Hackthon 2019

Hackathon 2019 - College of Computing and Software Engineering | KSU - ccse.kennesaw.edu
DATE: Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 3:00 PM – Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 9:00 PM 

Hey, want to show off your talent and win some extra pocket money?
The prizes are $500 per student for 1st place! 
$400 per student for 2nd place and $300 per student for 3rd place as well as the signature black/gold paperweight.

Not ready to compete but still want a free t-shirt?
Sign up for volunteer! 

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GMB Versus The Flag Dude

May has been a poor month for painting as I remarked last week, although things picked up in the last couple of days and I managed to up the number to 48 which was another German Infantry batallion, this time IR 63.

So not too bad, this means I'm still just about on course for 1,000 figures for the year providing I don't have too many more months like this.

A tiny difference between this unit and all my previous line infantry is that these fellows have a standard from The Flag Dude. I saw these at Salute and couldn't resist buying a couple. They are actually 7 years War standards but giving the "scrunching" its somewhat impossible to tell the difference, and, lets face it, if I hadn't mentioned this, you'd have never known.

IR63 Bianchi, sporting a Flag Dude standard 

To be honest, trying to compare the 2 is a bit like asking which footballer would you prefer in your pub team, Wayne Rooney or Lionel Messi? Both companies are brilliant and worlds apart from anything one could produce for oneself, the quality of both is so incredibly high. Particularly given their relative cheapness.

Which gives us our first comparison. FD are £3.00 each while GMB are £3.50 for 2. With GMB you have to cost in the finial and staff which adds a bit over a quid for 2  flags so the cost is actually about the same(ish)...buttons really either way considering the effect.

Obviously the big initial attraction the FD is that everything is done for you, and done very nicely. Flag is "scrunched" rather attractively (though probably not realistically), The finial is included and the flag is attached to a lengthy staff,in fact the only thing that needs to be done is to trim this to a desired length and paint it.

With GMB you do have to do a tiny bit of work.

The pole  needs to have its finial attached, and then the flag glued to the pole. My prefered method for this is to cut the flag out, fold it so its creased centrally around the pole before "dry fitting" it. Only then smear PVA glue over the inner surface of one half of the flag before folding in and lining the flag up as neatly as possible. At this point a bit of scrunching can take place. I always try and do it to expose as much of the detail of the flag as possible (otherwise, whats the point?). Then leave it for a couple of hours before giving it a few thin coats of brushed on gloss varnish to stiffen it. Finally give it a coat of matt (or not, depending on taste).

More IR63. Custom "scrunching"

The final analysis comes in the detail. The printing on the GMB stuff is slightly better, and their finish a little bit finer. Also the colours on these Austrian flags is a little more vibrant.

I can't comment on how this is with other periods. One nice thing is that the ranges are somewhat complimentary, there are items that each company do which the other doesn't.

I.R.24 Baron Strauch. Proud of their GMB flag

Oddly,  the deciding factor for me is the fact that the GMB flags aren't the finished article which FD are.

The reason for this is that with GMB I glue the standard with the finial to the figure before priming. So all painting and handling takes place with a bare standard pole, but one which is firmly glued on bare metal with the glue painted over. Then, when the figure is completely finished and varnished I attach the flag as outlined above.

More GMB.

With FD flags this isn't possible. Because the flag is all done you can't attach it until after the figure is finished. One could prime the figure and then attach the flag, but this would mean having a great big flag flapping about (ok,not actually flapping but you know what I mean) while painting the standard bearer which I'm not that keen on. Subsquently, I ended up gluing on the FD flag once the figure was finished and then varnishing over the glue. Not ideal.

So, for me, GMB has it. Just.

Free Counter

Xenogears- Anti God Or Anti Demiurge?

There are an increasing number of Xenogears fans out there I think, it's an interesting game, but a game I have never completed.

I reached disc two at least a couple of times but the game is far far from perfect and after beginning as an amazing game, a game which you are thinking is going to be one of the greatest games of all time, unfortunately it gradually and then quickly runs out of steam almost from 3 hours in. 

I really love some of the soundtrack though, it is a masterpiece and the vocals are awesome.

The big problem for Catholics with a lot of JRPGs is their blatant anti Catholicism and their promotion of false anti-God philosophies.

I have traditionally seen Xenogears as anti God in a really really big way...sham religion to control people, 'god' himself is an antagonist, reincarnation, etc etc. 

 but I recently saw a video that made me reconsider this a tiny bit, and the video has some good points. The argument is that the Japanese who are godless and largely propelling to eternal damnation like to use Christian terminology to make their games and stories seem more occidental and strange, often applying names incorrectly and with nothing to do with their original reference points. This is certainly the case in Xenogears in a way perhaps unparalleled. 

And so whilst at the centre of xenogears there is this god thing trying to revive itself by farming and feeding itself humans who it has created, this thing isn't really a god at all, it is a demiurge a being that is itself created and yet has the capacity to create as if it were a god. So a created being posing itself is god is the enemy.

But then there is this wave existence- is this the true God? Obviously not, since how could God get trapped by a demiurge (which seems to have happened in xenogears) the whole stuff about the wave existence in xenogears is just incoherent, an all powerful being from another dimension is somehow trapped in a man made robot demiurge and wants to be set free....

So in xenogears we are not dealing with the true creator of the universe in any of this, we are not fighting uncreated existence, we are not fighting the supremely simple, perfect and holy God, we are not actually fighting the supreme being in any way, nor are we helping him escape from the demiurge. 

Xenogears fails in as much as it does not bring to light to fact that whilst the demiurge Deus is a phony god that is rightly destroyed, there is a true God sustaining all things Who Himself exists without the need of any other, a God Who simply Is and cannot fail to Be, a God without which all things would fall back into nothingness.

Hear are some ideas of altering the plot to make Xenogears more Christian:

1) Wave existence has to go. 

2) the continual reincarnations of elly and fei not true incarnations but vocations given by the true God 

3) Just as the demiurge has his false religion in xenogears through the ethos, the true God too ough to His own religion in the world of Xenogears which is acknowledged by the end of the game to be true.

4) The true God wishes to see the destruction of demiurge through means of humans, as humans created this false god the true God wishes that they destroy it.

Status

Too long without a post.

Hopefully this  won't be the last post on the blog. I am still in draft three of a book, and don't seem to be getting much writing done or even seeing many movie. Distractions and all.

I still have an unfinished story. An unfinished book of parsha shiurim. Several half-baked and nearly baked game designs on the shelf.

However, I am still employed, having a social life, going on a vacation next month. My daughter is married and thriving, my son is thriving, too. Which is all good.

Still have weekly game nights and still get new games occasionally. I just got Concordia, Sushi Go Party, and I am expecting Gentes Deluxe and Haithabu. I am expecting a few thousand new Magic cards soon.

I and my boss have been playing games with three non-gamer coworkers at work every Thursday. It's been half a year, and, aside from Codenames, we have rarely repeated any games. Looks like we may start soon.

The magic of games, those little points, seem insignificant, but it's astonishing how they take a play activity and make people focus on a goal, a start, and an end. It's almost hard to understand why, but it must have something to do with: not only feeling great when you succeed, but wanting others to have a chance to feel great, too. If it didn't, the whole concept of multiplayer games would just fall apart. As long as we still play games together, I think humanity still has hope.

Peace.

G Fuel Alternative (Monday Musings 83)

When I saw one of my friends stream, she mentioned that she was drinking G Fuel, and felt that it gave her very smooth energy, and no crashes after the effects wore off. She felt too jittery on the other energy drinks. Intrigued, I looked into G Fuel.

The ingredients aren't harmful because of the low dosages, but I hate the Sucralose and Acesulfame after taste, which G Fuel contains, and further, G Fuel is rather expensive at $35.99 for 40 servings, approximately $1 per serving, so I thought I can find a healthier and more cost-effective alternative to G Fuel.

After doing research, I found that the most effective way to improve energy and mental alertness is the tried and true, boring and effortful healthy ways such as:

1. Going to bed and getting up at the same time, i.e. good consistent sleep - most people need 8 hours
2. Exercising around 30 minutes between 55 to 85% (60% makes the most sense) of your max heart rate, at least 3 times/week, calculator here.
3. Fruits and vegetables - at least 5 servings - and whole grains
4. Reduce stress through meditation, problem-solving, and so forth
5. Smokers, QUIT!
6. Limit alcohol use 
7. Diaphragmatic breathing
8. Hydrate
9. Avoid sugars

However, there are going to be days when we can't get the 8 hours of solid sleep, eat nutritious foods, exercise, and smokers may slip due to increased stress and anxiety in their lives, and so on.

As streamers, should we then engage in performance drinks and pills, of which G Fuel is the most recently hyped, as marketing states that it was created by professional gamers? 

Reviewing the ingredients of G Fuel, the first part lists vitamins and minerals. However, it's much more cost-effective to take a generic multivitamin which is dirt cheap, and even free with some insurance plans. 

Even so, almost all research studies note that multivitamins don't really improve upon things and I recall my chemistry professor saying that multivitamins only lead to "expensive urine". So, unless you're literally not eating and at risk of scurvy, there's no need for multivitamins.

But, if you want to replicate G Fuel, you can take a cost-effective multivitamin for the first part of the ingredients.

The next ingredient of G-Fuel is the energy complex which consists of 140 to 150 mg of caffeine. Jet-alert caffeine at 100 mg is dirt cheap at $9.95 for 240 pills here at Amazon! You can take 1 and a half tablets (total 150 mg) for fraction of the G Fuel costs.

G-Fuel's other energy complex ingredients include, in addition to caffeine, Taurine, L-Citrulline Malate, Glucoronolactone, and N-Acetyl-Carnitine HCL. All these ingredients, including caffeine, are merely 1.7 grams.

Merely 1.7 grams, because to obtain the stimulating effects of Citrulline, you need on average 3 to 6 grams of L-Citrulline and 8 grams of Citrulline Malate! That's a lot! However, G-Fuel's concentration of Citrulline is well below the dosage needed for its effects (total of all ingredients at 1.7 grams).

Supplemental dosage of Glucoronolactone are between 500 to 3000 mg, so to be conservative, that's 0.5 grams minimum for this ingredient to be effective. Please note that G Fuel does not say how many mgs are included in their drinks, so I'm assuming they don't want to advertise the sub supplemental dosages. I'm assuming it'll be less than 0.5 grams.

Finally, N-Acetyl-Carnitine's recommended dosage to gain effects is 1500 to 2000 mg, and up to 4000 mg for depression.

Taking all these ingredients and breaking them down, the energy complex as to why G Fuel works is pure and simple Caffeine 140 to 150 mg. Again, Jet-alert is the cheaper and healthier alternative (i.e. no artificial sugars).

What can be said of the energy complex, the same can be said of G Fuel's focus complex. Again, total listed of the focus complex is a mere 1.2 grams. Like the energy complex, there's no breakdown of dosage of each ingredient in the focus complex. The ingredients here include L-Tyrosine, Choline Bitartrate, and ATP. ATP degrades through the digestion system, so ingesting ATP gets you nothing.

As for Choline Bitartrate, this study shows no acute benefits in healthy, young human adults - since we're using G Fuel for those immediate, acute effects, Choline Bitartrate does not appear to help in that situation. 

L-Tyrosine may be the only ingredient in G Fuel's energy complex that may have effects, even so L-Tyrosine had mixed results in reducing stress and improving focus. Some research showed benefits from taking L-Tyrosine, but at 500 to 2000 mg, but because there's no breakdown in G Fuel label, it's unclear if there's at least 500 mg of this ingredient in G Fuel, which I suspect is not the case. Again the total listed of all three ingredients is a mere 1.2 grams, and there's no breakdown for each ingredient!

Lastly, G Fuel notes the antioxidant complex, consisting of various fruit and vegetable powders and extracts, and given how many are listed, these might be in such small amounts that they don't have any effect. Indeed, they don't list how much of these powders are in the drink.

Let's pretend that G Fuel's combination does add up to having some antioxidant effects. You can quickly consume orange juice, or shove a handful of grapes or blueberries before stream, and have the same, or even higher antioxidant effects with less effort. No need to waste money and spend effort mixing your G Fuel powder and water!

Even so, the fact that G Fuel doesn't list how much powder and extract they use, most likely there's no antioxidant effects.

Therefore, after breaking down these ingredients, it appears that the effects of G Fuel on focus and mental energy are due to caffeine 150 mg and questionable multivitamin (per research studies). Again, you can get these extremely cheap or even free (multivitamin through insurance).

You may ask why my friend didn't feel jittery on G Fuel compared to other energy drinks? I'm suspecting it's because other energy drinks often include Guarana. G Fuel does not contain Guarana, and the other ingredients listed in G Fuel are such low dosages that you won't feel the effects except for caffeine. The combination of Guarana and caffeine in many energy drinks can make you feel jittery. I think in my case, it also caused heart racing.

The tried and true method in the above numbered list is the best way to improve energy and focus. However, if there's a day that you'll be streaming when you couldn't incorporate these healthy but boring strats, and you found G Fuel helpful, taking caffeine at 100 to 150 mg and a multivitamin will work the same. Not only that, this alternative is not only significantly cheaper than G Fuel, but healthier (no artificial sweeteners).

Conclusion: G Fuel is making a lot of money by brilliantly marketing popular Twitch streamers and professional gamers. However, you can get the same effects by taking cheap caffeine tablets (or drinking your favorite coffee beverage!) and any multivitamin. More effective yet, incorporate healthy life style changes. Don't believe the hype and save your dollars!

The How of Happiness Review

5 GAMES FOR SEPTEMBER

There are actually 12 games in September's monthly 5 if you include ports and compilations so it'll keep you busy as Autumn officially rolls in. First up is the 4th 3D Ultra Pinball game; the stock car themed 3D Ultra NASCAR Pinball. Next is the cyberpunk stylings of B.A.T. II: The Koshan Conspiracy, the bigger-budgeted sequel to last months adventure/RPG hybrid. The legendary developers at ORIGIN added some fantasy to their cyberpunk in the ahead-of-its-time FPS CyberMage: Darklight Awakening. Then travel back in time to a compilation of early Sierra graphical text adventures under the Hi-Res Adventures banner, including the official tie-in to The Dark Crystal film (damn, that Netflix prequel show was good!). Then, tend to a farm in another entry into Maxis' Sim series in the aptly titled SimFarm.

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A Wild Side Quest Appears

I spent a few days training on Route 11 with Shakespear, Royal and Dustin. I really wanted Royal to evolve before moving on to my next challenge in the Kanto region. I felt strongly that he and Dustin were about to replace Arnold as my star Pokémon, but they weren't ready for that yet. Dustin's only ability when I met him was to put opponents to sleep. As I knew from working with Arnold, that was incredibly useful, but also required you to actually harm your opponent to win a match. Royal could now slap his body into his opponent's body, but I really needed more than flopping around like a fish out of water before I could rely on him.
My training was interrupted after a few days by one of Professor Oak's lab technicians. Royal had just finished tackling and scaring off a wild Ekans when I saw him approaching, his lab coat flapping around his waist in the breeze. I stooped down to rub Royal's scales and watched as the aide approached. He looked utterly exhausted and completely out of his element out on the road and not behind a microscope.
"Fox!" he called out to me. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"Here I am," I smiled weakly.
"Professor Oak hasn't heard from you in a while. Don't you check your emails?" The aide had a brief angry look cross his face. "Well, never mind that. I can see you're busy with training and research. Can I see your Pokédex?" he asked and extended a hand. I stood up and Royal began to flop around aimlessly. I pulled the Pokédex  out of my back pocket and handed it to the lab tech. He pushed a few buttons and nodded to himself while I wondered what this was all about. "I see your work is coming along nicely. The Professor wanted me to make a detailed report on your progress. He also wanted me to give you this." He handed me back the Pokédex and pulled a strange device out of his lab coat.
"What is this?" I asked as I took the two-pronged instrument from his hands.
"The Professor calls that an Item Finder." He laughed. "Pretty simple, right? Basically it will light up when you are near a Pokémon enhancing item." He held out a small technical machine and the lights on the end began to flash brightly. "It's designed to pick up on the subtle radio waves… well, you don't need the boring details. The gift comes at a small cost, however. Professor Oak wants you to head to Lavender Town to do some research there. There have been some very strange sightings in that town and we believe Pokémon are involved."
"I don't understand," I admitted. Surely, I could just bike over to Lavender Town and there was no need for this strange contraption.
"The only way into Lavender Town these days is through the Rock Tunnel and to get through the Rock Tunnel, the Professor believes you will need to teach one of your Pokémon the hidden move called Flash. And well, you see, the thing is… the Hidden Machine that will teach Pokémon Flash was lost while doing research at the far end of Diglett Cave." He stammered to get out the last sentence. I could tell it was his fault the machine was lost and finding me was his penance.
"So let me get this straight," I began. "I need to use the Item Finder and head through Diglett's Cave. Once I find the HM Flash, I need to head to the Rock Tunnel and take that path to Lavender Town to investigate something for Professor Oak." This felt like a real round-about way to get somewhere. Diglett's Cave would dump me out near Pewter City in western Kanto, and Lavender Town was about as far east as you could get and still be in the Kanto region. Still, I owed the Pokémon Professor a great deal of gratitude and I was out here doing his field testing on the Pokédex. I didn't feel I had much of a choice. At first I was a bit irritated, but after the aide had dismissed himself I began to think Diglett's Cave might be a great place to train up Royal. There was some silver lining after all.

I had been given what you might call a side quest. At the risk of being too brief, I don't want to bore you with all the details. I biked over to Diglett's Cave and began my trek through with Royal tackling any curious Diglett or Dugtrio that came to protect their territory. I affixed the Item Finder to the handlebars of my bike and carefully and slowly walked the bicycle from one end of this narrow little tunnel to the other. Along the way, something equal parts amazing and claustrophobia inducing happened - Royal evolved from a silly, little Magikarp into a massive, intimidating Gyrados. Digletts, beware! This massive monster filled up the entirety of the tunnel! It was spectacular. Now,  Royal was the master and he would take Dustin under his wing and guide his training alongside me.
I found HM Flash as well as a surprise Technical Machine (TM) that taught Pokémon the move Dream Eater. While Hidden Machines had the capacity to teach moves repeatedly, Technical Machines at the time did not. Dustin was the easy and obvious choice for Dream Eater. After lulling Pokémon to sleep with his powers of Hypnosis, he could then feed on their hopes and fears with this devastating psychic attack. Unfortunately, he was also the only Pokémon on my roster who was able to learn Flash and so Flash he would learn - a move I would come to regret.
I emerged from Diglett's Cave on the Pewter City side. I spent a day there recovering. I had a nice visit with Rascal Sr. at the Pewter City Pokémon Gym where he was thriving. I can't believe a month has passed since I was last in Pewter saying goodbye to Rascal Sr. So much had changed since then! I was tempted to challenge him to a battle against Rascal Jr., but I really didn't want to waste too much time in Pewter City when Professor Oak was counting on me to head to Lavender Town. So the next day, I biked over to Cerulean City. I left a small food offering for Nibbles as I passed Mount Moon, but I'll never know if he found it. I really missed that guy. Beyond Cerulean City was the rocky path up to the Rock Tunnel. I didn't see any wild Pokémon as I quickly pedaled through, but I would be set upon by non-stop Zubats as soon as I set foot inside the pitch black caverns of Rock Tunnel.

Now, I need to get this off my chest. I hate Rock Tunnel. This very moment of this very day all these years later, I still absolutely hate it. I hate that I was in Kanto at a time it was nearly mandatory to pass through to get to Lavender Town - thanks to the Saffron City lockdown and a couple of tremendously frustrating Snorlax. Like Mount Moon, the Rock Tunnel is absolutely infested with Zubat. I love all Pokémon, but my tremendously bad experiences with trying to desperately train Vesper to be worth using in a battle had left me pretty jaded. I couldn't even bring myself to catch another Zubat because Vesper was such a disappointment.
I also want to say that the darkness of Rock Tunnel is the worst. Mount Moon had enough light filtering in from outside combined with lights set up by fossil hunters at famous dig sites that there really weren't many issues finding your way through the twisty tunnels. Rock Tunnel is absolute darkness. Without a Pokémon capable of lighting up like a Christmas tree, you can't see your hand in front of your face. For such a well traversed passage, much like Mount Moon, I couldn't understand why someone didn't think to set up lights along the trail to guide you through this senseless labyrinth of stone.

Which brings me to Hidden Move Flash itself - what a worthless waste of Pokémon talent. No one told me that I wouldn't be able to remove this obstacle from my Pokémon's arsenal of abilities. I was a fresh, young trainer and I didn't know any better. Techniques to delete these hard-wired moves wouldn't be developed for several years yet and so now my Dustin was going to be stuck with Flash for the rest of his days. Hypnosis and Dream Eater were so powerful a combination that there really wasn't much of a need for my tried and true method of lowering accuracy - something Flash actually did better than Kiwi ever could with all his sand attacks. As long as a Pokémon could be hypnotized, Dustin would prevail regardless of their accuracy. And as a result of his tremendous successes, Dustin evolved into a Hypno on our journey through Rock Cave.
I guess all those Zubat were good for something after all.

Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.




Bill's Storage: Kiwi (Pidgeotto) & Vesper (Zubat)

Old Man Daycare: Charlie (Pidgey)

Brave Browser voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019

Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.

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