So Sue Me

Zdravstvuyte guys! I know I keep saying I will be back, and then disappearing for long periods of time. The truth is, I keep having stuff come up. I intend to make blogging priority, giving up whatever i need to to make it happen. However, the posts on this blog take a lot of time and research to put together, unlike my musings blog. Therefore, I will probably find myself more on that blog than this one. However, both will be posted on far more often than before. As always, this blog will be for current events, theories, and science. The other one will be to get a glimpse into trains of thought that I have, or just stuff going on in my life. Sorry for the short post and poor wording, it is just an announcement after all! See ya and allons-y.

AR, VR, AC, MTV, VCR, VHS, DVD... Wait, just the first 2?

Hey guys! Sorry it has been a while since I discussed a topic here on this page, but I am here now. So, recently I have found myself thinking a lot about augmented reality, the art of merging VR and real life. Pokemon, Occulus and other things of the like have put me in the mood to discuss this topic at length. AR could be our future. Do me a favor. Look around the room and really think about what actually needs to exist physically. As it turns out, not much, not even the people necessarily need to be there. Imagine, instead of a $20 chess set and a several thousand dollar TV, you buy them in the app store for a few dollars and use them anywhere, any time, at any size. Imagine being in the same room as a person across the globe, for a game of chess, a conference, or just a conversation. Imagine a world, where we can all be together, social, and having a good time. That is the issue with our current technological age. People are losing ability to communicate. Society is undergoing a paradigm shift. We can let it go as is, and evolve society to be fat, language-less creatures that communicate by typing on cold, non-personal computers. There is another way. We can push the shift to utilize AR and regain our humanity, get the brightest minds together to kill disease, and even truly play Pokemon in real life.
There are also many concerns behind AR as well, but I feel they lack ground. People are concerned that this will put many people out of work, having their service or product become purely digital. It will, but without AR, this shift away from the necessity of those jobs will happen anyway. In every paradigm shift, people lose their lives work. Between cave men and early civilization, people had to abandon hunting and gathering, and learn to farm. They then had to learn to build. The list goes on and on. Every time society changes, people have to adapt. Some more than others. This world is changing either way, it may as well be for the better. Some are concerned that this will cause too great a reliance on electricity, and make power plants a main target for terrorists, making it easy to take out a country. Yes and no. This, again would happen anyway if we let the shift go as is. However, incorporating AR will allow the best minds to come together to create new, hyper-efficient renewable energy sources. It will also allow us to all become closer together, a little bit of kindness and realization of ones own humanity will make it easier to avoid people becoming violent extremists, and could even prevent wars. People are also concerned that it will end the age of good, hard work. That age is already over. I value hard work in all forms, physical and mental, and feel that AR will make it easier for us select few, who, in addition to efficiency and enjoyment, crave a challenge, to keep that ideal alive.
We could advance all areas of science.Medicines to extend life, cold fusion in a jar, and hyperspacial travel are all very real possibilities that can now become a reality in our lifetimes, if only the right people could come together. Finally, not enjoying your first date? Hit end AR call and you are gone. See ya and allons-y.

Cursed Time Consumer

Hey guys. So as you all may know, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child just dropped, and I was absolutely thrilled. Even though I was slammed with work, things at home, and a few other things I can not discuss at the moment, I read it within 3 days of it coming out, and day 3 was just the last chapter. So, I have decided to review it, spoilers, but, not really. I just have to call it so that no one gets mad. Anyways, since my first reading of it so little time ago, I have reread it more times than I like to admit, and have read every review I could find. I think that I was getting too much hate. I will explain why the bad emotions were out of proportion, and then why the book is good. One reason why I believe people have been hating on it so much is because of the format. It was written as a script, as for a play. This format can be unfamiliar to those who are not actors, or lovers of Shakespeare. Things that are strange and unfamiliar can be uncomfortable for people, and this format can make it difficult to immerse oneself in the story. I am an actor and a lover of old Billy Shakes(sorry Mr.Shakespeare), but to immerse myself in a script was a learned skill, and one that not many have. However, the main reason it is getting such bipolar reviews is because people went into this expecting it to be as good as the original 7 books. There was absolutely no way that this new book could compare to the original series. You have to take it, although as a canonical part of the series, as a separate book. It is made to tell an after story, to give another ending, and renewed life, to all the characters we know and love.

Billy Shakes

Now, to explain why this book is a work of art. Here spoilers may get a little worse, so beware, but not really. I drove home from my local bookshop, and I could feel the book burning a hole in the seat behind me, where I placed it so I could restrain myself. It had beautiful art on the cover, and promised me the story of Harry's son. The inside was even better. As I opened the cover, I was instantly back in the wizarding world. This book transports us into the head of the teenage child of a legend, the one who, from the moment he started at Hogwarts, felt like a disappointment. He had only one friend, and constantly feeling like he had failed. I think this boy, Albus Severus Potter, is the most relate-able character in any of the series. We all know what it's like to try and escape someones shadow, only to end up disappointed. We know what it's like to feel alone. Furthermore, as the book progressed we got to reunite with our old friends of the past, grown older, and see what their lives became. They all had great lives, which is what we all wanted to know for true. Some characters, through portraits, and Albus' screwing up time to undo the mistakes of his father, we got to see some deceased friends, come back, in perfect character. We got to see how everything could have turned out, with the tiniest of changes. This book, in true harry potter fashion, ended in good morals and lessons, as well as new beautiful quotes. So remember to be close to your loved ones, to learn from your mistakes, that everything happens for a reason, and that we all must make sacrifices, for the greater good of others. See ya and allons-y!

Contest!

Ei guys! For those of you out there who know what country this is already, good job! The rest of you can learn that it is indeed Portuguese, the language of Portugal. I would like to announce a contest.. My google plus page needs a cover, and I want one that is fan made. Every entry will be featured on the blog of your choice, and my favorite will go up on the page. Email me the entries at bibobottrell@gmail.com See ya and allons-y.

How to Nuzlocke

Hey guys! So today I wanted to talk about Pokemon. To be more specific, I wanted to talk about a way to lose the game. Of course, I speak of the Nuzlocke challenge. There is a lot of dispute on what the base rule set is and what clauses are available. I am here to clear it up and tell you how I believe it should be played. The base rules are as follows; If a Pokemon faints it is considered dead, and must be released into the wild; When you are out of Pokemon, you lose and must erase the save file; You can only catch the first Pokemon you encounter in any given area;If you fail to catch that first encounter, you can not try again; You must nickname every Pokemon. Now, there are of course several applicable clauses to this, that add difficulty to the challenge. The duplicate clause, which I always play with, says that you can not catch a Pokemon that you have at any time possessed. If it is your first encounter, it doesn't count as such, and your next encounter can be the functional catch. This rule not only forces you to have a more varied team, but it prevents breeding, and can stop you from getting a catch on certain routes if you already have everything on it. There is the no healing in battle clause, which I use sometimes, and it dictates that you not heal in battle. There is the one use building clause which says that you can only use any given Poke mart or center one time. I don't use that. There is the no running clause, stating you can't run from battle, which I think is more trouble than it's worth. There is the full party clause, which says you must have your party as full as possible(for example, if you have 6 Pokemon, you must have them all in the party, instead of splitting them in some way between your party and PC so that you can have a backup). There is also the defeat all clause which states you must defeat every trainer in an area before moving on. I never really state that I am doing this, but I almost always end up doing it, as I hate unfinished business. There are many more available clauses, and you can make your own, but I feel these are the most important to know. Any clause is optional of course. The final rule of any Nuzlocke is not to chicken out. This challenge is self-enforced, but it is very rewarding to complete. I want to suggest that everyone try it. I find it fun to write a story in conjunction with the challenge about how the team in working out, about their personal fears and triumphs, and about how they cope with the death. A good YouTube series depicting my favorite rule set to most extents as well as having a good story, once you get a few episodes in and he gets used to making the videos, is the Super Carlin Gaming Pokemon Fire Red Nuzlocke Challenge. That is it for me today. See ya and allons-y.

Living the Vive-a Loca

Hey guys. Yesterday I had the privilege of going to a family friend's house to try his new HTC Vive. He has it connected to an awesome gaming computer and has an Oculus Rift coming in the mail. Y'all know what time it is, Dope or Nope. The moment that helmet fell into place over my eyes, I was completely immersed, in a menu. I'm nopeing that I had to do a menu first. The game was a demo called The Blu. I used the wands, which I am dopeing for being such an intuitive interface, to select a whales tale, I had seen this one on a screen before, and at the time it seemed cartoony, so I figured it would be a good one to see first, because I knew what was coming. After a brief loading screen (Nope), I realized I couldn't be more wrong. I was standing on the surface of a boat, a bit animated looking (Nope), but within seconds I forgot that this was not how the world looked (Dope). I walked around the ship, with a feeling of needing to swim and to hold my breath. I bent down to examine a fish that was awesome, unconsciously reaching out to touch it, it freaked and swam away. (Dope) I looked up, and a school of fish, accompanied by a manta ray, was swimming in front of the sun. A whales swam up beside me and my sunken ship, I walked up to it and looked it in the eye, I then realized that I had walked off the boat and jumped back, scared, to the boat. The whale got even closer, the eye filled my vision and it blinked. As it began to swim away, I watched, leaning on the railing, I fell forward, as there was no railing. The whale swam away, tail flashing before my face. This was ten minutes of my several hour experience, and the least cool part of it. I won't waste your time by telling you the rest of it, all I will say is the whale was nothing. Dooooooooope is the end result with an experience well worth the hefty price tag.

First tech review

Hey guys. So I feel it is about time for me to review something. This will be based on a dope or nope basis. To explain this reviewing system, it is first impressions only, and each attribute of the product or program is awarded a point dope or a point nope. They are not directly correlated with the end result, only taken into account.
Quizlet recently came out with a new thing called Quizlet live. Quizlet was previously only a great online flashcard making and sharing service. Dope for branding. Quizlet live allows an instructor to quiz a whole class on their knowledge of the material in form of a fun game. It divides the class, all using their own devices, into teams of about 3. This of course is after they pick their name to be shown as each game, which teachers can remove if inappropriate. Nope for not having an adoption to go solo, dope for team dynamic of random team assignment, which is a constant.  Dope for naming system. The teams are randomly named after animals by the system and the game begins. Each team member is shown a set of answers that their team doesn't have. A question is shown simultaneously on all team members screens, and the one with the answer clicks it, and then they have one less answer to choose from in the future. Nope for not being able to answer every time. Dope for having it be like a checklist for each person. If anyone misses a question, their teams progress is reset. Dope for high stakes on each question. When all of the questions have been answered or cards have been paired by one team without error, they win.

So, overall first impressions, it is still in the works and they have a lot of improvements to make. However, even now it is a very useful tool for studying as a group and is very enjoyable for everyone. Overall, it is a dope. Dope as an end result just means it seems better than it is bad, so go check it out yourself. Nope would be I don't even recommend giving it a look.