|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
TCHS 4O 2000 [4o's nonsense] alvinny [2] - csq - edchong jenming - joseph - law meepok - mingqi - pea pengkian [2] - qwergopot - woof xinghao - zhengyu HCJC 01S60 [understated sixzero] andy - edwin - jack jiaqi - peter - rex serena SAF 21SA khenghui - jiaming - jinrui [2] ritchie - vicknesh - zhenhao Others Lwei [2] - shaowei - website links - Alien Loves Predator BloggerSG Cute Overload! Cyanide and Happiness Daily Bunny Hamleto Hattrick Magic: The Gathering The Onion The Order of the Stick Perry Bible Fellowship PvP Online Soccernet Sluggy Freelance The Students' Sketchpad Talk Rock Talking Cock.com Tom the Dancing Bug Wikipedia Wulffmorgenthaler       |
|
bert's blog v1.21 Powered by glolg Programmed with Perl 5.6.1 on Apache/1.3.27 (Red Hat Linux) best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution on Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ entry views: 1326 today's page views: 295 (4 mobile) all-time page views: 3246656 most viewed entry: 18739 views most commented entry: 14 comments number of entries: 1214 page created Fri Apr 18, 2025 07:51:07 |
|
- tagcloud - academics [70] art [8] changelog [49] current events [36] cute stuff [12] gaming [11] music [8] outings [16] philosophy [10] poetry [4] programming [15] rants [5] reviews [8] sport [37] travel [19] work [3] miscellaneous [75] |
|
- category tags - academics art changelog current events cute stuff gaming miscellaneous music outings philosophy poetry programming rants reviews sport travel work tags in total: 386 |
| ||
|
Followups It so happens that the Qatar World Cup is back in the news, a week after the timely book review - a former FIFA vice-president has been accused of receiving millions for his help, with the Daily Mail even managing to link the hosts to terrorism! Well, one can't be too astonished at talk of bribery given history, but this is a little rich. That's also what the Russian takeover of Crimea is being presented as in the Western press, with the United States and friends declaring that they would "never accept" the action, while laying in with sanctions. The more one reads history and follows current affairs, however, the harder it is to escape the impression that legality in international dealings can be rather... ad-hoc (recall the roots of the initial coup in Ukraine) To be contrary, let us start with the Russian point of view: a (slight) majority of Crimeans do regard themselves as ethnically Russian, and if they want to join the Motherland by right of self-determination as spelt out in the UN Charter, who are these outsiders to stop them? The comments on Today's piece putting out the government's line are certainly coloured by realpolitik, key among them the ostensible common denominator in the United States' enforcement of justice:  Operation Patriot All Your Oil Are Belong To Us Lawfully commence! (Source: chzbgr.com) While Crimean support may largely be genuine, however, the process itself was also undeniably problematic. To begin with, the referendum (put together in all of ten days) had just two options - de facto declare independence and be on your own, or join Mother Russia. Keeping the status quo and remaining part of Ukraine was apparently out of the question. Next was the result - 95.5% for Russia. Such an overwhelming margin in a large-scale, (supposedly) democratic vote cannot help but raise some questions, even if Russia is throwing in financial sweeteners, raising memories as it does of Kim and Saddam's clean sweeps. Someone should really tell them that seventy-plus percent is more than enough... The immediate aftermath is clear enough - the West makes noise and squeezes some Ruskie underlings, while Comrade Putin laughs it off and beats up another bear for fun after completing the transfer, or something. Some have suggested that Russia might not have been so daring had Ukraine retained their nukes instead of surrending them for a now-lapsed guarantee, but let's get real - they were never going to start a nuclear war over Crimea, even if they had the means.  Objection noted. We will give it our most sincerest consideration. (Source: Photobucket) If there's one thing that's clear, it is that the "right to self-determination" isn't. You would think that this would be straightforward - a supermajority of people in some territory decides that they don't like their parent nation that much after all, hold a vote, and the split goes cleanly and peacefully, and the two parties remain friends. Well, it has seldom turned out that way. Memories here may be short, but Konfrontasi (and thereby the recent warship naming outrage) was born from just such a situation, with exactly who was annexing who very much in the eye of the beholder. While bearing in mind that some regions today (that shall not be named) are likely held under duress, we turn to the United States for an example of how to deal with this in a civilized manner... and find that there is none. Their Constitution says absolutely nothing about the possibility, which is slightly disappointing for the torchbearers of democracy, and a fair bit more for the South that would Rise Again - though the law fraternity are probably licking their lips at all the litigation to be billed, if it does come to pass. [N.B. Refer another of my favourite Quora answers, on a hypothetical state-against-state battle royale] This is not merely academic either - secessionist movements are gaining ground in a number of Western nations. Among them, Quebec from Canada and the Catalans from Spain (i.e. Barcelona from Real Madrid) have a long history - in fact, so long that some have come to view them as a recurring fashion (that said, the Canadians have taken it seriously enough to examine its legality); these days, the Scots (latterly of the very complicated United Kingdom, which saw one of the few [comparatively] quiet splits) are getting into the act as well, but seem to be reconsidering, because of the money. Which really explains a lot. But yeah, about that "never" - never is a long time. Eyeballing the lists of states from today (roughly 206 in total) and a century past (57), it is obvious that nations are not in general extremely long-lived entities. Heck, there was no "Russian Federation" thirty years ago, no "Ukraine" a century ago, and no "United States of America" 250 years ago! So where did all that land and legality derive from? Just a thought. Anyway, on acts of terror, what Moyes has been doing to my beloved Manchester United must surely qualify. That 0-3 defeat to Liverpool was about as bad as I've seen them play, but just when I thought that he must surely be out, they go and get past Olympiakos, before Wayne Rooney went and scored from halfway against West Ham. That said, if Moyes manages to get United to lift the Champions League trophy, beginning with a Bayern side that thrashed Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate last year, I'm all for him getting another season. And to round up: Mr. Ham's using the debate takings to rebuild the Ark (well, what didja expect), the Vatican's digitizing their collection (that's better), and the US Army's after 4D printing (huh, what?). Also switched back to the regular Chrome channel, with Javascript on dev bugged like hell. Oh, and I learnt to hate C pointers with a vengeance. JB Makan (Mostly) Sunday saw one more addition to the 4O day trip series, this time to Johor Bahru, where we started with a slightly-overloaded (but peaceable) teksi, trip to a bak kut teh place for brunch, during which there was some debate about when we visited Malacca (suggested: 2011. correct answer: 2010). The free broth refills were appreciated. Next stop (as correctly predicted by the friendly immigration officer) was CitySquare Mall, where I hung about the MPH, and took note of these titles:
Two observations: the thickness of a book seemed to have no bearing on its price, and there were far more titles on LKY than Mahathir. Was this due to the bookstore catering to Singaporeans, given its proximity? Got on a bus to KSL Mall, where we found that Divergent would only screen at 4:30 p.m., too late for our schedule. Made the short walk to a now distressingly run-down Holiday Plaza, where we got pointed to a LAN shop down the street (store name ZNOS, for those interested), which had some of the largest deluxe monitors I've seen. The lure of Serious Sam was not enough for one of our number, who opted for a massage (it was left unsaid whether there were any "special" services), so it was left for the rest of us to Dota 2 together. Since it would have been suicide to take on human players for newbies, we played against bots... wait, why is the interface in Chinese?! Ah, small inconvenience - first game wasn't too much of a problem, though my Earthshaker wasn't as effective as I had hoped - we had a friendly Nature's Prophet doing the split push rat doto, and once Riki got farmed, it was over. It was noted that there was one higher difficulty level - Unfair (which for the record, means that they have no reaction delay, as well as a 25% bonus to gold and experience). Randomed Magnataur, had a Pudge solo top, and was beginning to dream of huge blink-Reverse Polarities and super cleaving for our Juggernaut, when they simply pushed and steamrolled us, with the help of Warlock's Golems (more later) Third game, randomed Sven, and partnered Bloodseeker bottom to a pseudo-first blood with an opportunistic stun on Luna (note: being mobbed by creeps in the early levels hurts). Well, we won handily enough, aided by the guest Zeus who was amazingly proficient at kill- Since that took only half an hour, we had one last go at Unfair, and I drew Ursa. Early Roshan came off, and it wasn't looking too bad; we got our Black King Bars, and prepared to crush mid despite having lost our side towers... eh, how did Luna get that fat? Our Lion teammate was particularly disgruntled at Sniper having bought an Armlet of Mordiggian (a... rare choice for this hero, to be honest) and a Vitality Booster, and complimented him for "pro items", before a parting shot of "well played" as our throne fell (thus the post title). Well, that was much more polite than the community norm. It was left to smother our sorrows with Ah Jiu's famous San Lou (i.e. third floor) Mi Fen. We had a tough time getting a cab willing to make the journey due to traffic conditions, though, and wound up cutting a deal for a flat 15RM fee. It was probably worth it for his information alone, including the trivia about Ah Jiu's daughter Ah Ming having opened a restaurant of her own, just down the block.  That's the place The beehoon was indeed as tasty as promised, and we wound up ordering an extra helping. Unfortunately, they were out of crayfish, so we settled for sotong as a side dish. Chicken servings were generous too, and it was just as well, since they ran out of that later too. All in all, probably worth another visit. Picked up a copy of the Sunday Star for research purposes, and admired their hefty comics collection, including many former ST staples... huh, is that Sumiko Tan again? Dota 2 Stock Taking Linsanity is in With Valve recently releasing the Free To Play documentary chronicling the journey of three Dota pros, and I realising that I had put in 800 games of my own (this after going cold turkey for almost the whole of February) - and a few more in Johor - what better time to look back at my (mis)adventures? Of these 800 games, 787 had hero stats recorded. Nearly all of these were All Pick, Single Draft (rare) or All Random (also rare), and I randomed in nearly all the All Pick games. Generally, I do not repick unless saddled with a tricky hero (i.e. Meepo/Io). In other words, it is safe to say that I played a random hero in at least 700 of these games. With 104 heroes (though some recently added), we would expect each hero to be played an average of about 7.6 times. Indeed, the actual distribution is close to expected, with the slight bump at ~12 games played probably due to the few repicks, in which case a small group of more-favoured heroes would tend to be picked. For the record, Shadow Shaman was the most-played hero, with 15 uses, followed by Skeleton (now Wraith) King, Sven, Clockwerk, Tidehunter, Troll Warlord and Outworld Devourer on 13. Of these, Skeleton King and perhaps Sven and Troll could have contributions from repicking - Clockwerk is definitely not one of my favs.  About this time last year (and about 200 games played), I remarked that I was unbeaten with only two heroes: Night Stalker and Warlock (both 4-0). Well, Warlock is on 6-0, while Night Stalker has fallen to 5-2. Moreover, Spirit Breaker (4-0) and Meepo (1-0) are unbeaten too, just that they were not counted then due to having too few games played. It was noted then that Warlock's success was due to his public-game friendly skillset - a tanky (tied second for Strength growth among Intelligence heroes) ranged hero that can heal or nuke as the situation warrants, and call down one, then two (with Aghanim's), then four (with Refresher Orb) huge-ass magic-resistant burning Golems that stun and deal huge damage to the surroundings? Most teams simply don't have anything that can deal with that, till it's too late. It is no surprise, then, that Warlock currently has the second-highest all-time win ratio (at 56.88%, over nearly 23 million games played). If 7% over par sounds unimpressive, it should be remembered that Dota heroes are regularly adjusted to keep their power levels consistent, at least when played at near-full potential. Of course, it might well be that I play some heroes better or worse than may be expected, and to check, I plotted my win ratios against the public all-time win ratios, by percentile:  [Click image for hero breakdowns and other details] (Public Win Percentile Source: DotaBuff) [N.B. Distribution definitely does not apply for pro games] Each coloured square represents an individual hero, and the diagonal line then is where the squares should fall, if my performance on them mirrors the public average; since my own sample size is relatively tiny, that is unlikely. Then, heroes above the diagonal are those with which I did worse than the public (my "bogey" heroes), and those below the diagonal are those with which I did better (my "signature" heroes). Just by eyeballing the chart, it should be evident that I tend to perform better with spell-dependant Intelligence heroes (in blue). Actually, I enjoy melee heroes more, but apparently that has little to do with effectiveness. So, the ten personal relative-worst heroes:
Zeus I can understand, since his effectiveness tapers off fast. Most of the remainder are strange, though - other than Mirana and Keeper of the Light, I would gladly choose any of the rest in a serious match. Abaddon and Necrophos are in my opinion excellent tank-healers (like Warlock), and indeed Abaddon is top of the all-time win ratio list. Drow and Viper are potent orbwalkers with heavy damage potential late, and Luna is a very mobile early caster transitioning into a carry. Perhaps the small sample size was not representative after all? Lifestealer is another mystery, as despite being one of my old favourites, it was the hero that I had the worst record (0-5) with. On the surface, he has it all - built-in magic immunity and boosted attack speed for six seconds on a 19-second timer, a potent slow, a heap of lifesteal, and the ability to piggyback on any ally (then again, the 801st game saw him hitch rides on an aggressive Riki, so he's 1-5 now) And the best:
Meepo probably shouldn't count, since his position is due to a 100% record from one game. Notably, I wouldn't pick most of these heroes if I had free choice, exceptions being Medusa and Juggernaut, and maybe Leshrac if pushing towers fast is the goal. Storm Spirit's not quite my style, while a well-placed Sunstrike by Invoker is satisfying, but otherwise I'm not quite quick-fingered enough to make good use of him. Always thought that Queen of Pain tends to go downhill fast too, but there you go. Alchemist is not unexpected, as he's a near-ideal farming hero, while Juggernaut's Blade Fury early on and Omnislash late are often sufficient for pwning lots of heads. Medusa's Mystic Snake makes staying in-lane against her a right pain, and her ultimate is often underestimated - three seconds of immobility and increased physical damage taken? Often more than sufficient, especially later on. Next: Story Of A Bit
Trackback by Hungry Shark Evolution
Trackback by rolex replica
Trackback by Sac Longchamp Grille
Trackback by Sac Longchamp Tour Eiffel
Trackback by ホームページ
Trackback by All White Isabel Marant Sneakers
Trackback by Ray Harding mediation
Trackback by property valuers perth
Trackback by pussycat dolls when i grow up
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Copyright © 2006-2025 GLYS. All Rights Reserved. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
