Evolution of Dance

 

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
The Inland North
The Northeast
Philadelphia
North Central
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Twisted Sister - Oh Come All Ye Faithful

Colin is *so* getting one of these for Christmas.

I've had my eye on this new version Mindstorms for a while. It's good to see it is well thought of outside the fanatical Mindstorms community.

Bump keying

Whoa... too easy.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - How to make the simplest electric motor: "How to make the simplest electric motor"

Human Warrior Humans tend to be the ones in the middle. Not as sexy as the Night Elves; not as stumpy as the dwarves or gnomes. As a human, you pretty much go with the flow of things. As a warrior, you like to take charge of things. You feel that you're an important part of what's happening - and if things turn sour, you like to have a very large weapon on hand that you can use to negotiate. Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 80% Hulk 80% Robin 60% Batman 60% Superman 60% Iron Man 55% Supergirl 50% The Flash 40% Wonder Woman 30% Catwoman 30% Green Lantern 30%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

HP Labs has had some involvement in investigating the Antikythera Mechanism. Check out HP Labs Interactive Relighting of the Antikythera Mechanism.

Cool.

This here is my Raid UI in World of Warcraft.

Back in the mid- to late 1980's, I set up a 30 gallon Marine aquarium. I followed all of the recognized best practices of the time (short of the hyper-expensive trickle filters the Germans were all excited about). I used a good, deep crushed coral bed with a quality undergravel filter and powerheads. I used a reliable external filter with mechanical and chemical filtration. I bought bottled water from the supermarket. I used the leading sea salt mix. I performed regular water changes, bought healthy non-cyanide caught fish, and practiced good aquarium husbandry. In spite of all this, I failed miserably, utterly and completely. Everything that entered that aquarium died. It was my own aquatic killing fields. Poseidon still has a contract out on me.

As it turns out (viewed from the current Marine aquarist's point of view), I never stood much of a chance. My lighting was completely inadequate, the undergravel filter is widely viewed as a cesspool, mechanical filtration leads to excessive, poisonous nitrates and chemical filtration is useful only in very specific (and undesireable) situations. Now, the current system of choice is an aquarium full of scummy rock.

Yup, you read that right. Plop fifty or a hundred pounds of bacteria laden coral reef rock into your aquarium, and it'll pretty much filter itself. Well, it isn't quite that simple, but it's pretty damned close. And I couldn't possibly fail at something so simple, could I?

Check out ElderReef and find out ;-)

I posted this to the WoW Forums. I was impressed enough with myself to want to capture it here as well:

Re: Best profession to make $$$$ ANSWERED

Which professions return the most money? That’s a bit of a loaded question actually, since for many people it involves more than just pure income.

From a pure-income point of view Gathering skills will *always* bring in more money than Crafting skills. Any given Material will *always* sell for more in the AH than the associated Craft skill item. Why, you ask? Because there is no shortage of people who think nothing of buying their mats to skill-up their Crafting skill then selling the product below-cost in the AH to recoup some of their investment. Given that, you will *always* make more money just selling the Mats.

Now, I can hear the high-level Enchanters out there, madly clicking away on their keyboards, preparing a well-reasoned response telling me I’m full of it. They’ll talk about the huge profits they make on Crusader enchants, and the like. However, if they looked at the *actual* cost of that process, they’ll find that it still a loser – perhaps not a net loss (they will yield some profit), but still not as good a money maker as just selling Materials. How can such a heresy be? The cost of skilling up Enchanting is HUGE. The cost of Enchanting recipes is HUGE. The time involved in hawking Enchantments is HUGE (and really annoying). All these things are a drag on the profits made. The same scenario exists for all the Crafting skills.

Of course, there are ways of mitigating the above. For example, if someone has Mats funneled to them from a guild, the *personal* cost will be less but the overall “cost” to the economy will be the same. A high-level alt can do something similar, but the result is the same. As long as there is a large group of people willing to sell Craft skill items at a loss, it will always be better money to just farm Materials… and there will always be a large group of people willing to sell Craft skill items at a loss.

This is not to say there is no value in a Craft skill. Quite the opposite; without skilled Crafters, we’d be in a sorry state. No bags, no Arcanite Reapers, no Tuxedos. No Savory Deviate Delight. Some of the Craft skills will give in-game benefits: Tailoring creates some nice crafter-use-only items, for example -- though I think there is a valid argument against those even, since they *aren’t* always the best-of-class item… Engineering can be used to fill in some class weaknesses, etc. Also, leveling a Crafting skill can be a fun, rewarding experience. I can imagine that hacking a swath of destruction through all that oppose you with the Arcanite Reaper *you* made for yourself is a pretty satisfying thing. Satisfying, but not the most efficient economically-speaking.

As several have mentioned before, there seem to be two “ideal” combinations for pure profit-making: Skinning/Mining and Skinning/Herbalism. Mining/Herbalism *would* be the absolutely best money-maker, except that the in-game RADAR only allows you to detect Ore Veins *or* Herbs. Perhaps if you have very sharp eyes and a very good memory for spawn locations you could make the Mining/Herbalism combo work. It’d drive me nuts, but that’s me.

Between Mining and Herbalism, I suspect that Herbalism is a better money-maker. At later levels, Mining can burst nicely with Arcane Crystals and Azerothian Diamonds but I think that is averaged out by Herbalism’s overall profitability across time. There are many more Herb spawns in most zones than there are Ore spawns, and Herb-heavy zones have *many* more spawns that Ore-heavy zones.

Whichever way one goes, it is always a good idea to keep an eye on the prices in the AH. If the price for something you want to sell drops too far, don’t be afraid to bank your stacks and sell later. Prices ebb and flow… the really fanatical can profit off they AH tides, but the Auction House Game has been covered in other threads ;-)

Okay, this has turned into a thesis… To summarize:

Skinning/Herbalism FTW.

How evil are you?

James Doohan
March 3, 1920 - July 20, 2005
RIP

Wow, it's been like six months since my last update. I blame World of Warcraft.

Viking Kittens - Joel Veitch rathergood.com music - Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song

New propulsion concept could make 90-day Mars round trip possible | The Whole Mars Catalog at MarsToday.com | Brought to you by SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

Segway's Next Thingamajig - Popular Science

ON BENJAMIN LIBET: IS THE MIND AHEAD OF THE BRAIN? BEHIND IT?

Journey into Kimland

NASA World Wind

Kurt Wenner - Gallery of Work

Well, it seems that I *do* have a limit after all. In the past, I've defended GW's price increases. I've justified them with the support the studio gives the games, with the need to offset White Dwarf, with inflation, with the strength GW possesses in the market, etc etc.

This current price increase is the straw that broke the Krootox's back though. I just can't do it anymore. $55 for a LandRaider? $15 for a character model? $50 for a 5-man Devastator box? Are they nuts?!? I've got kids who are starting on hobbies of their own, plus the US economy hasn't been kind to those of us working in the tech sector. I just can't afford it, or support it.

Given all that, I'm done with GW. I'll still play the stuff I have, but I'm going to move on to more reasonable pastures. No new armies for me, and no new GW models. I've got enough Space Marines to transition happily to 4th Edition, and my Fantasy army is large enough to be fun and flexible. I'm going to dump my bugs, my Lost & the Damned and my Daemonhunters.

I had a conversation with Sean this afternoon. He & Kendra are moving to stronger support of WarMachine, Flames of War and Wargods of Aegyptus -- as well as other games. I'm not sure exactly *which* of these I'll eventually hook on to, but I do know I'm done with my financial support of GW.

Oz, meet Chloe. Chloe, this is Oz.

Again, the Washington Post's Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.





Here are some recent winners:



1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.



2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.



3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.



4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.



5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.



6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray painted very, very high.



7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.



8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.



9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.



10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)



11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.



12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.



13. Glibido: All talk and no action.



14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.



15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.



16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.



17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.



18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole

Study: Chocolate, BBQ addiction may be real

Wired News: Onion Taken Seriously, Film at 11

CNN.com - Girl in wreck survives 10 days on noodles, Gatorade - Apr 14, 2004

Ian's Shoelace Site - Introduction

iDuck USB Memory Storage Device

A Swiss Army Knife with a USB flash drive built in!!!