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Rock Star alter egos are growing in numbers
"You're forming a fake band -- that's what you do," says Sadri, calling the game "the best part of karaoke, adding in a drummer and guitars."
The Magpie Developer
Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer.
Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry.
(Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that.
LSU scared of the prospect of some Moreno action?
Photos of Abandoned Swimming Pools
9 Things You Didn't Know About Rockband.
Drinking stories that put yours to shame
Via Keith


To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.



Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood.
making vodka pills in 24 hours
Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms.
Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com
As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.

Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz.
Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village




 
 
 
 


(Friday, December 31)

ABC News: People of the Year: Bloggers

Amen. Honestly, I ask anyone to sit down and ask what has George W. Bush actually done for you this year? At most I can see people describing their massive $300 taxcut (I'll ask you about that in 10 years when you are paying back $600). Anyone? What has GW Done for you in 2004? Hello? Anyone? ABC News: People of the Year: Bloggers


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Kept that obnoxious yankee out of office ;)
 Your Thoughts?


IHTFP Hack Gallery: Great Droid

Very cool prank by MIT students.... IHTFP Hack Gallery: Great Droid


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(Thursday, December 30)

The Chronicles of Narnia

        I read The Lion, the Which, and the Wardrobe when I was about 8 years old, my mom had bought it for me and as an 8 year old I preceeded to read the entire Chronicals set. I read them again in High School (Amazing how much of a meaning they take on in the religious sense as you get older) and I will probably start rereading them as soon as I finish CS Lewis 's Screwtape Letters. I think everyone should read these atleast after they turn 20 (random older thinking person age I pulled out of my ass). I cannot say how pumped I am about this movie as soon as I saw it on bobafred's blog. I really may be more pumped for this film than LOTR ROTK. It is most certainly in my to see day it opens list along with Episode III. Turkish Delight Anyone? Apple - Trailers - The Chronicles of Narnia More Info: Movie FAQ Book Read Order


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MSN Money - 10 last-minute tax moves for 2004

Good Article. MSN Money - 10 last-minute tax moves for 2004: "10 last-minute tax moves for 2004"


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From the Bunny: Ver impressive Flash about a squid hero. Ika the Movie


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TIREd

Two students were taking a college chemistry course. They did pretty well on all the work going into the final. They did so well, in fact, that they each had a solid A grade. Having such a good grade made them so cocky that they decided to party with some friends rather than study before their final exam. They had such a good time, they didn't get back on campus until early on the morning of the final. Rather than take the final in their condition, they told the professor that they had been on their way back in plenty of time to study but got a flat tire. They had no spare and had great difficulty getting help, so they asked to take a makeup exam at a later date. The professor agreed they could take the test the next day. The students were overjoyed and studied that night, confident they would keep their good grade. They were on time at the examination hall and were placed in separate rooms. Each was handed a test booklet and told to begin. The first problem was quite easy and worth five points. Their confidence soared even higher! They completed the problem and turned the page. It said, 'For 95 points, which tire?'


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(Wednesday, December 29)

Yahoo! News - Study: 1 in 5 Young People Drink and Drive

"The data come from face-to-face interviews in the homes of people ages 12 and up, part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. People were asked to define for themselves what driving 'under the influence' of drugs or alcohol means." So let me get this strait not only are 12 and 13 year olds getting wasted, but they are driving too? Yahoo! News - Study: 1 in 5 Young People Drink and Drive:


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WillyT Records and Aftermath Inc.

Behold my brother Will has spawned a Blog: WillyT Records and Aftermath Inc.


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Americana: Solicitation letter

Great post on the JBlog about how you can help in the Tsunami Tragedy: Americana: Solicitation letter


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Go Ask Hollywood - Popular Science

Why can�t you back up your DVDs? Because entertainment execs don�t want you to Go Ask Hollywood - Popular Science


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Tom's Hardware Guide Graphics Cards: VGA Charts V: PCI Express Graphics Cards - Introduction

Tom's Got a great article on next generation Vid Cards with benches on PCI-E cards compred to thier AGP counter parts. Tom's Hardware Guide Graphics Cards: VGA Charts V: PCI Express Graphics Cards - Introduction


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(Tuesday, December 28)

American Red Cross - Credit Card Contribution

If you have any money left over from Xmas, and can spare any amount. Please give. This disaster will effect everyone on this planet in someway or another. American Red Cross - Credit Card Contribution


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Walmart.com - How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It

From James... Too Good. Walmart.com - How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It


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Green Head Watercooler News: Airquee Inflatable Pub - World's First!

I wonder if the floor is bouncy. Green Head Watercooler News: Airquee Inflatable Pub - World's First!


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Google Search: Larry Wall

Looks Like Google already has some progamming books scanned and entered into the SERPS. Do a search for 'Larry Wall' and you can see his core "Grranimal" book on Perl. Pretty cool Google. Google Search: Larry Wall


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(Monday, December 27)

Tsunami Path

I believe Mother Nature is the most powerful force humans can see.


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(Saturday, December 25)

MSNBC - On a holy full-moon day, a mad dash to safety

Just awful. By Gemunu Amarasinghe The Associated Press Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET Dec. 26, 2004 Gemunu Amarasinghe, an Associated Press photographer based in Colombo, was caught in the tidal wave that hit Sri Lanka. This is his first-person account. AMBLANGODA, Sri Lanka - The twisted limbs of the frail girl in a blue dress were caught in a garden fence by the sea. She may have already been dead, but no one stopped to check � there was too much tragedy going on all around, as the water kept coming. When the tidal waves hit southern Sri Lanka, I had gone to the seaside to drop off my parents at a Buddhist ceremony. Sunday was the �Poya,� or a full-moon day. We Buddhists believe that Buddha was born, attained enlightenment and died on a full-moon day, so such days are a time for his followers to spend in reflection. It was after I dropped my parents off at the shrine in Amblangoda and I was driving back to the capital, Colombo, that I got a message on my cellular phone that some parts of coastal Sri Lanka had been hit by unnaturally big waves. I didn�t need the message to tell me. People were running everywhere, and the first waves hit the road. The first waves were not huge, not too destructive. They brought fish to the shore, and people rushed to collect them. Smiling young boys ran with fish dangling in their hands. But then another set of waves crashed ashore, much more powerful. I parked my SUV and climbed on its roof, thinking I was safe there. I started taking pictures � my cameras are always with me in the car in case I stumble across a news picture. But the water kept rising. And rising. In a few minutes my SUV was submerged and I suddenly slipped into the water. Click for related story Thousands die as tidal waves sweep Asia 24 bodies in four miles I struggled through the water, joining the crowds running for higher ground, some of them carrying their dead and injured. Whitecapped flood waters raced over the streets and between houses. I counted 24 bodies in a stretch of just under four miles. Bodies of children were entangled in wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. Bodies were carried up to the road, covered with sarongs and laid out for relatives to find. Rows and rows of women and men stood on the road, asking if anyone has seen their loved ones. I was still in a daze, and the enormity of the tragedy still hadn�t dawned on me until I came upon the girl in the blue dress, caught in a fence. It was only when the flood waters began to recede, that it was possible to check and make sure. The girl, who appeared about 4 to 6 years old, was dead. � 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. MSNBC - On a holy full-moon day, a mad dash to safety


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(Wednesday, December 22)

Mystery Object Orbits Earth

I am sure it is just a Klingon from Uranus. Mystery Object Orbits Earth


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Die ersten Fotos nach der Er?ffnung von Tropical Island

From a distance you can't tell what it is, or what it was; this stretched dome, this oblong bubble squatting on the flat, spare landscape of a disused Russian military airbase, deep in the birch and pine forests of the former GDR, just over an hour's drive from Berlin. You can't even guess at its true scale until you get close enough to see the tiny cars parked along its edge. Here's what it is: a tropical island paradise, with white sandy beaches, waterfalls tumbling into tranquil lagoons, a rainforest, several restaurants, shops and all manner of entertainments, protected from the freezing Brandenburg winter by the world's largest self-supporting hall. Raw numbers aren't much help with something this size, but for the record it's 360m long, 210m wide and 107m high in the middle, enclosing a total interior space of 5m cubed. You could slide the Eiffel Tower in on its side, or, if you prefer, the Statue of Liberty standing up. It's twice as high as the Millennium Dome, and covers a comparable area of ground. Very Cool. We could use one of these in Atlanta Dome, sand and sea Die ersten Fotos nach der Er?ffnung von Tropical Islands


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Why Jail him? Just Kill Him.

I was reading an article about Chemical Ali, and I was wondering how on earth someone could gas ethnic Kurds AND have time to be Grandpa Huxtable on the Cosby Show?    World News Article | Reuters.co.uk


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News

Ocean's 20? News


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Back online and cooler than a truffle shuffle.

Sorry for the outtage party people. But we are back in full swing just in time for the holidays and the truffle shuffle.


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FOXSports.com - COLLEGE FOOTBALL - AP pulls its football poll from BCS formula

Associated Press statement The Associated Press has not at any time given permission to the Bowl Championship Series to use its proprietary ranking of college football teams. This unauthorized use of the AP poll has harmed AP's reputation and interfered with AP's agreements with AP poll voters. To preserve its reputation for honesty and integrity, the AP is asking the BCS to discontinue its unauthorized use of the AP poll as a component of BCS rankings. GOODBYE BCS... WooHoo [Praying for a playoff] Gracias to Richie for da link. FOXSports.com - COLLEGE FOOTBALL - AP pulls its football poll from BCS formula


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(Monday, December 20)

CNN.com - Signature on death letters fuels Rumsfeld criticism - Dec 19, 2004

"Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Rumsfeld's dismissal would be 'a gift to the jihadists and the insurgents' in Iraq." What a blatent scare tactic. Support my party or YOU THE AVERAGE AMERICAN let the terrorists win. I pity that Senator. CNN.com - Signature on death letters fuels Rumsfeld criticism - Dec 19, 2004


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CNN.com - Outcry over Indian eBay sex probe - Dec 20, 2004

When translated to Hindi, the word "John Ashcroft" is spoken as "Prabhakar" CNN.com - Outcry over Indian eBay sex probe - Dec 20, 2004:


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(Friday, December 17)

c h r o m a s i a / 16 December, 2004 / signing the register

Very Cool photoblog. c h r o m a s i a / 16 December, 2004 / signing the register


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Some University of Georgia students say they would find other routes to and from school if officials approve tolls for Ga. 316.

Let me break it down for the State Transportation Board: Poor College Students + Toll for Ga 316 = a crowded as hell Hwy 78. Some University of Georgia students say they would find other routes to and from school if officials approve tolls for Ga. 316.


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BBC NEWS | Technology | Virtual gamers reveal themselves

Extremely Cool Concept for an Exhibit. I sometimes wonder who is on the other end of the guild chats we all have on EQ2. Very cool idea to bring together people and their avatars. BBC NEWS | Technology | Virtual gamers reveal themselves


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(Thursday, December 16)

Guile Breakin' It

Go Jean Claude... Go Go Jean Claude.....


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Everquest 2 Things You Wish You Knew When You Started the Game

Compiled by Sere of Blackburrow, this is a must read guide for anyone who plays EQ2. Want to contribute? Visit the Forum and have your say! Groups * Press alt-w to bring up a list of your groupmates. You can then click on them and get a waypoint to their location. * Using an offensive spell on a group member will cause it to land on whomever they have targetted. Using a beneficial spell on a mob will cause it to land on whomever they have targetted. Note that using some debuffs on a group member currently does not correctly put the debuff on the group member's target. This is a bug. * You can click a group members name in the group window and you will see their name highlighted in the world, no matter how far away they are in the zone. * To have a more clear indication of your (groupmates) target and which groupmates your target has targetted, enable 'target arrow' and 'target encounter arrows' in the options menu under "user interface>target arrow" * To enable lotto as the default loot option for all groups you start, change the corresponding item in the options menu under "group options". * When grouped, you can see what quests your groupmates have. Press J to get to your quest journal, and on top there will be a tab marked "group" Commands * Use "/mood [mood]" to set your mood. "/mood none" resets it. * The 'f' key performs a "double click" on whatever your mouse is pointing at. * You can use %t to place whatever you have targetted in an emote. For example, "/gsay Here comes a %t!" would display "Here comes a skeleton!" to your group if you had a skeleton targetted. Other commands are: %t - name of current target %r - race of currect target %s - gender pronoun of current target - he, she, it %g - gender of current target - male, female, neuter %o - gender object of current target - him, her, it %p - possesive noun of current target - his, her, its %m - displays the name or your current target's pet. If there is no pet then the word "pet" will be displayed. * Once you hit level 20, you can use /lastname to set your last name. * Use "/friend [name] to put a friend on your friends list. Use "/who all friend" to see which of your friends is online. "/friend" will show you who is on your list. * /stopeating and /stopdrinking will stop your character from automatically consuming food and drink. This is useful when going into merchant mode so you do not consume all your food and drink while selling. * If you played EQ1, preordered, or bought the collectors edition, you may have special items or titles waiting for you in-game. To claim these items, type /claim. You should see a big yellow message reminding you of this when you log in. Keep in mind that you can only /claim things on one character! So make sure to do so on the primary character you intend to play. * Use the /showhood command to toggle display of your helmet on and off. This affects how everybody sees you, not just how you see yourself! * You can select yourself by pressing F1. Pressing F1 after that point will toggle between you and you pet (assuming you have one). You can select your groupmates by pressing F2-F6. Pressing F2-F6 as appropriate will toggle between them and their pets. * If you are in a conversation with an NPC, you can quickly get out of that conversation by hitting the ESC key. ESC can also be used to deselect a target, or close the last bag/bank/inventory window you opened. * /language shows you all the languages you know. "/set_language [language]" will set you to speak in a particular language. "/set_language common" is what you use to speak "human". Note that capitalization is important. * You can hit F9 to toggle between 1st and 3rd person. If you scroll wheel into 3rd person and then hit F9, it will remember how far you were scrolled if you F9 again. * Press 'r' to respond to the most recent tell you've received. Press 'g' to say something in groupsay. UI Stuff * You can create macros for common things like incoming messages, assisting the main tank, etc... To do this, click on the EQII button, then choose "Socials>Macros". These macros you create can be dragged to your hotkeys. * You can have up to 3 hotkey bars active. To create a second and third, right click on your main hotkey bar and choose the appropriate option. It has been reported you can actually have more than 3 hotbars active, though there are no key-shortcuts to access those beyond the 3rd. I have not tried this personally. * You can place links to items in text such as /ooc, /auction, or /g. To do so, open your inventory and find the actual item (note this means you must accept your quest rewards before you can link them to show off to all your friends). Click on the item and drag the icon to the line of text you are writing, and the item name will insert itself. Other people can then click on the name to get a description of the item as if they had examined it. * Many things in the game (from UI windows to mobs) have right click contextual menus. If you are not sure what something is, or want more information/options, try right clicking on it. Note that some things may not be activatable via a double click -- in this case, right click and use them through the menus. * If you place your cursor over something (like a piece of furniture, or a barrel) and it glows, you should right click and examine it. There are MANY quests started this way, particularily in dungeons and outside of the cities, so make sure you cursor over everything you see at least once to see if it glows. * When you see a person's name in your chat box, you can right click on their name to select options such as send them a tell. This can save having to spell complicated names if you want to respond to someone. * For those of you who are keyboard averse, you can run by holding down both mouse buttons at the same time. * Be careful what you double left click on. When using the broker, double clicking on an item will buy it, not examine it. Right click and choose examine from the menu to examine an item, or click the examine button provided at the bottom of the dialog. Also be wary that the default double click action for many guards and sentries outside of the cities is attack, not talk. When you mouse cursor over these guards, the cursor will change to crossed swords instead of the usual chat caption. If you wish to talk to them, right click and choose hail from the menu. If you double click on them, you will attack them and they will probably serve you up your butt on a platter. * If you play in 3rd person mode and would like to be able to select yourself by clicking on your character, you can do this in the options menu under "interface>picking" and choose "allow picking self in third person". * Consider creating multiple chat windows and filtering the content of each. You can do this by right clicking on your primary chat window and selecting "create new window". You can right click on each of the windows created and filter the content that the window will display. Personally, I use 3 windows. The one on the right displays tells, groupchat, and guildchat. The one in the center displays spells, combat, and considers. The one on the left displays everything else. This makes it really easy to focus on communication or combat as necessary. * You can use alt-enter to switch between full screen and windowed mode. * You can lock UI windows to prevent them from being inadvertently moved or closed. To do this, right click on the window, select "window options", and check the "locked" box. I highly advise locking your chat windows, as it's easy to inadvertently close them. If you need to move them around later, you can always unlock them temporarily. * You may occasionally hit a weird key combination that hides a window on your screen (such as your maintained effects window, your exp bar, the quest journal helper, etc...). To get it back, click the EQII button, choose options, and look under windows. You will see a list of all the keystrokes to hide/unhide the various windows on the UI. * If the game is too dark for you, you can turn up the gamma on your video card, or buy a torch. You can actually carry two torches, and the light they produce stacks! * There are specialized chat channels that you can join. Right click on the chat window, go to "chat options", and you will see pre-set channels for your home city. The traders channel is particularily useful if you are looking to exchange crafted goods or find new commissions from other players. Spells, Skills, and Combat Arts * AE skills or spells with green icons will only hit mobs that you have locked in your encounter. AE skill or spells with blue icons will hit everything around you, regardless of whether or not it is engaged. Be wary with these. * You can upgrade your spells and combat arts. They start at apprentice 1, commonly abbreviated as "app1". App2 skills are sold on vendors in town. App3 skills are made by tradeskilling players using commonly available materials. Adept1 are found in chests off mobs. Adept2 does not currently exist. Adept3 is made by tradeskillers using rare materials. Master1 drops off raid level mobs and very, very rarely off normal mobs. It is definitely worth your time to try and acquire app3 or adept1 levels for your skills. Look on the brokers to see what's on sale. * At level 20, you can purchase a "fun" spell that is based on your class. These spells are generally insignificant things that do not affect your efficiency in-game, but are meant to provide humor or an "ooh aah" factor. * If you are looking on the broker for spells and combat art upgrades, set the minimum value to grey and the maximum value to orange. Along with a keyword such as "adept" or "app", this will bring up only the skills relevant to your class and level. * The concentration bar is the 5 little bubbles which appear directly underneath your name. As you use abilities that require concentration, these will light up. If you hold your mouse over an active bubble, you will see the name of the spell/effect it is linked to. Right clicking on it will allow you to cancel it. You can also cancel most (all?) of these effects from your maintained effects window. If you lost the maintained effects window, press alt-m to restore it. * If you are a melee based character, concentrate on upgrading your armor and weapons rather than your skills. Upgrading melee skills adds little effectiveness to your character. If you are a casting based character, concentrate on upgrading your skills -- going from app1 to adept1 will make a huge difference in your effectiveness. Harvesting and Tradeskilling * Getting harvesting tasks from your wholesaler is a good way to make money. If you have a wholesaler task to harvest, you can complete it in one of three ways (or a combination thereof): 1) Harvest the resource from the appropriate zone 2) Get another player to trade you one of the resource you need 3) Buy one of that resource off the broker. * If you can't harvest something, your skill is not high enough. Generally speaking, you need a 40ish skill to harvest in Antonica/Commonlands and a 90ish to harvest in Thundering Steppes/Nek Forest. Note: as of 12/3/04, you now only need a 20 skill to harvest in Antonica/Commonlands. Some zones may require certain skills be slightly higher than others. * If you find a ? on the ground, left click on it and pick it up. These items are generally for collection quests and can have some pretty nice rewards if you can collect an entire set. Look on the brokers for the pieces you are missing. * Rare harvested items are REALLY rare. I have seen 2 so far in 20 levels. If you harvest something with a different name from an ore/rock/roots/wood that you haven't heard of, don't sell it to the merchants because players will give you more for it. * When tradeskilling, the primary component (which is the first component listed when creating a recipe) determines the maximum quality of your result. If your primary component is shaped, the best you will be able to produce for your final combine is shaped quality. This means if you want a pristine result, you must use a pristine primary component. All of the other components can be any quality. As a side note, this means when creating items for secondary components, you may be able to save time by stopping the process after your item reaches the crude level. * You get a crafting exp bonus for crafting new recipes for the first time. When leveling your crafting skills up, it is worth it to see what items have similar components and create one of each. Creating pristine items also grants more exp than other quality levels. * Similar to your adventure class, you must specialize in a tradeskill at level 10. Do to so, you must find the appropriate NPC to speak to. Note that currently, you will not level up to 10 until you have done one more combine for exp. Once you reach level 10, you should join a 2nd tradeskill society. Each starting zone has a secondary tradeskill society for each of the 3 specialties (outfitter, craftsman, scholar). * The wholesaler tradeskill instances have a merchant who sells recipe books for tradeskill levels 4-9 and some basic components. In some instances he is hiding downstairs near the base of the stairs -- in other instances, that's where the broker is found. In theory, he is supposed to carry more items when the tradeskill instances level up (though this does not seem to be working at the moment). To see what level your tradeskill instance is, press the EQII button, choose societies, and find yours on the list (it should be highlighted in green). * Tradeskill recipes can be made into hot keys by dragging the icon to your hotkey bar. This may save you lots of time if there are subcombines that you find yourself doing repeatedly. * If you want to know which tradeskill recipe books you have already scribed, here is how you do that. Click the EQII button and go to recipes. Press the edit button at the top. Use the big scroll bar on the far right to view the last window. This window contains the titles of all the recipe books you have scribed in the order you have scribed them (not alphabetically). * You can check the stats on an item before you actually craft it. To do so, examine the recipe, then examine the icon of the end result in the recipe window. If I'm not mistaken, this is the stats for the shaped level of the item. Stats on other levels may vary. * In crafting a recipe, the game will always default to using either the smallest stack of components you have in inventory. You can change which components it uses by clicking the "change" button, removing the currently selected items, and adding the ones you want. Keep in mind that it will not remember your change and you will have to do this each time you use the recipe. If you are making a bunch of items, it might be worth your time to split a large stack into two smaller stacks so it will default to using the component you want. * If you are crafting multiple containers (eg. elm strongboxes, or backpacks), you can put more than one at a time into your overflow (note: it is unconfirmed if you have to create them sequentially without closing the recipe). This is convenient for taking multiple containers to the bank. If you get an error, make sure you have at least one inventory spot open (even if it's inside a bag). Attributes, Experience, and Death * Drink replenishes your power, food replenishes your health. Generally speaking, the more expensive the food and drink, the faster you will regenerate. For player-made foods, the 4 levels of quality are: bland, savory, (no prefix), and delectable. The higher the quality, the longer the food will last. Bland food usually lasts 30 minutes, and delectable at least an hour. NPC food and drink is always bland. There is a cap on how much you can regenerate -- eating high tier food will not help you if you are not high enough level. Summoned food is even worse than store bought. * Sitting does NOT replenish your health any faster (this was changed in late beta). * Your exp debt will go away with time when you are logged off. The longer you stay logged off, the more debt will dissipate. Preliminary reports are that debt disappears at approximately 1/2 percent per hour. * The attributes in the manual for the various races are wrong. Look on the web site (http://everquest2.station.sony.com) for updated ones. * Dying in one instance will make your shard available in all of the instances. In some instanced zones, you can right click on the door to the instance to retrieve a shard lost in the instance. * When priest classes hit a certain level, they can make an essence which allows other players to revive the priest if the priest dies. Make sure the player has the essence in their activatable slot to use it. Combat and Creatures * When sprinting away from a battle you are losing, press the "Call for Help" icon (it looks like an exclaimation point) or use the /yell command (or /y for short). This will do two things. First, it will unlock the encounter so people nearby can pull the mob off you if they are feeling nice. Second, it will cause you to start regenerating at the rate you normally do when not engaged in combat, and thus prolong your chances of survival. * Mobs that are naturally aggressive but grey to you will generally not agro you (they know you can kick their butts). * You can turn off combat experience by right clicking on your exp bar and selecting "disable combat experience". You can turn it back on by doing the same thing. This can be useful when you want an item from a chest and the GREEN conning mobs you are killing are just about to grey out because you're going to level up. * To get the suffix "Hunter of X" after your name, you need to kill 500 of a particular type of mob. There is a way to check how many of something you have killed -- in North Qeynos, there is a poster near the gate to Antonica. It is hard to target, but it will show you your kill totals. In West Freeport, there is a lamppost at the lower end of the road that leads to the Commonlands Gate. As near as I can tell, killing gray mobs counts in these totals. You get the "Slayer of X" title after 5000 kills. * Learn how to use Heroic Opportunities (HOs), especially when soloing. They will make your life a lot easier. * If you are not the main tank in a group, try to attack your enemy from behind. This will prevent the mob from parrying and riposting your blows since they can only do this from the front/side. * To see if a creature you are running away from is following you, find a nice straight area with no mobs nearby, hit autorun (numlock), make sure you are in 3rd person camera (if you're in first person, mousewheel backwards), hold down the left mouse button (or use the / and * keys), then swing the camera around using the mouse. Your character will keep running forward but you will be able to see behind you. If you are looking in a different direction than you are running, you can change to running in that direction by pressing the forward key (w, arrow up, or 8 on the numpad). Also note, if you have them targeted when running away, as soon as they stop chasing you, you automatically untarget them. Inventory and Banking * Elm strongboxes can be fairly easily made via the tradeskilling system and will give you a 7 or 8 slot container you can put in your bank. Fill all the slots in your bank with them and you will be able to hold quite a bit of stuff. They are too heavy to lug around on your character. * You can not directly move money via the shared bank slot (the manual is wrong). * Coin has weight in this game. Make sure you go to the bank and convert your copper to silver occasionally, otherwise you will become encumbered. This is particularily important if you have left your merchant on overnight selling lots of cheap items, as it is easy to accumulate lots of copper in a short time. * At times it can be useful to open all your bags at once. To set this up, select the EQII button, then go to options>key commands. Choose a hotkey for "open all bags" (I recommend ALT-I). Pressing that hotkey will open all your bags, and pressing it again will close them all. Alternatively, you can use the /togglebags command. You can create a hotbar button to togglebags by creating a macro (EQII button>socials>emotes>macros), then dragging the macro to your hotbar. * You can pick up an entire stack of items from your inventory/bank by holding down shift and clicking on it. You can pick up a single item by holding down control and clicking on the stack of items. Items, Equipment, and Loot * If you find an item that seemingly has no use, it's generally one of three things: 1) A tradeskill component 2) Vendor trash (sell for cash) 3) An item involved in a quest (particularily if it's marked as LORE). Make sure you right click and examine any strange items you find (especially if they dropped from chests or you found them from a ? on the ground), as they may start quests. Note that some items used for quests will not be identified as such until you already have the quest (for example, the mastery quest items are like this). * The game has a trivial loot code. Look at the text in the targeting box. This will say either solo, group, group x 2, group x 3, or group x 4. This does two things. First, as part of considering a mob you can look at how difficult they are. Second, it tells you at what number of allies at which this mob will become trivial and give no chest loot or quest items. 2 for solo, 7 for group, 13 for groupx2, and 19 for groupx3. You will notice a little chest icon with a red circle and line through it (no smoking symbol) when a mob will not drop loot for your group/raid. * Make sure to attune any attunable items you have equipped, otherwise they will not give you any benefit. This is particularily important with weapons, as you will always miss with an attunable weapon that has not been attuned (and you will not get a warning telling you why you are always missing). * Mobs that are grey to you will not give you exp or drop chests. However, they will still drop items on their bodies, and you can still use them for any kill quests you may have in your journal. * If a mob is grey to anybody in the group, it will be considered grey to everyone. Note: be careful when grouped with higher level players that you camp in a safe place. When you log back in, mobs that were grey before may not be any longer now that you don't have the higher level player in your group! Also note that if you are in a dangerous place and your highest level group member disbands or goes linkdead, this can leave you in a bad position. * If you are lottoing for an item in a group, make sure you have at least one inventory spot open. Lotto items you win will NOT go into overflow. If you have no room for them, they will be lotto'd again! Hopefully this will be fixed in the near future. Inn Rooms * Buy a merchant board from any furniture vendor and place it in your inn room. This will allow you to go into merchant mode. You have to stay in your inn room to sell. * If you give everyone friends access to your inn room, random people will be able to come in and rearrange your furniture. Give everyone visitor access instead. * Use "/friend [name] to put a friend on your friends list. Use "/who all friend" to see which of your friends is online. "/friend" will show you who is on your list. * You can rotate furniture when placing it in your inn room by using the mouse wheel when moving it. You can use this function to line up books, place chairs the correct way under your tables, etc... If you do not have a mousewheel, you can use the + and - keys to rotate your furniture. * You can take a tour of houses in the cities by right clicking the door and selecting tour. Some of the expensive houses are really cool. Maybe someday you will actually have enough money to live there. * If you are paying for part of your inn room with guild status, you can reduce the status cost by outfitting your room with expensive/rare furniture. In theory, it is possible to reduce the status cost to 0 status points per week. As far as I know, it is not possible to reduce coin costs. * Your basic inn room can hold 100 items and 2 sellers. To hold more items or sellers, you need to move to a bigger room. And yes, books count towards your item limit. Note: there is currently a bug that limits Qeynos basic inn rooms to holding 25 items. This will be fixed shortly. * If you relinquish your basic inn room before it is time to pay rent on it, you can buy another basic inn room for free and get a fresh 7 days. This saves you from having to pay the 5 silver rent. Note that you will have to collect all your items from the inn room (which can be done by right clicking on the door from within your inn room and selecting "collect contents"). Anything you do not collect will be destroyed when you relinquish your room. NPCs, Brokers, and Merchants * Use the brokers to see what people have for sale. There is a broker in each major city zone (for Qeynos, this is Elddar Grove, North Qeynos, South Qeynos, and Qeynos Harbor), and brokers in each of the wholesaler tradeskill instances (sometimes near the entrance, sometimes at the base of the stairs). Since many people set themselves up as merchants right before they go to bed, the best time to check the broker is later in the evening. * Some merchants are greedier than others and will pay you less for things that you sell to them. Check with a few merchants and you will generally be able to tell which ones are greedy and which ones aren't. Merchants in "convenient" locations (such as out in the middle of popular hunting areas) are generally more greedy. * If you are in another hamlet from the one you started in, and want to see what's for sale, you can enter anybody's inn room who has access set to "friend" and utilize their merchant board. Don't forget to rearrange their furniture as a way of saying thank you. * Brokers have a 20% commission for anything you buy through them. If you are buying something expensive, you might consider actually going to the inn room of the person selling the item and buying it directly from them. The downside of doing this is that someone may beat you to the item in the meantime. * There is a black market merchant (called a "fence") that will allow you to access the market for the opposing city. The fence charges a 40% commission. The location of the fence is a closely guarded secret, though you can find it in various threads on the boards. * If you are shopping at a NPC merchant, and accidentally buy something, you can sell it back at the same price as long as you have not closed the merchant window. * If you try to access your bank or a merchant and get the message "you are too busy", there are generally three possible reasons why. Either you have your attack mode on, you have a trade window up, or you are currently interacting with an NPC. Hit escape a bunch of times, make sure you are not in combat mode, and then try again. * If an NPC speaks to you, or waves at you as you get near, they may have a quest that they want you to do. Note that they will continue to wave at you even if you already have their quest. * If you need help finding a particular NPC (perhaps to finish off a quest) but have forgotten where they are, right click on a guard and choose "find NPC". Type in the name of the NPC and you will be given a waypoint to that NPC. Note: for some reason this does not always work, but it usually does. Also note that you often do not have to type in the full name. This is particularily helpful when you want to find and NPC with a crazy unpronouncable name. * If an NPC speaks to you in gibberish (with a symbolic font), you do not understand the language this NPC is trying to speak. In the various starting hamlets, you can find language primers on the scribes for 12s. As soon as you purchase the primer, you automatically learn the language. In the hamlets, most (all?) of the NPCs who require you to know their native tongue give quests. There are quests to learn languages for some non-starting races (like Gnoll). Questing * You can only have 50 quests active at any time, including collection quests. For the smaller collection quests (anything with less than about 6 items), it is a good idea to keep the items in your bank instead. When you collect them all, then you can activate the quest and do the turnin. That way you will not eat up too much space in your quest journal. Note that making elm strongboxes (as mentioned above) will give you more bank space to store your quest items. Also note that right clicking and examining collection quest items will tell you how many items are in that set. Don't forget to check the broker for items needed to complete your collection quests. Completing them as soon as possible will help keep your inventory/quest journal clearer. * If you are not getting quest rewards, check to see if you have a green + in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. If so, you need to click it and choose your bonuses first. This is a bug that should be fixed in the future. * If you do a quest that starts from a book, do not delete the book until you have finished the quest. Some quests have you read the book many times throughout the quest, and others have you reread the book at the end of the quest. If you've deleted the book, the quest will be uncompletable. Once you've finished the quest, it is generally safe to delete the original book. Many quests that start from books give a copy of the book as a quest reward. This copy is meant to be either sold, or placed in your in room on a piece of furniture. * Some quests are repeatable. When you complete a quest, you can find it in your completed quests journal, and it will say "repeatable" if it is. Unfortunately, most repeatable quests are not worth doing more than once. * Hwal Rucksif is in the Keep of the Ardent Needle. To find it, exit North Qeynos to Antonica, follow the path to your left, and go under the aquaduct. He will be in the keep to your right that is surrounded by a moat. * Some NPCs have level requirements on their quests. If you speak to an NPC and he has a dialog option that doesn't seem to do anything, you should return when you have leveled up and try again. Other NPCs require that you have completed a particular quest before they will give you a quest. * You can find lots of purchasable quests from the sage in the mages tower in South Qeynos, or the mage school in North Freeport. These cost anywhere from 1s to 12s, with the more expensive ones generally being higher level quests. Many of these quests that require you to find "missing pages" by killing mobs want you to read the book after each set of mobs you kill, so you might want to bring the books adventuring with you rather than leaving them in the bank. * If you are planning on doing the betrayal quests, you need to start them BEFORE you hit level 18. It is generally recommended you start no earlier than level 14 or 15. Note that once you have started the betrayal quests, your level will be capped at 19 + 220% until you complete the quest. * You do not have to do the citizenship quest in the racial hamlet you started in -- you can do it in any of the starter hamlets by talking to the appropriate overseer/steward. If you do start with your default hamlet, you can still buy the inn room in another hamlet if you'd rather. Note that if you do this, the waypoints will still point to the inn in the zone you started in, not to the zone you bought your inn room in. Guilds * Guilds do not have their guildnames displayed above their heads until the guild reaches level 5. You can get your guild to level 5 by doing city writs and accumulating status points. Out and About in the World * If the zone you are in is overcrowded, try zoning out and back into another instance. If there are 3 or more instances, choose one that is not the first or last instance, as these often tend to be less crowded. * If you see a "lair" object in the world such as a rats nest, snakes nest, sabertooth tent, etc... with the appropriate type of mob around it, this is probably a dynamic adventure camp. If you kill everything in the camp, the next time it spawns it may spawn harder creatures, named monsters, etc... * Distressed merchants are NPCs who are sometimes found at a dynamic adventure camp. If you kill all the creatures around them, they will turn into gratified merchants, and you can then buy/sell with them. They offer good prices, and sometimes carry items you can't find elsewhere. Also note that gratified merchants are useable by all players in the area for a short time before they disappear, not only the players who freed them. If you see someone freeing a distressed merchant, hang around until it becomes gratified and then use it. * Once you leave the Isle of Refuge, you can't return. If you're a questaholic, make sure you've completed all the quests before you leave because you will not have a chance to come back and finish them later. The Isle is also a good place to work up your harvesting skills, as the newbie zones tend to be more crowded. * Do not forget to use the "Call of Qeynos" or "Call of Freeport" ability to teleport yourself back to your starting hamlet. You can use this once per hour. If you are out in the wilderness, you can save yourself a long run back to town this way. There is currently no way to change which hamlet your Call spell will take you to. Misc * If you discover a bug in game, use the /bug command and report it. This will help it get fixed faster. Your opinion on game mechanics is not a bug. * If you have a question, utilize the search option on the message boards. To do this, scroll all the way down and type something into the search box. It is amazing how many questions have already been answered! If you utilize the search box from the main forum listing, it will search all forums by default. If you utilize it from within a specific forum, it will search only that specific forum by default.


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(Wednesday, December 15)

Getting Started with MSN Messenger Beta

New MSN Beta is pretty cool. I throughly enjoy the handwriting feature, it is a great way to get a point across... Getting Started with MSN Messenger Beta


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(Tuesday, December 14)

Overclockers Australia - Five Large P4 Coolers

Very Good Article of Different Aftermarket P4 Fan Coolers. I currently run a Thermal Tank Volcano, but I think I am gonna upgrade to a Thermalright XP-120. Good Stuff. Overclockers Australia - Five Large P4 Coolers


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The New York Times > Technology > Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement Tuesday with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web. It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections. One Step Closer to the Librar of Alexandria. Lets just hope we don't have a Caesar, Patriarch Theophilus, or Caliph Omar in our near future. The New York Times > Technology > Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database BBC > Google to scan famous libraries


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(Monday, December 13)

Reaching towards the sky on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Anyway, back to the Pizza Hut excursion, since I can't post pictures for the forseeable future, I'll have to give you a description of the place. First of all, Pizza Hut is an expensive place to dine in China. Therefore, the decor in the restaurant reflects this. It is very upscale, similar to if you walked into an upmarket continental restaurant in the West. The lighting is dark (not too dark though) and it is noticeably quieter than other restaurants in China. It is definitely a place to go to impress your date. In Canada, if I took a girl to Pizza Hut on a date she would probably laugh at me, eh? The centrepiece of the circular restaurant is a salad bar that is not overly big in size but is well stocked. The salad bar is a story in itself: for one price (I think it's approximately 20 RMB), you get a single trip to the salad bar. You get a medium-sized soup bowl to put your salad in. Of course, this is a challenge any structural engineer would love to take upon: putting the most salad you can in this small bowl. I saw people at the salad bar for 5-7 minutes just trying to force more and more salad into their bowl. The highest salad I saw must have rose 9 inches off the top of the bowl. The woman was engaged in a balancing act on the way back to her table; the Leaning Tower of Salad almost tipped over a couple of times. We could have taken bets, although I would have lost as I was adamant there was no way this woman was going to walk 50 feet from the salad bar back to her table unscathed. A la boingboing: My Big Trip to Pizza Hut: Food that Foreigners Miss From Home Reaching towards the sky on Flickr - Photo Sharing!


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MSNBC - Saddam deputies end hunger strike

"Denying him this right is a serious breach of international protocols" Saddam's lawyers, who were appointed by Saddam's wife, Sajida, said in a statement. Yeah and so is gassing 800 Kurds. Sucks For you. If it were up to me, none of the 12 would need a cell. MSNBC - Saddam deputies end hunger strike


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