Celebrityscraps

According to Activision, Guitar Hero III netted $115 million dollars in its first week of sales – not at all shabby for a game that isn’t worshiped by the masses like Halo 3. Those hefty figures, of course, naturally lead to, “how can you make more money from the game?” The answer? More in-game advertising!

The Neversoft-developed rocker game already features numerous in-game advertisements, like guitars with Axe Body Spray logos. Now the ante is going to be upped. Massive, the in-game advertising network, announced on Wednesday that it had entered into an agreement to place dynamic advertisements in Guitar Hero III’s Xbox 360 and PC versions. It will also place these ads in another Neversoft title, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. Massive says the GHIII advertisements will be “contextually relevant to the rock venues in which players perform, further increasing the game’s realism.”…………….. hmmmmmmmmmmm sound like a big $Keeeeeeerching$ for Neversoft and less of a focus on realism to me… lol.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yh25AA30P0&rel=1]

Developers often try to justify in-game advertisements by saying they add realism. Personally I was always entertained by fake advertisements developers put in games (like the petsovernight.com radio spots in Grand Theft Auto III). I think to a small extent advertising can add realism to a game. Even the most decrepit rock bar has one of those neon Budweiser signs. I really doubt the ads in GHIII will be so subdued, though, given some of the companies Massive has signed for sponsorships so far – McDonald’s and Coke, to name a couple. I don’t associate either brand with rock by any stretch of the imagination (but maybe I will if they market it right!). I just keep imagining Slash from Guns N’ Roses waltzing out onto stage wearing a Powerade top hat.

Article Sourced from CB Games

So a railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails. It creates an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a metal projectile at tremendous speed.
We saw such portable guns in the film Eraser and almost certainly everyone thinks of Quake3 and has flashbacks to numerous frustrating deaths when the railgun is mentioned!

The US Navy are testing a railgun that could be in operation by the year 2020! The test unit is an 8 megajoule device but the Navy hopes that the final model will generate 64 megajoules and have a 200 to 250 nautical mile range. This is an enormous increase over current Navy guns which generate about 9 megajoules of energy and have a range of about 15 nautical miles.

The device BAE Systems shipped to the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va. is the 32-megajoule Electro-Magnetic Laboratory Rail Gun (32-MJ LRG for short, but we’ll call her “Julie”). It is about four times as strong as the last generation of rail guns, but demands 3 million amps of power per shot—enough to drain your Metal Gear’s battery in a heartbeat. You’ll notice the word “laboratory” stuck in there. Real-life rail guns have kinks that still need to be worked out:

Effective rail guns will require a major breakthrough in capacitor technology between now and 2020, as well as a way to keep the barrels from being shredded by each high-velocity shot.

Mind you, the Navy isn’t like pissing its pants for joy that it gets to play with a 32-megajoule rail gun.
This is America, after all. What the Navy really wants is a 64-megajoule rail gun. But since that might take 13 years and would require, yep, 6 million amps per shot, the Navy’s gonna have to quit bitching and enjoy the toys it has, at least for now.

A 16-old boy in the US was arrested recently after hiring a hitman to kill his parents after they confiscated his Playstation and stopped him watching the telly. Luckily, Mom smelled a rat and set up a sting of her own, getting a cop to go undercover as the hitman.

The kid, Cory Ryder from Maryland, allegedly told the fake hitman: “Two bullets is all it takes.” He was planning to pay for the hit by offering the killer his Dad’s new pick-up truck but now he’s up for charges of attempted murder.

But did he get his PlayStation back?  (thx to Gizmodo UK for this article)

Lol… check this out.. for all Leeroy Jenkins Fans!!!

Leeroy Jenkins Sound Keyboard

So i’ve been hearing a lot of chatter reagrding Patrick Moberg and “what happened” with his dream girl he tracked down on the web via. Well it turns out they went on Good Morning America to expain it all.

http://www.nygirlofmydreams.com

See the vid:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y137qgtMDSk&rel=1]

One of my firends sent me this story and i just had to post it. Once again real life stories prove the power available via the web to communicate and enrich ones life. Here’s the story:

So this 21yo web designer guy Patrick Moberg was on the subway when he sees “the girl of his dreams” (apparently you can tell that from looks alone!?! how romantic!)
But she gets off the subway before he gets the chance to say anything to her.

So he goes home and sets up a website - http://www.nygirlofmydreams.com

Anyway because this is such an incredibly strange and lame thing to do it catches on with a lot of news sites and spreads like wildfire via gossip columns etc. Eventually a girl who recognises the girl from the drawing and description as one of her co-workers tells her - it turns out it’s a 22yo girl from Melbourne Australia named Camille Hayton who lives in Brooklyn+ works for an ezine.

Patrick discusses the girl of his dreams from Jakob Lodwick on Vimeo.

So there you have it… Geeks around the world…. if you’re on the bus/train.. or even a plane and you see someone who you think might be “the one”.. set up a lame site to find them.. you never know it might work!!!

As Jack would say…. DAMNIT!!!!

The WGA (script authors) strike over pay/bonuses has had an effect on multiple shows in production….

They’ve moved 24 season 7 from airing on the first week in January 2008 to some time in 2009… Argggh!

How dare they tease us with a trailer and then cut it…

check here to see the latest update on other show affected!

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/a79461/us-strike-show-status-24-premiere-axed.html

Utgard Keep

Utgarde Keep is a must see for players arriving in Howling Fjord. It will more than likely be the first dungeon experience most players partake within Northrend.

An article by the developers on wow-europe.com says:

“When we started working on Utgarde Keep, we knew from the start that we wanted some sort of ‘impenetrable fortress in the side of a mountain.’ In considering the continent of Northrend’s history and geography, we pretty quickly found a source of inspiration for Utgarde Keep, and to an extent the entire region of Howling Fjord, in a combination of elements from Norse mythology. One of our goals was to make the starting areas feel more “human.” The presence of the Vrykul, the imposing half-giant warrior race native to the region, and the architecture connected to them helped achieve exactly that. ”

Areas like ‘the Forge’ and the ‘Dragon Pens’ will no doubt provide new and interesting boss encounters to tax the most seasoned players.

The Vrykul (basically bis angry Vikings) have made Utgarde Keep their staging ground for attacks against nearby Horde and Alliance settlements, including Valgarde. According to wow-europe when you arrive in Daggercap Bay, you will experience regular Vrykul attacks and they will rain fire down on the buildings from above while riding their proto-dragon mounts. They want you to feel deeply involved in the expansion’s overall plot from the moment you step off the boat, and like in the Burning Crusade there’s really no better way to achieve this than to have a Vrykul giant chase you around with an axe that’s easily twice your own size. This was achieved the moment people went through the dark portal and I’m sure it will be achieved it Wrath of the Lich King.

Gods of Zul’Aman

The next major content patch for World of Warcraft, The Gods of Zul’Aman, will add an impressive array of new challenges, features, changes, and rewards to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

What we know so far is that Zul’Aman is a 10-person raid dungeon located in the Ghostlands, with enemies and spoils that pick up where Karazhan leaves off. This outdoor raid dungeon (much like Zul’Gurub) is home to the vicious Amani forest trolls and their leader, the infamous Zul’jin. You and your band of heroes will battle the dungeon’s six bosses, including four avatars of Zul’Aman, each bearing the aspect of a different ferocious creature (Zul’Gurub de-ja-vu again?). Zul’Aman also features a challenging bonus reward structure based on completing certain objectives within a time limit, which will provide an extra level of challenge – and thrills – for seasoned raid groups. This idea of a time limited run… much like the “45 minute Baron run” introduced prior to the Burning Crusade will defiantly provide players with an extra level of dynamic gameplay, with loot being better the quicker you kill things.

The other defining characteristic of The Gods of Zul’Aman is the bounty of rewards, both material and intangible, that it offers many types of players. The powerful epic items found in Zul’Aman are just the beginning. There is a host of new purchasable rewards as well, from the gladiator rewards of Arena Season 3, to the dozens of new Badge of Justice rewards and the full set of new Honor rewards. There are also more useful and fun items such as the new Flying Machine flying mounts, which can be built and operated by skilled engineers (people will no doubt be re-rolling engineering soon .. hehe). Among the more abstract benefits to players are faster leveling to 60, the revamping of Dustwallow Marsh with new quests, new daily quests for dungeons and battlegrounds, and many class balance changes. T

Gods of Zul’Aman New Features

• • The Guild Bank is a shared repository for an entire guild and will be accessible through Guild Vault objects near existing banks. The Guild Bank will allow players with the appropriate permissions to store items and money for use by the rest of the guild.
  • An all-new assortment of epic rewards is available from G’eras in Shattrath City. In addition, Badges of Justice will now drop from bosses within Karazhan and Zul’Aman.
  • Now leveling from character levels 20-60 is faster, with less experience needed per level in that range as well as higher quest experience rewards for quests levels 30-60.
  • Battlegrounds, normal dungeons, and Heroic dungeons all have new daily quests. The particular battleground or dungeon in which the quest takes place is randomly selected each day.
  • New flying mounts can be found in this patch, including the first ever player-craftable mount: Flying Machines! Engineers of sufficient skill can now create these fantastic contraptions in both normal and epic varieties.
  • The Auction House has been revamped with a more streamlined user interface and smarter functionality.
  • This new statistic reduces the chance that your attacks will be blocked, dodged, or parried. Expertise rating replaces weapon skill rating on current items.
  • Bonus healing effects now convey a percentage of its value towards spell damage. Both previously existing and new items will reflect this on their tooltips, and the amount granted is approximately 1/3 of the bonus healing amount.
  • Additional design elements have been introduced into the battleground to improve its gameplay with higher levels of competition and fun.
  • Many new quests have been added to Dustwallow Marsh to provide more leveling options for mid-level characters.

Number Six refers to a fictional model for characters portrayed by Canadian actress Tricia Helfer in the television “re-imagining” of Battlestar Galactica.

Number Six is a seductive, statuesque Cylon infiltrator. Most, but not all, versions of Six have platinum-blonde hair. She was the first example shown of a new generation of Cylons capable of adapting to human form and emotions. Little else is known of her earlier years. She can, like other Cylons, retain memories and be downloaded into another body if the original body is killed. Like her counterparts, her body was designed to mimic the human body at the cellular level, making her almost undetectable to testing procedures, and there are many copies of her in existence.

Copies of Number Six appear regularly, mostly within Cylon society. Several notable versions have had more prominent roles:

Caprica-Six

This Six copy is involved in an intense sexual affair with Dr. Gaius Baltar. Pretending to be an employee of a rival computer corporation, Six seduces Baltar while helping him with his work on the Colonial defense system. Six then reveals her true nature to Baltar, and informs him that the Cylons will use the computer secrets that he has given her to infiltrate the Colonial defense systems, disable the Colonial military and attack the Twelve Colonies. That day, the Cylons launch their attack and destroy most of humanity. Six uses her body to shield Baltar from a blast from the attack, saving his life and sacrificing hers.

In the episode “Downloaded”, this copy is downloaded into a new body. This Six, nicknamed “Caprica-Six” by fellow Cylons, is viewed as a hero amongst the Cylon civilization for her complete success in her mission to compromise the colonies’ defenses. She retains her sentimentality and expresses some regret at her actions, as evidenced by her constant visions of Baltar. This “Phantom” Baltar plays a similar role to her that the virtual or ‘inner’ Six plays towards the real Baltar, as a critical counselor and manipulator.

Baltar’s inner Six

A distinct copy derived from Caprica-Six resides in Baltar’s head following the destruction of the colonies, “Inner Six” appears as a figment of his imagination, invisible to everyone else. She suggests that this phenomenon might be caused by either a computer chip implant or insanity over his guilt. When Baltar undergoes an MRI-like “brain scan”, it reveals no sign of a computer chip or any other foreign object in his brain. While this briefly leads Baltar to think that he has truly gone insane, he concludes this is impossible, given Six’s knowledge of events unknown to him (for example, the prediction of the birth of the Human/Cylon Hybrid to Sharon Agathon while a prisoner aboard Galactica). Confronted with this, Six declares that she is neither a computer chip nor a hallucination produced by mental instability. When Baltar then asks just who or what she was, she simply replies that she is “an angel of God sent here to protect you.”

This Six often appears suddenly, without warning. She often advises and gives instructions to Baltar. While she usually appears to him as part of the real world, occasionally he interacts with her in an imagined but persistent dream-like setting within his mind. In this, Number Six resembles the character of Harvey from Farscape (who in turn was based on the “imaginary” character from the Jimmy Stewart film Harvey).

While Six can physically interact with Baltar in his imagination, she also appears able to physically affect him in the real world — for example, in one episode Number Six throws Baltar into a bulkhead and grabs him by the throat, and passersby see his physical reaction to this. On another occasion, she can be seen while she ties the knot on Baltar’s improvised noose.

This manifestation of Six in particular is extremely religious. In contrast to the colonists, and like the other Cylons, she believes in a singular God, whom she identifies as Love. She constantly attempts to convince Baltar to believe in the Cylon God, and to accept his part in God’s plan or will.

Her motivations are unclear. While some of her advice appears to benefit humanity, for example pointing out a Cylon device to Baltar on Galactica and helping him build a Cylon detector, it more often serves only Baltar’s needs, and she expresses enjoyment over what she considers the inevitable extinction of the human race.

Baltar’s inner Six appears to be somehow related to Caprica-Six, which is the Six model who seduced Baltar on the planet Caprica and encouraged him to give her access to the Colonial Defense Mainframe. This belief is encouraged by the fact that Caprica-Six has her own inner Baltar, implying some sort of transcendental connection between those two specific characters. The precise identity or nature of Baltar’s inner Six is unknown.

Shelley Godfrey

In the episode “Six Degrees of Separation”, a copy of Number Six in the fleet using the name “Shelley Godfrey” appears. Godfrey attempts to frame Baltar for betraying the human race with supposed photographic evidence. In addition, she attempts to seduce Commander Adama. She disappears abruptly after her “photographic evidence” is proven to be fake. As her appearance coincided with the temporary disappearance of Baltar’s Inner Six, it is often wondered (and indeed voiced by Baltar himself) whether she was a physical manifestation of Inner Six posing in a dual identity.

The episode does cause the audience (and Baltar) to think Shelley Godfrey is related to Baltar’s inner Six, however this is demonstrated to be a deliberate red herring by subsequent episodes of Battlestar Galactica. In Season 3, both when Baltar is on Cylon-occupied New Caprica and held as a prisoner on a Basestar, it is revealed that every humanoid Cylon is an individual - even amongst the same model type. Furthermore it is revealed that only the individual Cylon known as Caprica-Six has any romantic feelings or attachment to Baltar - all other Number Six models are indifferent to Baltar and his plight. Based upon this it is reasonable to conclude that Shelley Godfrey was simply just another Number Six model hiding in the Colonial fleet and unrelated to Inner Six. This interpretation might help explain the hidden meaning behind the name of the episode: “Six Degrees of Separation”.

Gina

This copy of Number Six had infiltrated the Battlestar Pegasus, posing as a civilian network engineer and using the name “Gina”. After Gina is exposed as a Cylon, she is imprisoned and subjected to torture and gang rape by members of the Pegasus crew. A lot of the backstory surrounding this is discussed in the New RAZOR Battlestar Galactica TV-Film.

Gina has honey-blonde hair, actress Tricia Helfer’s natural hair color, instead of the platinum-blonde of most Sixes. Like Shelly Godfrey, she sometimes wears glasses.

Other Number Six Facts

The name “Number Six” is, according to “Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion”, written by David Bassom, an indirect tribute to Patrick McGoohan’s cult 1967 television series The Prisoner — a series that addressed topics such as personal freedom and identity, mind control, illusionary experiences and the infiltration of society’s supposed guardians (secret agents) by a nefarious force (those behind The Village). Ron Moore himself later confirmed in his blog that the name is an homage to The Prisoner.

According to Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion, Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell were hand-picked for their roles, while the rest of the characters were cast by audition: among the actresses in the running for the role of “Number Six” was The O.C.’s Melinda Clarke, though the role ultimately went to Tricia Helfer.

BATTLESTAR RAZOR

With Battlestar Razor leaked on the web and soon to be released to the masses we’ll be sure to see more of Number Six. I’ll leave you with a taster of Razor courtesy of YouTube.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-VB8OMRiE&rel=1]

So bonfire night wins… my reasoning behind this is that Halloween is a commercial celebration that people celebrate without knowing why they celebrate it. Bonfire night is another example of our sheep society celebrating something that a large amount of people have no idea about.. however it is a true example of how people can be duped by the ruling body.

So what do we celebrate on bonfire night… hmmm…. well the main thing we celebrate is the Hanging-Drawing-Quartering of a bunch or civilians who stood up against the governing body for what they believed. This itself is ironic as the governing body they stood up against were themselves once civilians standing up against a previous regime. Another example of how history is written by the winners. The celebration is indeed an example of how our sheep society can participate in a yearly event without realising it’s barbaric nature.

Fast forward to today and the celebration of the execution of an “enemy of the state” would seem barbaric and wrong. But somehow the celebration of the execution of the enemy of the state “many years ago” seems acceptable.

Bonfire night wins cos it pulls the wool over the eyes of all the weak willed individuals out there who don’t have the clarity of mind to realise they are products of their environment.