Blogs - SCΛRECROW

6 comments by SCΛRECROW on Sep 8th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"The one item you need is always in short supply." 

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
I decided to go old school and brush the dust off of the original Ghost Recon. Ah, the memories...running through the forest, getting shot at from a unseen enemies. It's surprising that a game published in 2001 is still appealing 8 years later (to me at least). But Ghost Recon 4 has been delayed if you haven't heard. It's scheduled for a late '09 or early 2010 release. It seems so far away.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is only a month away! The trailers and in-game footage look so good! I can't wait, but I have to make sure that my computer can handle it well on high settings...I may have to do a little upgrading of the CPU and graphics card, but it seems unlikely.

Windows 7 is about a month and a half away from release. I've been using the RC and it's been brilliant. No crashes or screw ups, but I have to say that it is weird transitioning from XP to W7 and even one of my friends said it was weird going from Vista to W7. Everything looks nice and runs well, but sometimes I can't find specific settings which were present in XP. It seems like they move the setting somewhere else or bury it under a tonne of other crap...oh well, I'll have to get used to it.

By the way, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition is sold out everywhere I looked. So it looks like I won't be getting those night vision goggles after all.

General Stuff.
Stargate Universe looks like a promising addition to the Stargate franchise. The trailers and promotional material look awesome, but I think I'll reserve final judgement until I see the finished product. However if the track record is anything to go by, it will be an excellent series.

I may upload a few shots of new ships I am (slowly) "building", depending on the time I have. One is going to be a cruiser, the other will be a carrier. The carrier is based off of the Lancer, which is based off of the BC-304 Daedalus Class, although it will look more like the Daedalus than the Lancer. (That sentence sounded weird). The Sabre should be finished soon and I'll upload a 3D video tour for that when it's done. But no promises.

Not as cold. But still busy. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

1 comment by SCΛRECROW on Aug 31st, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"Never mistake motion for action." 

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
I don't have to write anything here, do I? But there is hope! Mid semester holiday is coming up soon. Looking forward to playing some matches against friends. By the way, can anyone give their opinion about Fallout 3?

The Sci-Fi at War mod for Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption is coming along nicely. Looks good! Can't wait. If you haven't heard about it before, go and check it out.

General Stuff.
1 assignment down, 4 assignments to go! Why 4 are there 4 assignments still? Because another assignment was released on the day I submitted one. Another due in this week.

The weather has been cold, wet and windy, so no mountain biking or photography. I will probably have to wait until spring or summer and hope that the weather clears up. But wait, spring starts tomorrow! September...there is not enough time!

Cold. Busy. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

11 comments by SCΛRECROW on Aug 25th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when many are watching." 

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
None. Zip. Nada.

General Stuff.
Busy with 4 huge assignments so I'll make this short.

I think some drivers need to learn how to count or to get glasses. I'm doing 59 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, then some driver in a sports car starts using his horn over zealously, then overtakes me and drives at about 70 km/h. Idiot. But I think I got the last laugh, I caught up with him at the next set of traffic lights.

So, I've finished ripping 24. Not going to get much chance to watch it...maybe on the train.

Busy, busy and more busy. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

10 comments by SCΛRECROW on Aug 18th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people " 

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
I wish I had time, but sadly another week without too much gaming. Just a quick co-op game of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 with a couple of friends on Friday...had to blow up a tank with C-4! That was fun!

General Stuff.
I'm more or less broke now after spending all that money on many life's expenses, pushes back my plans for getting new photographic (a couple of lenses, lens filters, a new tripod, more memory cards and possibly an external flash) and computer (upgrade the CPU to a better quad core) hardware back a little.

University...I hate group assignments. Lazy <-insert expletive-> people! They don't do anything! Hoping for a free ride, not with me! No work, no credit, no mark! (Sorry about that...rage problems, can't accept injustice or inequity.)

Currently in the process of ripping my whole "24" (the TV series, not the number) DVD collection, it's mostly automated so I don't have to supervise the thing and it's going to be about 85 GB for 168 episodes and a movie in total when finished.

That's it from me this week.

Busy, busy. Broke. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

5 comments by SCΛRECROW on Aug 11th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend." 

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
Just the usual...no time for much gaming, just waiting around for the new releases.

General Stuff.
I've just spent around $300 on textbooks...they seem way over priced for the content, but what other option do I have? I've said it once, I'll say it again: Education is expensive and time consuming, but ultimately necessary. It certainly is more expensive at the tertiary (university) level. For some reason, I'm getting sick of computers and I.T., probably because I'm spending so much time around them...I need to get out more!

Good news! I've completed my Stargate DVD collection with Stargate Atlantis Season 5 and Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods Final Cut. SGA Season 5 was awesome. Children of the Gods Final Cut was excellent; visual effects are better, new footage, Teal'c sounds the way he should, the new score by Joel Goldsmith is better than the original and Brad Wright's and RDA's commentary is worth every dollar. However, even though the Final Cut benefits from the added footage, I felt that some worthy scenes were cut, I'm not talking about the nude scenes just in case you were wondering, Stargate is finally family friendly!

That's it from me this week.

Busy, busy. Headache. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

4 comments by SCΛRECROW on Jul 31st, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"People only see what they want to see." 

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
Um, I got nothing. Soon perhaps.

Although, I have been looking at Modern Warfare 2's Prestige Edition, it comes with night vision goggles...well they work but they work more like the toy ones. Basically they have a cheap webcam or similar, rip out the low-pass infra-red filter and stick a few infra-red LEDs for illumination and then display the image on a little cheap screen. They have a range of about 15m in pitch black, so I guess $200 AUD for a game and some cool looking NVGs is not bad.

So much for nothing.

General Stuff.
Busy because of "you know what". A few assignments and other tasks have already been handed out, so there's no time to waste! I have to say that the textbooks are damn expensive, considering that I'll only be using them for about 3 months, they seem so wasteful (if that's the right word).

On to photography! Well Nikon announced 2 new Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras and 2 new lenses. The new D300s, which is an improved version of the D300. They also have the D3000 which is an entry-level DSLR. They both look really good. But the thing I'm really looking out for is the 18-200mm AF-S f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II lens, it's the second version of the lens I want to get, which basically puts my plans to get a new lens on hold for a while.

I'll stop boring you now. Tired, again. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

2 comments by SCΛRECROW on Jul 21st, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"You always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
Back to university, so I've stopped or reduced gaming for now. I didn't finish the models off. However, it looks like I'll be venturing into the world of 3Ds max soon, I'll keep you posted, but I wonder how hard it will be to convert my SketchUp models to 3Ds, not just the files, the whole thing, so that all of the entities and groups are the same.

General Stuff.
I've just went out into Melbourne last night to take some photos with a couple of friends, I might post some up here or on Deviant Art if I think they are particularly good. The weather wasn't bad, although the cloud cover did affect quite a few shots. I've also discovered that I should probably get a better tripod, my $20 piece of crap just won't cut it.

In case nobody noticed, it was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Something to celebrate, but it's kind of strange that we haven't been back to the moon in these past decades. Yes, we landed on the moon, look at the photos from the LRO satellites, but you know conspiracy theorists: "Those photos are fakes, they've been photoshopped.". Grow up, landing on the moon is an example of mankind's ingenuity and curiosity, it's a great moment in history. To Mars!

Well, not much else has been happening. That's it from me. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

4 comments by SCΛRECROW on Jul 13th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"Nothing travels faster than light...except bad news."

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
On the gaming front, I have "reclocked" Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 on Hardcore mode and I'm glad it's over. It is extremely hard, especially the last mission; I lost a couple of teammates when they were fast-roping out of the helicopter at the start of the mission...crazy level designers, that mission is hard enough on easy or normal mode.

On the more creative side: I have not finished as many 3D models as I would have liked to, maybe I'll dedicate this last week to finishing a few models off. It might be time for me to do another fighter or a tank.

Above you can see a photo of a CPU die. It looks complicated, because it is. That is a CPU that has 8 cores and 24MB of cache. That might not mean much to most, but to the technically inclined, it's a hell of a lot of computing power. Speaking about power, one CPU consumes about 180W of power, compare that to the monstrous Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 card which guzzles about 290W of power, you are going to need a pretty big power supply for that!

General Stuff.
Over these holidays I wanted to go out and take photos of landscapes and cityscapes, but the weather has been rotten (even though we need the rain), so this hobby has to wait for a while.

Whilst out driving, I've realised that there are some people who need some anger management classes, glasses, a reality check or just some plain commonsense. Is it too much to ask that people obey the road rules? In some situations I'd only feel safe driving a tank, while some people think they are driving tanks and do whatever they like.

You can probably notice that I need more sleep, some sentences may be incoherent or I may just be completely random, I should really stop staying up so late...well I don't stay up on purpose.

Just one last thing: What is the best game soundtrack(s) that you have heard?

Gaming. Building Stuff. Sleeping. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

0 comments by SCΛRECROW on Jul 6th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness."

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
Well, the pricing for Windows 7 was finally announced. Does Microsoft think money grows on trees or that consumers are really that desperate for a new operating system? Windows 7 Ultimate retail in Australia will be a ridiculous $469 and $429 for upgrade. While, Professional is $399 for an upgrade, $449 at retail. Home Premium will cost $299 for the full version and $199 for an upgrade. So this basically puts a hole in my plan to buy a new computer when Windows 7 comes out on October 22 later this year. I would be willing to spend $470 on a graphics card or CPU, but not an O/S! And forget about the offer to buy Windows Vista to upgrade for little cost.

More gaming this week, trying to make up for the lack of gaming created by university. I've gotten a little rusty in some games, so I have to do some refreshing. Had a good game of Supreme Commander though, my friend and I against 6 adaptive (hard AI) on a 81x81km map, boy it was fun, but as you know it takes ages to play one match. This match took about 5 hours but resulted in multiple nukings and victory.

General Stuff.
Camp...it was fun except that it rained, rained and then rained some more. Australia needs more rain, water reservoirs are pretty low in capacity, so I'm happy in that aspect, but I wish it didn't rain on the 3 days I was camping. It was cold, nice and muddy too!, did I mention I was camping on a mountain? Steep slopes of mud that people call roads made the drive up the mountain was a little "hairy". But it's was good.

OK you may be wondering about the title of this blog. Well, you may or may not remember that little incident on the train with the gang. Well, this time I was walking home and as I'm walking past a driveway of a house I heard a shout of "What! You want to start something c***!". I turn and see this huge islander guy walking towards me. You can probably guess what I did next...I left the area by spiriting as fast as possible. Not going to take any chances. So as you see, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm some sort of aggression magnet, I don't think I did any thing to provoke that response. I really don't want anything like this to happen again. Any of you guys have any ideas why this might be happening?

Gaming. Building Stuff. Thinking. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]

2 comments by SCΛRECROW on Jun 29th, 2009

Quote of the blog.

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

Gaming, Modding and Computing Stuff.
My computer died...yeah it sucked. Well, I did a bit of hunting around to try to diagnose the problem, half an hour later I narrowed it down to the motherboard. That cost me about $200 to replace, so it's fixed now, but I was planning on saving money.

Anyway, it's the holidays now so there's going to be plenty of gaming and model making. I should get a couple of my models finished in the next month or so.

General Stuff.
It's the holidays finally, 3 weeks off. As above, there's going to be a lot of gaming. Although I'm going to be off on a camping trip later this week for a couple of days, so I'll be gone for a while.

Gaming. Building Stuff. Camping. Talk later.

Good Gaming and Good Modding.
[SCARECROW]