Kitesurfing!

Interested in kitesurfing and great photography!

This is the site you want to be watching: DRStoke

Some crazy awesome pictures!
Peace out.

Black Mesa - The game to end all games?

So with much speculation regarding Half life 2 Episode 3, or just Half Life 3, a small group of individuals have decided to take matters into their own hands. How is this possible? Well, this group of talented people have poured their body, soul and probably quite a bit of their income into recreating the game that started it all...

In better graphics that is!

The game that started it all? Yes.. Half Life.

Half Life 1, was released on the 19'th of November 1998... Contrary to popular belief, the game was not released in 1999. Players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, who has a phd in theoretical sciences. He is a rather highly qualified man, who just seems to push around crates of unknown materials for the Big Wigs. However this time the goodie he pushes into the testing machine is a bit more volatile than the government had suspected. All Zen breaks loose and then Dr. Freeman has to go about attempting to save the research facility from huge arms that bash things, houndeyes (almost like supersonic dogs) and even the army!

Now why is this all so amazing you might ask. Half Life was Valve Corporations debut product. It all lived and died with this one game. Luckily for Valve, Half Life was a major success and received a 96/100 from metacritic. It was so successful that Valve released a sequel and then two more episodes on top of that. However since then, they have gone quiet about any follow ups or anything relating to Half Life despite the many calls from fans to continue the franchise. I mean, how often is it that people actually ask(or beg in this regard) the company to continue making the game.

This, and just the love for the game, and possibly some extra time must have motivated the very talented group at Black Mesa to recreate Half Life 1.

About the Game!

It is superbly created, with the attention to detail almost becoming OCD in places. The thought that has gone behind every nook and cranny is amazing. But possibly the most amazing thing about Black Mesa is that the team did not just take Half Life and remake it map for map, but rather decided to interpret the maps in their own style, while adding a slightly different flavour to the missions. So while playing you sort of have a De Ja Vu feeling about a certain place, or perhaps shout, "Hey, I remember this!". While in other areas the map seems to have changed almost completely. It is as if the Black Mesa team have taken the original clay of the game and moulded it into a statue of liberty! A statue which now knocks on Valve Corporations door, and then leaving a note that it is their move.

Is Black Mesa the game to end all games? Probably not, but in a world of Call of Duty look a likes, and warcrafty type intrusions into the game market, it is very refreshing to be able to play a game that has been so carefully crafted and so timelessly researched.

Go ahead and spoil yourself. The game is available free here. And just follow these instructions and you will be up and running in (a day or so in South Africa due to slow internet)...

Do it! Its worth it!

Book Review: The Firm by John Grisham

Book title: The Firm

Author: John Grisham

Genre: Legal Thriller

Mitch McDeere, young and straight out of law school, is being hounded by offers from law firms all over the USA. After much deliberation over where to work he finally decides on a small four storey firm in Memphis: Bendini, Lambert and Locke. With his new job, he gets a new house, which his wife, Abby, is allowed to decorate, a new BMW and a nice pay check each month. He has to work extremely hard for the firm and aspires to be a partner in the firm within 5 years.

Abby becomes friends with his colleague’s wife, but finds herself growing annoyed with some of “the firm”’s many restrictions which apply to their families as well. However he stays oblivious to this until he is approached by an agent for the FBI. When he reports this encounter to the Board at his firm, he is quickly sent on a trip to the Bahamas. There, an encounter with a young girl leads to trouble. His suspicions arise after he returns, and finds his house and car have become bugged. Now he doesn’t know who to trust, but what he does know is enough to get many people killed!

The Firm is a fast-paced, surprising and detailed book describing how the Mob can use ordinary people without their knowledge. The book plays on our fears as humans regarding privacy and society’s Big Brother syndrome: nowhere are we safe. The story is told in third person which allows the reader to better understand what is happening with each of the characters; it also creates a sense of speed and urgency, while enhancing the feeling of being watched. The twist at the very end provides a satisfying end to a fascinating read.

Back in.. Well not Black

OK. Its been a while has it not. I would like to thank all our followers who held out during the dry patch where we were doing some minor adjustments to the site. However, the site will now be up and running once more.

So on that rather resounding note I would like to welcome everybody back to the site with most of the news, projects and general everyday helping out.

We hope to keep you posted and keep this blog up and running for some more time.

Peace out, and watch this space

Why are Asians so good at mathematics? An analytical report

Before anyone says anything about stereotypes and predjudice - just stop.  Let's face it - by the average guy's standards, Asians are better at maths. And although this is not always the case, we cannot deny the fact that we've all been trumped by an Asian in a maths test sometime in our life. Before I continue analyzing possible reasons for this strange phenomena, take a look at the following comparison:

      

 It is clearly evident that the average Asian is better able to manage complex mathematics sums than non-Asians.  Of course, this cannot simply be assumed by looking at the above example, but I base my opinion on facts as many studies have been done on the matter (including one by the BBC). After much consideration, I have outlined the following as the most likely reasons for this strange phenomenon (call it "x"...)

1) Societal Pressures -
    In most Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan, there is immense societal pressure on students
    to perform well. Many generations of hard working people have created an "acceptable standard" at
    which students are expected to perform. The educational systems in these countries supports these ideals
    and pushes students hard (often too hard to allow decent freedom in one's life). The time that a child
    spends at school varies, but can often be from ten to twelve hours a day. In addition, weekends are not
    resting periods - most Asian schools require pupils to attend school six days a week. Scary stuff. In a
    nutshell, the standard of Asian schools is far higher than Western countries, and in addition the
    expectations that parents place on students is remarkably high.

2) Population -
    Currently China has a population of 1,325,639,982 people, South Korea is sitting at roughly 48,607,000.
    In today's world, one must either sink or swim. Students must work as hard as they possibly can in order
    to ensure that they have a job and can feed themselves. This of course, is no different to any other
    country - except that the huge populations in these countries results in students pushing themselves even
    harder than they would have otherwise. This reason should really be reffered to as "competition" as that
    is the fundamental idea here.

In conclusion: adaptation -
Due to the above two reasons, the Asian community is pressured into being clever. Now I know this sounds wrong, but get what I am saying here. Many years of dedication and hard work, and a good mental attitude can result in people's thought being "moulded" into an ideal way. I believe this is exactly what is happening here - they are just so damn clever! I would like to say that no-one should feel offended by this post, I have been talking about the Asian community as a seperate unit to everyone else. This was only to make things easier - in reality it does not matter where you are from or what skin colour you have because we are all different in our own ways, and should feel united because of that.                                                       

Infected Mushroom - Legend Of The Black Shawarma

The newly released album by Infected Mushroom is very much the same as most of their other albums. It comes with more of the same utterly mind blowing and amazingly put together sounds that creates a symphony of music that would be expected to come from out of space.
Although the album was originally meant to be a concept album of the duo's (Amit "Duvdev" Duvdevani, Eisen) favourite places to eat, hence the name Legend Of The Black Shawarma, after the success of the first songs they wrote, they decided to make it a full album.
The name is taken from a Middle Eastern wrap/sandwich; and was inspired by Shawarma Hazan, a restaurant where Amit and Eisen used to eat often.
The dj's heavy beats, and serious guitar riffs make the album more of a listening pleasure than something to be played at a club. In songs like "Smashing the Opponent" featuring Korn's,Jonathan Davis, the heavy synths and great guitar riffs make for a great listen. As well as "Herbet the Pervert" where most of the song is dominated by great metal guitar solo's.
So if you liked any of their previous music, you will probably really enjoy their new album.

Go out and buy it now!

How the Nintendo Wii is helping the world...One granny at a time

The Nintendo Wii has made countless medical breakthroughs in the past few years. People who have suffered from Alzheimer's, Parkinson, strokes, and other physical injures have been paying miniature fortunes to stay in hospital and doing exercises and activities that make them exhausted and frail.

This does work but they have to use most of their precious time doing the exercises, which can be very difficult and only done with the support of family members or others. People who suffer from Alzheimer's and Parkinson disease have very poor hand and eye co ordination as well as they can often become very depressed. Since WakeMed has come out with the idea of using the Nintendo Wii as physical therapy, patients have been recovering at an amazingly increasing rate. Those who suffer Alzheimer's and Parkinson disease, have had their hand and eye co ordination improve drastically as well as their depression rates becoming almost nonexistent.

The nurses and therapists say that they have never experienced a ward that is so happy and rejuvenated. They said the patients are thrilled to play sports that they never thought they could play again even if it is just a virtual reality. The therapists said "If you get them to want to do it, they will." Once introduced into the health system doctors recommend the Nintendo Wii in all of the households with people older than 70 or people with any type of injury and that they should interact with others, as it will help with memory and it will help prevent Alzheimer's and Parkinson disease taking over their life.

This new form of treatment is now being introduced into Old age homes across the world.


Posted by WhyOranges?

Facebook coming to Xbox 360!

Ever wondered what it would be like to have an all in one center that allows you to browse the web, watch TV, and play games with a decent controller? Well besides the PC there isn't much else out there. Despite this fact major corporations are working together to bring some of the publics favorite services together.

Microsoft have recently officially announced that they are going to allow free access to one of the favorite networking sites, Facebook from an Xbox. In addition to Facebook, Twitter will also be added Now before you jump out of your seats at this somewhat extraordinary news, the 'free' access is only available for Xbox live Gold memberships. Free trials will be given to Silver members.

So is extra gaming time really worth the saved time of putting on your PC to check your Facebook account? Probably not, but at least they are trying to think up new ideas to attract customers.

I would like to see how Sony (Playstation) are going to respond to this.

The Most (in)Famous Hackers of All Time

Hackers can be thought of as people who use technology to empose on others' privacy or steal potentially valuable information from them. The term "hacking" is not merely a twenty first century concept. It has been around since the very first hacker, John Draper, "hacked" telephone calls way back in 1971 using a whistle from a cereal box. Nowadays, technology has progressed, and so too has the number of hackers around the world. Over time, many of them have caught the attention of the public, as well as the police. The purpose of the following article is not to promote bad morals, but forgive me for feeling a hint of admiration for these hacking legends.

                                                 
                                                  Jonathan James - AKA c0mrade
One of the greatest hackers of all time - he is famous for being the youngest hacker ever to go to prison (caught at the age of fifteen).Frankly, the man is a legend. Not only did he successfully hack one of the most secure government gencies in USA - the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (Ironically, the DTRA are responsible for much of the nation's security matters), but he also single handedly attacked NASA. James hacked one of the DTRA servers by means of a backdoor he scripted. He then used this security infiltration to acquire valuable information such as account passwords and software. His attack on NASA forced them to shutdown their systems and ultimately cost them over $41,000. In response to his attack, James said that the software he stole was merely done in an attempt to aid his programming studies. The result? Six months house arrest with probation.

                                              Kevin Mitnick - The LegendMitnick is famous for being the most wanted hacker of all time. His long list of offenses started at an early age when he hacked the LA bus punchcard system, effectively allowing him free bus rides to practically anywhere. This feat was not as complex as it sounds, but nonetheless very impressive. Mitnick also hacked phonecalls (much the same as John Draper and Apple founder, Stephen wozniac), and the Digital Equipment Corporation - which led to his conviction. However, the police would not have found Mitnick, if it were not for the help of Tsutomu Shimomura (a fellow hacker). Mitnick had attempted to hack Shimomura's computer but had fortunately been "out-hacked" by Shimormura. His location was discovered and reported to officials, as this was Shimormura's personal score that needed settling.

Robert Tappan Morris - Less is More
Although Morris is not as well known as hackers like Jonathan James or Kevin Mitnick, he made a huge impact on the need for online and offline computer security. Robert Morris created the first worm - known as the Morris worm. The worm was a big threat to the online community and caused an estimated 6000 machines to be infected beyond repair. The effects of the worm may have been severe, but Morris claims it was in order to see how many people were connected to the internet, and not done for harmful purposes. Morris had to pay a big price for his mistake - a fine for more than $10 000, 400 hours community service, and three years' probation.

                                                   

Although these hackers are legends in the hacking community, and they have much skill, we should remember to not encourage this sort of behaviour in our own circles. On the other hand, however, it may not be wise to chastise people like Morris if you believe he has caused the online security threats we have today. If he had not created the worm, somebody else certainly would have, and that should not be overlooked. That sort of thing is simply human nature.

Windows 6.5! The new OS for smartphones?

The new OS developed by none other than Microsoft seems to be taking the Smart phone world by a small drizzle. After the dismal experiences of using previous Windows Mobile operating systems, it seems that Microsoft have finally learnt how to put together a properly working Mobile OS.
A few companies have decided to launch their phones with the new OS. Namely AT&T with their HTC Pure, and the HTC Tilt 2.

The main focus of Microsoft has been to make the experience of using their OS more enjoyable. By redoing the entire Home screen, and making all of the menus more 'touch friendly'. The OS is also slightly faster, and allows for easy integration of the up and coming Windows Marketplace, which is set to take on the App Store.

This is the old home screen compared with the new one.
  Although Microsoft have released Windows 7 for PC, they are lagging a bit behind in the Mobile market. However 6.5 is a big step in the right direction from 6.1.
Many people would caution at getting the new OS, and to rather wait for the release of Windows 7 Mobile next year, however if you are one of those people that want to try anything new, and don't mind a few bugs. Go for it! Well done Microsoft, hopefully this will make the market a bit more competitive for iPhone and Android.

District 9 - Poor or Impressive?

District 9 is a South African Science-fiction film created in 2009. It is directed by South African Neill Blomkamp, and produced by New Zealander Peter Jackson (Lord of The Rings). The film follows the life of protagonist, Wikus van de Merwe who is the field officer of MNU (Multinational United). Wikus' job is to relocate arthropod-like aliens that have been living in a slum called District 9.

The aliens arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa 20 years prior, famished and malnutritioned. MNU helped the aliens (Derogatorily named "prawns") by allowing them to live in district 9 and by allowing them equal rights to humans. MNU take matters into their own hands as conflicts between prawns and humans become substantial after many years. They begin relocating the prawns in District 9 into a new area just outside Johannesburg called District 10. While trying to relocate a prawn named Christopher Johnson, Wikus unknowingly ingests alien fluid. The alien fluid begins mutating Wikus into a prawn, and he is taken to MNU, but escapes after having undergone much experimentation. He pleads with Christopher the prawn to cure him, and he is given hope. Wikus and Christopher then venture into MNU to retrieve the fluid - which is the last remaining fluid available to fuel Christopher's space ship. Christopher makes a deal with Wikus that he will use the fluid to return to his home planet, only to return three years later to cure Wikus.

At first Wikus is enraged at the news, and turns on Christopher. Later, however, he learns to let go as the forces of the infamous Nigerians as well as the MNU are after him and Christopher. The plot plays on the theme of xenophobia, and is historically linked to the event of Apartheid (which occurred in South Africa as an act of racism).  Effectively, the humans show contempt toward the aliens - even though the laws protected them, they were still vulnerable to human superiority.

Poor or Impressive?
District 9 has awoken the originality within me that I thought had disappeared a long time ago. As a South African, I feel proud to review a film so controversial and original that I would never have thought about it myself. The film evokes heart felt emotions toward the end, even tough it is not intended to be a movie as such. In addition to this, District 9 was also funny as it displayed typical South African habits and personalities. It kept me on the edge of my seat and I truly believe it to be the "movie of the year."

Viva Wikus!

Hubble Telescope - The Amazing Universe Through New Eyes

NASA's nineteen year old Hubble Telescope is back after being refurbished. The telescope is fitted with a new powerful spectrograph - which enables it to see galaxies and stars billions of light years way. The new Hubble Telescope is now more light sensitive meaning it is quicker for distant objects to be observed. The telescope will focus on several things that will give insight into our universe. It will focus on the population of asteroids in the Kuiper Belt (which exists at the end of our solar system), the formation of new planets as well as stars, and will view planets in our solar system through their atmospheres (giving us insight into other planets). In addition, the Hubble Telescope will explore Dark Matter with more intent.

Dark Matter:
An invisible matter that is speculated to be the cause for the universe's mass. It was first theorized by Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, of the California Institute of Technology,1933.

The following photos were taken on September 9 2009. They are a beautiful sight to behold.
Above: Butterfly Nebula - 3800 light years away
Below Top: Colliding Galaxies - Several Million light years away
Below Middle: Stephan's Quintet - 290 Million light years away
Below Bottom: The galaxy Messier 74 - 32 Million light years away

Additional information:

• Hubble Site - View all 57 new pictures
  
• Wikipedia - Dark Matter
  

Turkish ship shipwrecked off bloubergstrand South Africa

 

A ageing bulk carrier from Turkey has been shipwrecked just off Bloubergstrand in Cape Town. "The ship could stay stuck for some time" said city disaster managers. The 29 year old ship, Seli 1, originally bound for Gibraltar, was carrying 30 000 tons of coal and 660 tons of fuel when it became grounded.
The biggest fear at the moment is what could happen if the ship lost all of it's cargo into the sea. The amount of environmental damage will be tremendous, and take many years to rectify.
A joint operations committee - including the SA Maritime Authority, Southern African Foundation for the conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), Smit salvage and others have said that their first task will be to remove the fuel from the vessel. It is reported that the cargo ship was built in South Korea in 1980.
The salvors report that besides their best efforts they need the swells and weather conditions to become calmer, so as for them to be able to safely remove the fuel and coal.

A spokeswoman, Clare Gomes said that there was no risk of the ship breaking up at this stage. Once the fuel has been removed, experts will be brought in to assess the damage of the vessel and whether it will be viable to have the ship moved or rather to break it up and recycle it.
It has been reported that the ships captain lowered the anchor in Table Bay, but the anchor broke off in the large swells. The vessel then drifted towards the shoreline and was driven onto a sandbank, and finally onto some rocks which punctured a hole in the side of the boat. Unfortunately the hole was exactly in the position of the engine room. After the engine room was flooded, the ship's crew was unable to power the ship and had to be evacuated by the NSRI.
 This is the third vessel that has run aground in the same area just this year.

Amazing but weird disfigurement - TREE MAN

 

Dede Kosawa (37) - also known as "tree man" is a man with a strange disfigurement. His body is covered by several kilograms of warts. These warts give him the strange tree shape appearance he has, and is a disease known as  Epidermosdisplasia Verruciformis. He contracted the disease when he scraped his knee at the supple age of fifteen. The gash soon sprouted warts and these soon spread around his body.

The Indonesian man makes a living by working in the circus, by performing in the "freak show". The term is horrible, but describes the performance accurately, as he is joined by many others with similar bizarre disfigurements.

Kosawa has been interviewed by Discovery Channel, as well as Ripley's Believe it Or Not. Incredibly, he has already undergone surgery several times and has had more than four pounds (1.8 kg) of warts removed from his hands and feet. After the surgery he reported being able to see the outline of his toes for the first time in several years. An American, Dr Anthony Gaspari, has taken it upon himself to attempt to cure Kosawa's disease. He has taken several skin biopses and hopes to help the poor man to continue the rest of his life in normality. He says he wants to meet a girl, get married, and get a proper job.

"Tree Man" after having 4 Lbs of warts removed from his body

Additional Information:

• Wikipedia - Epidermodysplasia verruciformis
• Discovery Channel - Half Tree, Half Man
  

Apple Mac: Snow Leopard

 Macintosh have once again beaten Windows to the chase with their 'finely tuned' operating system. Name Snow Leopard. Mac have promised many things in this upgrade of their previous operating system, Leopard. They have promised and once again delivered to the maximum amount possible.
Something to notice about this OS is that it is not a completely new OS, just a tuned up version of Leopard.
The most amazing thing about the new OS is that it is 7 gigs smaller than the previous version.

Apple have introduced something that is very fascinating to me, it is called 'Open Cl'. What this particular feature does is allows the user to use the graphics processing core as a secondary core. It does not give a clear description of how it will achieve this feat but it seems to now be possible.
Apple as usual are creating Operating Systems that are way before their time, and Apple claim that Snow Leopard is able to handle 16 terabytes of ram. They say that they programmed it to handle so much, just because they can. 
Another new innovation to accompany Snow Leopard is something called Grand Central Dispatch. Which allows programs to easily take advantage of the multiple cores in processors, boosting the speed of heavy duty applications such as video editing software.
They have also encoded the whole OS to run on 64 bit processors. This is a big step forward as it decrease the time taken for most tasks by almost 2 percent. This should also allow word programs and normal browsing to be slightly faster.
If you are a fan of backing up your computer, Apple claim that it is now 80% faster to back up your system which is a significant decrease.
A new version of Quicktime has also been released alongside the OS. Quicktime 10 will allow the user to crop videos in the program, which means that you don't always have to fire up iMovie to just crop a video quickly. Also there will be no need to buy Quicktime pro as all the advantages of Quicktime pro will be in Quicktime 10.
Start up is now 2 times faster and Shutdown is 1.8 times faster. This is a nice little bonus.
Apple have once again out performed their rivals. Unfortunately they have not released a 'pc' compatible version as yet. If they did I would most definitely go and buy their software right now. The only reason that Apple Mac control such a little piece of the market is because their computers are so expensive and there is limited software available for the OS.  Hopefully in future I will be able to enjoy Mac on my PC alongside with Windows.
Now all we need to do is wait and see how Windows 7 has to add to the table. Looking forward to it.

Half life 2 Episode 3

For all those people who played Half life 1 or Half life 2 would have noticed that they were market changing games. Meaning that Half life 1 was the first game that was a first person shooter to be well received by consumers. When Half life 2 was released there was complete amazement and shock at how deep and interesting the storyline was. The graphics on both those games were completely unheard of at the time and even for a few years afterward.
Half life 2 episode 1 and 2 were released about a year apart. Valve used the Source engine for all of the games.
Although nothing much has been said about Half life 2 Episode 3, there are some things that valve have said to confirm that it is in existence and are working on it.
For instance, When Valve was questioned about Half Life 2 Episode 3 they did not deny that they were working on it.
Also Valve have recently stated that they will be learning Sign Language. They said that they would use this to explain why Dog and Alex can sign to each other and can "talk" to each other while no one else can understand what they are saying. This sounds like a interesting twist to the story.
I am very excited to see this latest installment for myself, and I hope that Valve will release early 2010. If it is anywhere near as awesome as any of the previous episodes I will definitely say well done to Valve.
Here is some concept art of how Half lIfe 2 Episode 3 will look.