If there is one thing I absolutely loath about Facebook it is Farmville... I don't like most of the other games on Facebook, but not near as much as I hate Farmville
I would rather give up my left testicle if there were a choice between it and playing Farmville again.
Just one quick confession on that note though: I did play Farmville for about a month, but all that this means is that my hate is even more justified.
My name is Charlie & I was an addict. I played Farmville and MobWars and it took over my life. I would spend up 5 hours a day playing these games and would be upset if i missed out on my daily fix. Fortunately I came to my senses one day and deleted every crap game I was playing on Facebook. I blocked every notification from these apps and am better off for it.
I came across an article on Forbes.com about Farmville's expansion to their own website and to MSN. In the article, it mentions that Farmville has over 76 million monthly users! If Farmville users had a country they would be the 17th largest in the world. It would also have a $100 million income. That is how much the developers, Zynga, made last year. Admittedly they have other games, but none nearing the success of Farmville. And companies such as Kwedit which help you get virtual money on games without a credit card.
Even worse is the fact that legit news sites are even reporting when Farmville adds new features. I did a search and came up with a couple of examples to illustrate the point.
- Showbiz Gossips
- Times Asia
I also know that I am not the only one who hates it; a couple of my Facebook friends have made that pretty obvious:
- Dear Facebook Apps Addict, Let me tell you something you already know..... I HATE Facebook Apps. you can EFF right off with your GAWD DAMN INVITES! Kind retards. Pete
- Eddible will start playing Farmville when I can clone sheep, raise velociraptors and grow Triffids.
When I asked for peoples opinions, the one that stood out was:
- FML.com
- Farmvillians (Lamebook.com)
- Framedville (Lamebook.com)
But my opinion is just that, an opinion. All I ask is that you seriously look at your "farm" in the big picture and ask yourself: "What am I gaining out of this?" Other that pissing us off with all the flipping notifications!
For those of you who are with me on this already, consider joining this group on Facebook. Maybe your Farmville-ing friends will get the message at least
We all have heard the word Geek by now, we all use it on occasion, but what is the actual definition? Is Geek the same as nerd? ARE YOU GEEK?
If we google the word Geek, and look at some of the definitions, it does not help matters much...
According to Wikipedia, "the word Geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc."
Dictionary.com has 3 definitions... 1) a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp. one who is perceived to be overly intellectual. 2) a computer expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often considered offensive when used by outsiders.) 3) a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken.
If we look at Urban Dictionary, geeks are "the people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult," or "not to be confused with Nerd. A geek does not have to be smart, a Geek is someone who is generaly not athletic, and enjoys Video Games; Comic Books; being on the internet, and etc."
If we truly want to define a Geek, we do not want to look at a strict definition of the word, but look at the cultural definition of a Geek. If you're going "huh" now, then let me explain.
While researching this blog post, I came across paper, Geek Culture: The 3rd Counter Culture, written by Lars Konzack, who has a blog on ludology and game research.
While I may not agree with everything mentioned in the paper, it gave me a lot of different ideas to present you with.
For my fellow Geeks out there, many of us has strange and maybe difficult childhoods - right up to high school even. I embraced my inner-Geek quite late in life (sometime in high-school) as many Geeks do; growing up, Geek was definitely not cool. I am now quite proud to be a Geek.
With that in mind, I don't think I was afraid of admitting it; I was just in denial. Sometimes I wish I had just faced the facts earlier...
Earlier I asked the question; is a Geek the same thing as a nerd and quite simply I think that the answer is no. I think the confusion comes in as there are several overlapping characteristics. Nerds tend to be intellectuals who excel at things academic (especially technological and scientific) and they generally have horrible social skills because they are studious people. They may have similar interests as Geeks but that is where it ends as far as I am concerned.
So what makes a Geek? There is no simple answer really. Is it the (almost) obsession with gadgets? Is it the love of fantasy worlds? Is it their knack with PCs? Are they more introverted than extroverted? Is it their love of gaming? The thing is I could list all sorts of possible characteristics and it still might not be right!
You could also say to me, but lots of people like those things these days or lots of people are like that these days and you would be right, but also oh so wrong!
Think back to the 90's and tell me how many people were on the interwebs? How many had a Geocities page that they called there own? How many people were regularly gaming? How many of them were excited about the Sci-Fi channel on DSTV and were sad to see it go a while ago? Before the movie came out, how many people had read the Lord of the Rings, or many other fantasy series novels? How many could fix their own PCs and knew their way around MS-DOS? A lot less than today I can tell you that much!
If you knew people like that, you probably called them a Geek and ignored them until needed. Unless you were one yourself.
But in our world today with gadgets surrounding us, PC's in our homes, consoles in our lounges, fantasy movies such as Avatar making close to $2 billion already, the Geek has become king.
You may have many of the things that a Geek loves, but that does not make you Geek. It actually just shows that Geeks have managed to affect an entire world culture through his weapon of choice - The Internet.
Thats right the kids you picked on in school are the ones you now silently respect to some degree or another. You might deny it publicly but you can't lie to youself!
What it boils down to is that you know whether you are a Geek or not, but nobody or no-one will ever be able to truly describe it...
0n 7h47 n073 1 54y g00d8y3 4nd w15h 70 54y 0n3 l457 7h1ng...
01000111 01100101 01100101 01101011 01110011 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01100101 01110010
If we google the word Geek, and look at some of the definitions, it does not help matters much...
According to Wikipedia, "the word Geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc."
Dictionary.com has 3 definitions... 1) a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp. one who is perceived to be overly intellectual. 2) a computer expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often considered offensive when used by outsiders.) 3) a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken.
If we look at Urban Dictionary, geeks are "the people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult," or "not to be confused with Nerd. A geek does not have to be smart, a Geek is someone who is generaly not athletic, and enjoys Video Games; Comic Books; being on the internet, and etc."
If we truly want to define a Geek, we do not want to look at a strict definition of the word, but look at the cultural definition of a Geek. If you're going "huh" now, then let me explain.
While researching this blog post, I came across paper, Geek Culture: The 3rd Counter Culture, written by Lars Konzack, who has a blog on ludology and game research.
While I may not agree with everything mentioned in the paper, it gave me a lot of different ideas to present you with.
For my fellow Geeks out there, many of us has strange and maybe difficult childhoods - right up to high school even. I embraced my inner-Geek quite late in life (sometime in high-school) as many Geeks do; growing up, Geek was definitely not cool. I am now quite proud to be a Geek.
With that in mind, I don't think I was afraid of admitting it; I was just in denial. Sometimes I wish I had just faced the facts earlier...
Earlier I asked the question; is a Geek the same thing as a nerd and quite simply I think that the answer is no. I think the confusion comes in as there are several overlapping characteristics. Nerds tend to be intellectuals who excel at things academic (especially technological and scientific) and they generally have horrible social skills because they are studious people. They may have similar interests as Geeks but that is where it ends as far as I am concerned.
So what makes a Geek? There is no simple answer really. Is it the (almost) obsession with gadgets? Is it the love of fantasy worlds? Is it their knack with PCs? Are they more introverted than extroverted? Is it their love of gaming? The thing is I could list all sorts of possible characteristics and it still might not be right!
You could also say to me, but lots of people like those things these days or lots of people are like that these days and you would be right, but also oh so wrong!
Think back to the 90's and tell me how many people were on the interwebs? How many had a Geocities page that they called there own? How many people were regularly gaming? How many of them were excited about the Sci-Fi channel on DSTV and were sad to see it go a while ago? Before the movie came out, how many people had read the Lord of the Rings, or many other fantasy series novels? How many could fix their own PCs and knew their way around MS-DOS? A lot less than today I can tell you that much!
If you knew people like that, you probably called them a Geek and ignored them until needed. Unless you were one yourself.
But in our world today with gadgets surrounding us, PC's in our homes, consoles in our lounges, fantasy movies such as Avatar making close to $2 billion already, the Geek has become king.
You may have many of the things that a Geek loves, but that does not make you Geek. It actually just shows that Geeks have managed to affect an entire world culture through his weapon of choice - The Internet.
Thats right the kids you picked on in school are the ones you now silently respect to some degree or another. You might deny it publicly but you can't lie to youself!
What it boils down to is that you know whether you are a Geek or not, but nobody or no-one will ever be able to truly describe it...
0n 7h47 n073 1 54y g00d8y3 4nd w15h 70 54y 0n3 l457 7h1ng...
01000111 01100101 01100101 01101011 01110011 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01100101 01110010
I know my next blog was going to be the one about geeks, but this was just to good to pass up and I have not finished it yet.
I came across this on popurls and it just made me wanna say "hallelujah!"
I came across this on popurls and it just made me wanna say "hallelujah!"
When I originally started this blog, i had intended it to be some sort of place to share links, but then it became something else. I still share links, but it has also become a sort of outlet to share my views on the links I find.
So the name was no longer suitable... and for a few days I toyed around with a few ideas and by talking to some people, I decided to drop the name in it's entirety and come up with something all together new.
Then it hit me while I was looking at my recent posts and their content... Are you GEEK?... which is actually pretty accurate!
What do you think?
While on the topic of geeks, I will be doing my next post on the very topic as a lot of people misunderstand the entire concept...
Now and then, you get a link to a site and end up wondering what the hell happened to the last few hours of your life?
That happened to me! I follow @popurls on twitter which posts the most popular links of the hour from their website. They are normally a quick visit kind of site such as news articles or pictures, but today they doomed me with a tweet which said: "Wave goodbye to the next 3 hours of your life http://pop.is/1has"
I thought that they were joking!! Guess not... The game is called Chain Reaction
But that is all that I will say, as you need to discover it for yourself...I will say that there are two versions - Simple and Advanced. Try out the simple version but the real fun lies in the advanced one
When I think of the game Diablo, and especially Diablo II, it brings back many memories. Several months (and possibly an entire year now thinking about it) gone by, playing my way through Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulty and several occasions having to fork out my hard-earned cash on telephone bills for my 56k dial up, to be able to play on Battle.net... good times! By the time I eventually started playing, the Lords of Destruction expansion pack had just come out (my PC at the time was not good enough to play the game when Diablo II was originally released)
So when I heard about Diablo III in 2008, I was seriously excited about it. Almost two years later there is still no official release date and I am getting very anxious... but my excitement is still there!
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of playing the Diablo series, which is developed by Blizzard Entertainment, who are also responsible for the Warcraft series & Starcraft, it is a fantasy action RPG. The first game was released in 1997, and saw you taking the role of the hero and working your way through 16 levels, eventually finishing up in hell to face Diablo, the Lord of Terror, where you "kill" him with a soulstone. The game received many near perfect scores on several reviews and by 2001 had sold 2.5 million copies. You had the choice of three charcters: Barbarian, Rogue or Sorcerer.
Diablo II was released in 2000, with the expansion, Lords of Destruction, being released a year later, in 2001. The story continues from the first game, but when your adventurer "kills" Diablo in the first game, it actually only made him stronger and he releases his brothers Mephisto (Lord of Hatred) & Baal (Lord of Destruction) from their soulstones.
You take the role of a adventurer, who arrives in the wake of the destruction caused from the first game. You work you way through four acts by defeating the three prime evils, Diablo, Mephisto and Baal. The game recieved several game of the year awards and for a while held the Guinness Book of World records title of the fastest selling game! By 2001 it had sold over four million copies... Your choice of characters increased from the first game; you could play as Barbarian, Sorceress, Necromancer, Amazon & Paladin and with the expansion pack the Druid and Assassin were added.
But enough about the old games, lets get into the juicy details about Diablo III.
According to the official website, the story goes as follows:
Two decades have passed since the demonic lords, Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, set out across the world of Sanctuary on a vicious rampage, twisting humanity to their unholy will. Yet for those who battled the Prime Evils, the memory fades slowly.
When Deckard Cain returns to the ruins of Tristram Cathedral seeking clues to defeat new stirrings of evil, a fiery harbinger of doom falls from the heavens, striking the very ground where Diablo once entered the world. This fire from the sky reawakens ancient evils and calls the heroes of Sanctuary to defend the mortal world against the rising powers of the Burning Hells once again.
I have lost count of the number of times i have watched the cinematic teaser and the gameplay preview and i am seriously impressed. I think I know the teaser by heart now!
There are some changes to how the game works. Firstly there will be five classes initially, but with the big change being that you can choose the gender of your character. Four of the classes have been revealed to date, namely:
- The Barbarian
I couldn't find a video of the barbarian, but if you watch the gameplay trailer on their website, most of it is about the barbarian.
This is also the only character to be in all three games...strength and brute force is what it's all about
- The Wizard
Watch the Wizard trailer
Total opposite of the Barbarian, while not strong, this character relies on magic to annihilate it's enemies.
- The Witch Doctor
No video for this one either, but once again, it is featured in the gameplay video
Reminds me of the Necromancer. Has "pets" and other spells to kill its enemies
- The Monk
Watch the Monk trailer
I love this character and there is a 90% chance that I will play this character!
Besides the new character line-up there are some changes that i can really appreciate. The health pickups as you kill enemies, the specialization characters & the destructible environments. There is also talk of some net Battle.net features.
Basically i think that there is a lot that we have to look forward to with the new Diablo and I wait patiently!
The other day I came across CNN's 12 most annoying types of facebookers and it made me think of the seven deadly sins for some reason. I wondered if they could apply to types of facebook users & over a couple of days, I jotted some ideas down and this is what I came up with...
While I will be the first to admit I probably annoy the hell out of some people on facebook & also admit that I have in the past, probably committed some of these deadly sins, I try learn from my mistakes. If anything i may fall into the "pride" category to a small degree.
To make it easier to remember I will classify them as close as possible to the original deadly sins as follows:
Pride
Pride
Original: Excessive belief in one's own abilities. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as vanity.
Facebook: This is the kind of facebooker who overcompensates by trying to make themselves seem better. This can be a profile picture pose or trying to sound impressive in their updates or on their info page. They end up just making a fool of themselves though.
Into this category, I will also include those of you who have kids and think we need to know every little detail of their post-larvae stage. I honestly do not care about your kids! Send an email to those that you think will care...
Envy
Facebook: This is the kind of facebooker who overcompensates by trying to make themselves seem better. This can be a profile picture pose or trying to sound impressive in their updates or on their info page. They end up just making a fool of themselves though.
Into this category, I will also include those of you who have kids and think we need to know every little detail of their post-larvae stage. I honestly do not care about your kids! Send an email to those that you think will care...
Envy
Original: The desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Facebook: They are copycats. They will imitate their facebook friends in every aspect; this can be by joining the same groups, posting similar statuses and even trying to befriend people they barely know just so they can have mutual friends.
Gluttony
Facebook: They are copycats. They will imitate their facebook friends in every aspect; this can be by joining the same groups, posting similar statuses and even trying to befriend people they barely know just so they can have mutual friends.
Gluttony
Original: An inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Facebook: In facebook terms this is the almost reversed. This sin is committed when the facebooker posts way too much information.
"I just took a dump" is the kind of posts to be expected by these people. They are feeding the rest of us more than we need to know. TMI...
Lust
Facebook: In facebook terms this is the almost reversed. This sin is committed when the facebooker posts way too much information.
"I just took a dump" is the kind of posts to be expected by these people. They are feeding the rest of us more than we need to know. TMI...
Lust
Original: An inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Facebook: These facebookers are the douchebags & douchettes of the world. They will most likely have hundreds of photos or albums of their bronzed bodies or in are wearing their ed hardy shirts with other douchebags & douchettes. Fortunately these types of people will flock together and leave the rest of us alone.
Unfortunately they are spamming our news feeds as well as tainting the gene pool with their breeding.
Wrath
Facebook: These facebookers are the douchebags & douchettes of the world. They will most likely have hundreds of photos or albums of their bronzed bodies or in are wearing their ed hardy shirts with other douchebags & douchettes. Fortunately these types of people will flock together and leave the rest of us alone.
Unfortunately they are spamming our news feeds as well as tainting the gene pool with their breeding.
Wrath
Original: Manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as anger.
Facebook: They tend to air all their dirty secrets on facebook to spite someone. These are extremely malicious people and are to be avoided at all costs. They will attack you everytime you post something.
Deep down they are just unhappy people
Greed
Facebook: They tend to air all their dirty secrets on facebook to spite someone. These are extremely malicious people and are to be avoided at all costs. They will attack you everytime you post something.
Deep down they are just unhappy people
Greed
Original: The desire for material wealth or gain. It is also called avarice or covetousness.
Facebook: This type of person can never join enough groups or have enough friends. never mind that they only spoke to the person 5 yrs ago at some party, they are a friend.
They are social whores, plain and simple!
Facebook: This type of person can never join enough groups or have enough friends. never mind that they only spoke to the person 5 yrs ago at some party, they are a friend.
They are social whores, plain and simple!
Sloth
Original: The avoidance of work
Facebook: These people are those who spend way too much time on farmville, mafia wars or any other facebook game and take it beyond funny. You join thousands of groups to try make the game better once it reaches a certain level and it just ends up spamming our news feed.
Since you spend so much time on these games, you obviously don't do any actual work.
I have probably missed out on some annoying people but that was never the point. Look at CNN's 12 most annoying types of facebookers or Oatmeal's comic on how to suck at facebook if you want some more.
For quite a while I have been following about 5 webcomics on a daily/weekly basis.
Some of them are quite well know, others not so much but the one thing they all have in common: their followers are very loyal and can get upset if they miss their regular dose.
Webcomics have been around since about 1985, starting with an unauthorized wizard of oz comic "witches and stitches" on compuserve (see the wikipedia article on it's author)
The difference between these and traditional print cartoons (most of which also have web versions) is that any kid can open up ms paint and start a comic which is sometimes way better. Also they are not limited to the number of panels or even panels themselves, basically the possibilities are endless. They can be animated or partly animated, interactive or basically anything their creators want them to be
To get a better idea of the sheer amount of webcomics out there, you need to look at either the wikipedia list of webcomics or a website such as the webcomic list (which monitors over 15000 webcomics)
I can tell you this - there are a load of really horrible ones out there, but for each of those there are plenty of really good ones.
Much like blogs, webcomics are not out there to make their creators rich and famous, which is not to say that there aren't some successful ones, but rather because its their passion to create the webcomics.
I have noticed a trend of these webcomics starting their own online stores where they have webcomic-related merchandise.
If you want to try a few i would suggest one of the following:
The Oatmeal by Matthew Inman
- If you know me, you will know that I regularly post links to the oatmeal. I just can't get enough, especially the grammar lessons
Amazing Super Powers by Wes & Tony
- I love this webcomic not just because it makes my day twice a week, but because of the "easter eggs". The first is the caption that pops up when you hover your cursor over the comic. But the best of all is the hidden comic: if you move your cursor next to the top right hand corner of the comic a question mark appears. If you click on this, it opens up the hidden comic relating to the main comic.
BlankIt by Lemmo Pew and Aric Mckeown
- This is a sequential comic that has been running since June 2008, so if you feel inclined to read this one, you have some serious catching up to do. It is a story about 2 guys that wake up in a blank world and as they go on their adventures weird and wacky things start appearing out of nowhere, including the cookie king and his cookies, walking palaces, ethereal people that appear when given names...
Cyanide & Happiness by Matt, Dave, Rob & Kris
- If you haven't heard of it you must be under a rock somewhere. Over a million daily visitors and in the top 2000 most visited sites according to alexa.com.
Orneryboy by
the webcomic list and browse through their database until you find something you like. but do yourself a favour, read at least one; we all need laughter
Some of them are quite well know, others not so much but the one thing they all have in common: their followers are very loyal and can get upset if they miss their regular dose.
Webcomics have been around since about 1985, starting with an unauthorized wizard of oz comic "witches and stitches" on compuserve (see the wikipedia article on it's author)
The difference between these and traditional print cartoons (most of which also have web versions) is that any kid can open up ms paint and start a comic which is sometimes way better. Also they are not limited to the number of panels or even panels themselves, basically the possibilities are endless. They can be animated or partly animated, interactive or basically anything their creators want them to be
To get a better idea of the sheer amount of webcomics out there, you need to look at either the wikipedia list of webcomics or a website such as the webcomic list (which monitors over 15000 webcomics)
I can tell you this - there are a load of really horrible ones out there, but for each of those there are plenty of really good ones.
Much like blogs, webcomics are not out there to make their creators rich and famous, which is not to say that there aren't some successful ones, but rather because its their passion to create the webcomics.
I have noticed a trend of these webcomics starting their own online stores where they have webcomic-related merchandise.
If you want to try a few i would suggest one of the following:
The Oatmeal by Matthew Inman
- If you know me, you will know that I regularly post links to the oatmeal. I just can't get enough, especially the grammar lessons
Amazing Super Powers by Wes & Tony
- I love this webcomic not just because it makes my day twice a week, but because of the "easter eggs". The first is the caption that pops up when you hover your cursor over the comic. But the best of all is the hidden comic: if you move your cursor next to the top right hand corner of the comic a question mark appears. If you click on this, it opens up the hidden comic relating to the main comic.
BlankIt by Lemmo Pew and Aric Mckeown
- This is a sequential comic that has been running since June 2008, so if you feel inclined to read this one, you have some serious catching up to do. It is a story about 2 guys that wake up in a blank world and as they go on their adventures weird and wacky things start appearing out of nowhere, including the cookie king and his cookies, walking palaces, ethereal people that appear when given names...
Cyanide & Happiness by Matt, Dave, Rob & Kris
- If you haven't heard of it you must be under a rock somewhere. Over a million daily visitors and in the top 2000 most visited sites according to alexa.com.
Orneryboy by
the webcomic list and browse through their database until you find something you like. but do yourself a favour, read at least one; we all need laughter
Labels:
amazing superpowers,
awesome,
blankit,
cyanide and happiness,
oatmeal,
orneryboy,
webcomics
0
comments
|
|
I have to apologise to everyone that has visited my blog over the last few days and had to put up with the ads across the top of the screen... I have been using a link service called linkbee that pays per link that I create. Unfortunately I was choosing the wrong option and it created a stupid banner across each page at the top.
I have now fixed it and it now displays the link intended without ads
If u had to put up with that...
While I am talking about linkbee though, if you have a website or blog and would like to make some cash out of the links that you post on your website/blog, check it out by clicking here
I have now fixed it and it now displays the link intended without ads
If u had to put up with that...
While I am talking about linkbee though, if you have a website or blog and would like to make some cash out of the links that you post on your website/blog, check it out by clicking here
Try my search engine out!
Custom Search
It's kinda true, but I still don't think it justifies it. The next couple of links are possibly extreme but who is to say you won't get that way. The links show way Farmville affects our real life relationships.