getting prepared for the future.

Shock Desktop 3D

Shock Desktop 3D is a freeware BumpTop clone that replaces the standard point and click desktop interface with something that simulates an actual desk. When activated, you’re taken to a top-down 3D view of all your icons, which you can re-arrange, stack into piles, or mindlessly fling around the place with reckless abandon (PROTIP: this is better done if you’re viewing your icons as cubes. If you’re going to make a mess, do it properly!). If you or someone else finds the Shock Desktop a bit too much to handle, switching back is a measy 2 or 3 mouse clicks. No uninstalling or configuring required!

Shock imitating life?

Desktop imitating life?

From the looks of things, it’s a pretty decent alternative to BumpTop if you weren’t involved in the beta and want to see first hand what it’s like. There are a few things it’s missing, but seeing as it’s completely free, one can’t really complain too much.

The downer to Shock Desktop 3D is that you’ll need a somewhat decent computer to run it. It eats up a bit of memory, and with all the icons bouncing around, you’ll need a good video card too. Granted, it doesn’t have to be some sort of Skynet-esque thing that could run Crysis on full detail, but something mid-range should get Shock Desktop 3D running smoothly.

All in all, Shock Desktop 3D is a pretty neat little program if you want to view one’s desktop in a new, more interactive light and gives a good picture of what BumpTop may have to offer us when it’s finally released.

3DNA Desktop

This may seem like a cop-out, but I’ve dabbled with 3DNA Corp’s 3DNA Desktop before. For the sake of playing around with my desktop, I thought I’d revisit the program.

Unlike Shock Desktop 3D, 3DNA Desktop transforms your desktop into a full 3D environment modelled on a house. Think Half-Life 2 if all Gordon Freeman did was sit around the house all day randomly poking things and playing with toys. You can even switch to “mouselook” mode for that true First Person Shooter feeling, though Half-Life fans may be disappointed that there’s no Gravity Gun.

With 3DNA, change your desktop into a bitchin' bachelor pad!

With 3DNA, change your desktop into a bitchin' bachelor pad!

Some of the elements in 3DNA desktop are customisable as well. Scattered about the place are picture or poster frames which you can add your own picture to, or pick from stock images that come with 3DNA. You can also change the world, sky or theme you’re using via downloadable addons. There are also interactive elements such as a basketball game, and a little 3DNA logo-shaped playtoy that you can throw around.

Accessing applications is much like a regular desktop, point to whatever you need and double-click.Like Shock Desktop 3D, switching between standard and 3D desktops is a piece of cake, either by accessing the quicklaunch menu or clicking a button which sits at the bottom right of the screen.

While it looks pretty, 3DNA is by no means perfect. If you don’t have a decent enough computer, 3DNA Desktop will cause you quite a few headaches ranging from slowdown to the program shitting bricks and shutting down entirely. Thankfully, the installer comes with a hardware checking program which will tell you if 3DNA Desktop will run on your system or not.

Your applications bay. For all your application needs.

Your applications bay. For all your application needs.

Another pain is that it does take some fiddling to get your 3DNA Desktop looking how you need it to look. While customization is intuitive, you will need to do a lot of it if you want to avoid using the start menu. On the bright side, there’s plenty of space for all your shotcuts and folders to be placed into, so you don’t need to worry about space for them all.

At the end of the day, 3DNA is probably one of the best 3D desktop programs of its kind out there. Navigation and customization is insanely easy, it looks fantastic (for what it is), and switching between 2D and 3D is a sinch. While it’s not the cheapest out there, there’s not a hell of a lot more you could ask out of 3DNA…

…. Except maybe a BFG9000 and a cyberdemon or two.

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Probably better never than late: A Chris C(r)ocker rant

August 10th, 2008 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, Rants
Aug, 10 2008
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Being someone who spends way too much time on the internet, I have my small handful of e-celeb favourites.

My main two being Ben Croshaw and Nate Burr (Yahtzee and Blunty3000, respectively). Others include Maddox, [GM]Dave (runs Bannable Offences), Azrael (runs Gaijin Smash), and Tucker Max.

I’m also prepared to give anything a chance. Even the man-hating lesbian tirades the housemate sends me. Most of them I like, too.

There is however, one person I cannot and will not like, ever.

This manbeast y’all may know as Chris Crocker (or insipid fuckstain, if you share the same opinion as me). Best known as the “Leave Britney Alone” guy, who is simultaneously loved, loathed and parodied by everyone.

I really don’t find the guy funny, not even in that homophobic “hah! look at the fag! Laugh at the fag!” sorta way. There is simply nothing to like about him. I find him to be pathetic, in that “I’m funny! Really! Watch as I draw attention to myself!”

Before you start assuming things, it’s NOT the gay thing. I like gay people. I couldn’t give a shit if Crocker was gay, straight, bi, black, white, yellow, blue…

Hell, It’d be awesome if he was blue. He’d be a lanky mongoloid attention whore smurf-like creature.

In any case, the fact he’s a raging homosexual matters not to The Ruku. The Ruku is tolerant of all walks of life, even if he does find some of them kinda weird. (more on that later, no doubt).

It’s the fact he’s totally and utterly obnoxious to the point of even making Jay (of Jay and Silent Bob fame) blush. It’s the fact that his 5 minute long diatribes about complete and utter bullshit are simply not all that funny. To hit this a little closer to home, Crocker reminds me of that guy in every social group who tries to fit in with the normally accepting crowd, but epically fails to the point where nobody likes him. Another analysis would be the guy who simply tries too hard to be funny and again, epically. fucking. fails.

It’s the fact that -for what he is, he’s extremely arrogant and thinks he’s God’s gift to the internet (or at least, YouTube), Case in point? His latest whinge-fest about how he’s leaving YouTube. His response to the fact that his 15 minutes of fame is waning is filled with so much immaturity and bitterness you’d think he uses Lemon Squeazy as mouthwash.

Even when he is being rather reserved (for someone who’s batshit insane), I don’t like him. In some of his “normal” videos, he still manages to be an obnoxious fucknut. The fact he manages to do this is beyond confusing. I guess it’s the fact that every “normal” video he does, there’s ten more of him dancing around like a fucking toilet-fishing retard.

I mean, yeah.. I guess Blunty’s equally longer diatribes about complete and utter bullshit are sometimes grating on my nerves too, but at least he kinda has an idea on how to put a humorous spin on things to redeem himself a little (ironically, the one Blunty3000 video where -without fail, I’ll look for more interesting pastures is his 10 minute long rant about Chris Crocker)

I had more to write, but frankly, I’ve wasted enough time dribbling on about this talentless bottom feeder.

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