Who Needs Mailboxes

Email: Its Good and Bad

Emails have now been familiar in the technological society for quite some time now. Starting back in the 1980's companies used Email to send data and info to one another electronically for faster and more reliable transportation. It has spread quite quickly to everyone, with so many different Email providers now, many of which are on the Internet, such as Yahoo Gmail and AIM Mail. But how great is this new medium of stationery? I will go through some of my good and bad experiences of using Email and how it affects my life.

First with the bad. The obvious nuisance to Emails is spam. With all the spam blockers and filters out there, you think that the problem of unnecessary advertisements and badgering money hounds would be solved. Overall, yes, I can say the problem is generally gone. But sometimes, it blocks too much. I remember numerous occasions where I have had Emails from family and friends that get blocked because it met some criteria for spam, and that person or persons wonder why I wasn't getting any of their Emails. I never truly lost any of their Emails, but it was hard to go through all the crap I was giving as "spam" and find what I was suppose to get. Another problem is receiving too many chain letters, either in the form of support for God or the soldiers fighting wars, to the "If you don't send this to 100 people in three seconds your family is going to be murdered by little demon children!!!!" I like the effort but it really gets old fast. Another thing that puts Email at a disadvantage to the postal service is packaging items or gifts. No matter how advanced our computers get, they will never be able to send matter through the airwaves....Sorry.

Now for the happy good things! One thing I love about Email is you don't have to remember anything about anyone you know again! You simply put down ANY information about the person in question (AIM screen name, phone numbers, addresses, schedule for school, likes/dislikes, when they sleep and wake....just kidding, etc)when you first put them into your Email's convenient address book and away you go! Another thing I like is getting funny chain letters. I get jokes from long chains of Emails from friends and family and they are quick and easy to look at and send. Having the Email system helps to at least send pictures. Those are either cute or hilarious to get sent to you, like the baby pictures or some picture of a redneck bike made of shoes. The process itself is definitely better than having to buy stamps and lick the back of some envelope.

Overall, the Email system has helped keep people informed and connected with each other longer and faster, and the system will continue to improve as technology advantages. I mean they already have Email accessible on phones now....think of where they'll be in 20 years!

Diablo: Live or Die

A few years ago, a friend of mine got me to start playing Diablo. It started out with a bit of tough love. In that, I mean my friend showed me how to play the game, but didn't give me too much advice.

Over time, I played through the game, and my friend started telling me how to perfect my characters. I had started playing the non ladder section of the game. Basically to summarize the sections of the online game, there is 4 different options, which are ladder, non ladder, hardcore ladder, and hardcore non ladder. Ladder basically gives a sense of a competition, which resets whenever Blizzard decides they want to reset it. Once ladder gets reset, the characters get moved to non ladder, which contains the accounts and characters since the game was created.

The other side of the online game is hardcore. This is where the challenge lives. This is for people who think they have mastered the game or for people who play Diablo for the game it really is. You may be saying, OK, well what is hardcore. Why is it any better than just playing the game. Hardcore means, if you die, then your character is dead, and you can no longer play on the character. Hence, it provides you with a challenge, to live or die.

Hardcore has no question of who is the best. It is a question of who is alive. Hardcore is the only part of the game where the one person on the top of the rankings, is the strongest player. For if he isn't, someone may come along and take his top spot. Hardcore makes Diablo a game of champions and a game of past champions. It is meant as the side of Diablo reserved for dueling, no matter if you are a level 9 or a level 99. Because with this dueling, in the end, one person will be dead and one will be the victor. If the players are fair duelers, they will allow the winner to loot their body, which means they have the right to take the losers gear and items. So, if you think you are a champion of Diablo, play hardcore. Live or Die.

WoW: Cont'd

Back to World of Warcraft I suppose:

WoW has always been a game that stresses individuality. To start, it provides the player with 10 different races to choose from, each with different strengths and abilities and looks. From there the player gets to choose from countless body and facial traits to make their character look unique. After looks though, the player also gets to choose from 9 different classes, and within these classes a player can choose their own unique style of play.

The 8 races are human, dwarf, night elf, gnome, draenei, undead, orc, troll, tauren, and blood elf. In addition the 9 classes include warrior, paladin, mage, warlock, priest, shaman, rogue, hunter, and druid. Within each class is a series of talent trees, each with different abilities and stat boosts that players can use talent points in. A talent point is aquired for every level gained starting with level 10. So a level 70 player has 61 talent points at their disposal. Each of these talent trees represents a different class of moves and stats that the class can have. For example, the mage has the fire, frost, and arcane trees, each tree representing the fire, frost, and arcane spells that he/she can cast. These talents often boost the effectiveness of a players favorite spells and attacks or sometimes even give the player a new ability. However, since the talents are set up in the "tree" form, the more powerful talents cannot be attained until higher levels when a player can put a certain number of talent points into the tiers below.

Wow, I just threw a lot at you didn't I? Um, sorry. I get carried away sometimes. Basically what that all means is that you pick a race, pick a class, and within that class you get to choose talents that boost your favorite moves and make you more powerful.

Class balance has always been important to Blizzard as well. Despite all the complaints posted in chats and forums around the web, the game does a fairly good job in making each class valuable and equally powerful in their own respect. The different traits of each class are also built very well around each other, and combined in the right ways, make for very very formidable teams against even the most insanely powerful bosses.

Overall the game is huge, fun as hell, and ever changing. If you have any questions about it feel free to ask me and I'll do my best to answer since out of all the games I've talked about, I probably know this one the best. I encourage you to at least dip your toe into this game. It really is a gem and a real joy to play.

WoW

Continuing with my Blizzard theme this week, I shall tackle the ever infamous World of Warcraft (WoW). I know one of my colleagues on this blog already wrote about WoW, but I'd like to give you a little more of an insider's look.

From personal experience I'd first like to say that WoW lives up to its name of "Warcrack." This game is the only thing that I will openly admit has drawn me away from homework and school enough to make my grades drop. I'll also admit that I willingly quit the game one week before coming here to Purdue out of fear that I'd flunk everything and waste thousands of dollars.

Besides all of that though, WoW is probably the greatest gaming experience I've ever encountered. Granted you have to pay montly to play, but in my opinion the money is well worth it. Blizzard provides many, many servers, to play on, and each one has its own slight difference. For example, each server can either be PVP or PVE. In PVP servers, there are certain areas where players of the opposite faction can always fight with other players. In PVE (Player vs. Environment), however, less emphasis is put on PVP and areas that would be contested or hostile in PVP are often safe and friendly as long as you don't attack the wrong NPC. Also the game itself looks stunning for a world of its size.

The game is almost never lacking in new content either. Every few months or so a new major patch comes out that releases new dungeons, quests, bosses, and items. With this constant patching of major material and not just bug fixes, even the most hardcore gamers can usually keep themselves entertained with new challenges.

Another feature of the game that is one of my favorites is the emphasis on teamwork. A player can go it alone all they want, but they will never experience any of the most rewarding and challenging areas of the game. The first step up from solo leveling and questing is dungeons. Each normal dungeon requires 5 people to team up and work together to defeat enemies and more importantly the bosses. Up from normal dungeons are raid dungeons. These are areas that can require either a team of 10 or in many cases a full group of 25. Even with a well-equipped team of 25, these dungeons can not be successfully overcome unless the group communicates well and gets along. Often times a well organized group can do better with lesser gear than the most powerful players with no organization at all.

Anyway, I think I've rambled enough for now, look for more about WoW in my next post.

Diablo II

So I've been avoiding Blizzard for a while but I can ignore them no longer, and I think I'll start with Diablo II.

Diablo II was, to be honest, my first real PC gaming experience. Nowadays its a fairly cheap game, about $20 for the main game and another $20 if you want the expansion too. Its a 3D, angled top view down dungeon crawler RPG. Wow, that's a lot to swallow. Anyway, basically you pick a class like many other RPGs. You start out at lvl 1 with very basic weapons and armor. From there you run around and kill things such as goblins, orcs, bears, harpies, zombies, bats, and other assorted evil things you'd expect. The game plays very easily too. You point and click where you would like your character to move. Also, the right and left mouse buttons are each assigned a specific spell or attack and using said attack is as easy as pointing and clicking on the enemy you want to use it on on the screen.

The real kicker about this game is the ability to play online with others. This only play along with trade amounted to a massive economy. However, items can freely become traded between people after they have been used, which after a while made too many items too widely available and ruined this system of trade. Today most people place value in runes and certain sets which are on the rare side. These runes (along with jewels) can be used on items that have sockets to give them added attributes. In addition certain combinations of runes can make "runewords" which add even more attributes than just those runes alone.

Online play also brought about the popularity of powerleveling or "rushing." This is accomplished by having a player of much higher level defeat key bosses for you which "rushes" you through the storyline. (There are 3 levels of difficulty Normal, Nightmare, and Hell.) Once you've gained access to the final areas of the storyline, you team up with as many other players and run through the final minibosses before the final boss, Baal. These minibosses along with the extra people give you crazy amounts of experience and allow you to powerlevel your way through the game. Since there are 3 difficulty levels, people most often will do this untill it becomes inefficient in one difficulty, then rush through the next untill they reach the high 80s and 90s. The level cap in the game is 99. Also you have to have the expansion to be able to experience this form of rushing, along with the final area and many new items.

Another fun thing to do once you've become good at the game is try the level on its hard mode. In this mode your character becomes a little more... life like... Basically if you die even once, all of your items and progress is lost. You only have one life. Pretty hard core if you ask me.

Despite all the corruption and cheap tricks in the game, the storyline is fairly well done and the game is rewarding, especially if you play through the game at least once legitimately before you stoop to buying items online and powerleveling. I also highly encourage you play it with friends. People you can trust and who treat you with respect make the game a lot more fun.

Life Saving Helmets

I am a klutz, I won't deny it. I have broken 12 bones, sprained my neck and had two concussions, all of which were not involved with any car accidents or anything that was fully out of my control. So reading this article scares me a little bit.

There is new evidence that football players, who literally use their head to win games, might suffer from a disease related to boxer's dementia called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE. It seems to be caused by repeated concussions, which was the scary part for me. CTE is characterized by confusions, memory loss, slurred speach and mood disorders, like an elderly person who has dementia.

There was thought that this condition existed long before scientists got more concrete proof. To me, its seems like more than a coincidence that many football players that had many concussions would die early and usually from something they had caused. Proof came in the form of an autopsy. The medical examiner found that the player that had died has suffered brain damage.

The problem now is that people, namely the NFL, aren't exactly convinced that this is a risk they should worry about. To give their side a chance, the symptoms aren't fully consistent with boxer's dementia and there isn't a lot of proof for separate cases. But different injuries will lead to different parts of the brain being damaged and that will lead to different symptoms.

There is a helmet out now that can prevent this whole problem. It is full of sensors that relay real time information to the sports medicine people on the sidelines about everything that's hitting the head of the player wearing it. This bit of technology can be used to gage how severe a brain trauma is and can help the people on the sidelines know when to bench a player. It can also help a lot with research in this condition. So far seven universities and five high schools use the helmets to protect their players. The NFL is still dragging its feet, but at least they are considering the technology.

In my opinion, it is much better to play it safe than sorry. I would rather my star player live a long happy life that kill himself at 40 after having severe depression. I would also like one for myself, just in case.(I'm sure you know I'm kidding.)

Thanks again Popular Science for the content and the picture. Go ahead and read more on the subject at their website.

Sky Diving Taken to New Heights

And by that I mean literally. There have been dreams from people who write for Popular Science about sky diving from space. I think they should rename that extreme sport space diving.

Two senarios were set up for the reason that you would have for space diving. One was sport and the other was for survival for those who had malfunctions in the space craft they were traveling in. I don't know about you, but I couldn't jump out of a plane, let alone a space ship, but the other application for the future technology seems to actually be useful.

The suit was the main focus of the article though. When falling from space, objects (including humans) experience lots of heat and lots of force. The suit that these space divers would wear would be specially designed to regulate heat, not burn up, and keep the helmet pressure just right. Other features that would be absolutely necessary is the parachute system. There would be two chutes that the diver would use, one in the upper atmosphere to keep from thrashing around and getting torn apart and the other would be used at the more traditional time too keep from hitting the ground too fast and dying.

The concept drawings make the suit look more like a superhero suit with a jetpack and other gadgets at the ready, but that may have been the goal of the artist who drew them. Its the superhero look that makes the suit look really cool and futuristic though.

Oh and one last thing; this whole idea is actually plausible. That's the icing on the cake, especially because it reminds me just how far we have come. The sky isn't the limit anymore.

Thanks Popular Science again for all the content and the picture. I suggest you all take a look at the full article at the link.