Burning down the house

I have no idea how the following french restaurant can be as dense as they are, but 'lo and behold, they managed to go ahead and surprise me.

According to this article, a fellow (food) blogger was dragged to court for posting a "negative comment" about a place she had dinner. REALLY now France? What the flying hoohoo is up with that?

The restaurant in question is called "Il Giardino brasserie in Lège-Cap-Ferret". If you feel like googling them and adding a nice little review of your own to the growing list of 1 star reviews, feel free! You are entitled to your opinion after all. Freedom of speech,. or as I like to call it, adding your stone in the bucket they tied onto their own legs before jumping in the river.

Some snippets from the reviews so far, I think these people worded it pretty well.

- When someone posts on the Internet that they had a horrific experience, they end up in court. Should you spend a few bucks in a good dinner, go somewhere else. The boss sued a critic. Please avoid this place at any costs.

- Restaurant is terrible, if you go there and have a bad experience be ready to be sued if you decide to post it online. Avoid this restaurant all together as they are contributing to the censorship of the internet, and going against everyone's right to Freedom of Speech. Bet their food is terrible anyways...

- If I could give less than 1 star I would, it's hard to believe there's anythign about this place that's worse than the food but the atmosphere takes that prize, it feels like you're an extra in an Orwellian world nothing can be less than double-plus good or the owner comes out and throws a hissy fit before taking you to court.

- Worst restaurant ever, cause the owner doesn't know the Streisand effect and created a court rule against the freedom of speech. There isn't much with a taste more disgusting that this.

The Streisand Effect

What IS the streisand effect you may ask,  well, wonder no more, as wikipedia explains all very well: 
- The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.

And, that is exactly what they managed to do by dragging her to court. Supid, and unforgivable. It needs to be punished obviously. They want a streisand effect, they can have one.

Funny enough, you'd think people know about this thing by now? Megaupload, The Pirate Bay, Nabster. All sites that have grown big and wide (though not all are still around) thanks to being dragged to court, or put behind a censorship filter. And the days and weeks after each attempt to block or censor them, you'll notice a huge increase in traffing in their google trend. Again and again. The internet is a funny place.

So, what did they actually write about this restaurant in question? Well, you can probably find the edited version on the blog in question, but the juicy bits will be gone thanks to the idiot judge, or restaurant owner depending on your point of view. Aside that, it's in French, xD Though I guess you can use google translate.

Some snippets I managed to find (google translated so,. weird), it's a very neat review, no sweating, just critical:

- When we arrived, the first waiter asked, logically, if we wanted to eat outside or outside, and as there was a lot of wind, we opted for inside, and so went we install a table. Immediately, a harpy in fluorescent jacket on the coat stares us to scold to move us without authorization (while, and one, we had one, authorization, and two ... I do not yell at me too by servers in general - per person, however, but at least when I'm the customer). In short, it does not start very well, but the misunderstanding up, it slips through our menus. And the first fatal error which will result everything else: it does not ask us, as is the custom, if we want a drink. However, an appetizer, we wanted one (as very few customers obviously, but still, it is our right anyway). Comes a second waitress who took our order, but always ask us if we wanted a drink (logic: his colleague was supposed to have done), we are therefore obliged to ask (we wanted).

- And it continues. While we drank comes the boss, unfriendly despite what she will say well (next to the Café Marly servers deserve the Palme d'Or of courtesy), just tell us to let us know when we want our dishes because they already come to throw a steak and that if it should last 1/2 hour in our history, it would be nice to say. We try to explain our concern, and to point out that, for us and for many years, is the source of the problem in many restaurants that servers have more tables and FHLMC they vadrouillent in the wind, so it is no longer any order and reigns utter disorganization.

- Conclusion? A restaurant where we will go over because the boss thinks he's a diva (although, seriously, it is not the owner of Chez Hortense, either), one of the waitresses would be well advised never to work in London because it is not likely to be able to live his tips, and we care about the customer and the business sense is approximate. I urge you to note your blacklist if you're in the neighborhood!

Burning the place down

In short, they went in and got asked if they wanted to sit inside or outside, got yelled at by a waiter. Didn't get asked for what drinks, get yelled at by the manager, get bad pizza, and left a bad review. Hardly a reason for any restaurant to drag someone to court I'd say!

Freedom is a right near every person in Europe and America has, and should be entitled to. Now, in the past it's shown and needs to be noted that while you have a freedom of speech most websites are privately owned and your comment may be removed on certain forums - as is their right. But, on your own blog - that's mostly your own domain.

So, show your support and add a nice destructive review to the restaurant in question:
- "Il Giardino brasserie in Lège-Cap-Ferret"
Or drop by the blog in question and add your support
- Les Chroniques Culturelles.
- The original blog post (in French, so use google translate).

One for bonus points: Here's another blogger's view on the matter.
And Tweakers.net (Dutch). Another bonus

Monday Music

It's monday, that's no excuse for music, but neither is it an excuse NOT to post music!
So there!
 Racing games nowadays are a lot more realistic than they were back then, easier to control as well. Left, Right, Gas - That's it. Some had guns obviously (death rally ho!) but the simplistic controls meant that any tool could learn to control the thing in a few minutes. Nowadays, launch up anything as simple as Mario Kart and it'll take you ages to really get the hang of.

Let's kick it off today with some good old classic game tunes.

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (Amiga):



Just because I can, Lotus 2 as well:


One two, THREE! This is a remix, but good in it's own right:


Let's stay in the theme of racing music a bit longer.
Super Cars 2:


Off the racing games and into the best R-Type clone/remake you'll find to this date.
Project-X:


Side scrollers are nice, Xenon 2 is also among the "list of stuff you should know":


One more V-Scroller, Battle Squadron:

Candied Cinnamon Apple Chips

And now for something completely different.

Home made "Candied Cinnamon Apple Chips"

You have a craving for something to snack on and have a giant stash of potatoe chips in the cupboard, as well as two apples. A moral dilemma. Apples are healthy, chips are not. What will you grab? Mind, though apples are "healthy", most contain an average of about 19 grams of sugar.

At any rate, instead of defaulting to opening a bag of chips full of fat, let's bake some apples. (And we'll add a ton of sugar to make them just as bad if not worse, but at least twice as tasty!)

Apple chips are surprisingly easy to make, though they do cost some time.
I assure you it's well worth the wait though.

Ingredients

* 1-2 Apples (Any brand)
* Cinnamon (Optional, but very tasty)
* Powdered Sugar (Optional)

Tools

* Apple drill
* Thin slicer or potatoe knife
* Oven capable of 225'F or 105'C
* Clock, timer, stopwatch or mobile phone with alarm clock

Preparation

1. Wash the apples
2. Core the apples (not mandatory, but it'll make slicing them a lot easier)

3. Pre-heat the oven to 225'F or 105'C. Don't change the temperature as we want them to dehydrate, not turn them to charcoal.
4. Slice the apples very thin. About 1 mm is just right. (That is about 0.04 inches for all you folk with the weird ancient metric system) If you have a potato slicer or thin slicer, those will generally have a good size by default.
If your thin slicer isn't quite the same width as your apple then you can slice the apple by twisting it on the blade like you were twisting a screw, this way you'll get a nice long single slice which you can then break up into the desired shapes. (See image below)

5. Apply the cinnamon and sugar. This can be done in two ways depending on your preference.
5.1. Pre mix the powdered sugar and cinnamon into a bowl, the put each apple slice in the mixture before putting it ready for the oven.
5.2. Lay out all the apple slices (as I did in the image below), then richly apply the cinnamon and sugar on one side.
6. Insert the apple slices into the oven and leave for 1 hour.

7. After 1 hour, turn the slices around and set the clock for another hour. You'll notice they're probably still a little soft. The next hour will fix that.
8. Remove the slices from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes.
9. Dig in!

Variations

* Instead of 2x 1 hour, bake 2x 0.5 hours for a more chewy effect.
* Using "Granny smith" apples instead of sweet apples will add a nice sour bite.
* Soaking the apples in vinegar for a few hours before dipping them in salt instead of sugar and cinnamon.
* Using granulated instead of powdered sugar will add an extra crunch.
* Using bananas instead of apples is perfectly possible. Make sure you use the "Plantain" type though.
* Peach, pineapple and pear are tasty variations as well.
* Use stevia extract instead of powdered sugar.

RPG Maker Tutorial Part 3

Also see Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Hope you've checked out the first 1-6 chapters so far, or this part might be a bit tricky. Either way, on to the next part!

7. Doors 2.0

Some fun with editing existing events and switches.
Let's add a grumpy character - how would you feel about random heroes just barging into your house all day?
I sure wouldn't like it!

Find a house in your town and add a door (quick event creation -> door).
Now, we'll modify it by not having the player go to a new area, and some text shouted at you by the owner, as below.
* We copy the animation (move route), and reverse it.
* Add a switch to indicate you've tried to open the door once.
* Add a conditional based on the switch, to show the grumpy character yelling at you.
* Play the close sound.
* Remove the transition stuff.

Result:

@> Play SE: 'Open1', 80, 100

@> Set Move Route: This event (Wait)
:: $> Turn Left
:: $> Wait: 3 frame(s)
:: $> Turn Right
:: $> Wait: 3 frame(s)
:: $> Turn Up
:: $> Through ON
@> Conditional Branch: Switch [0003: Grumpy Town 1] == ON
@>Text: -, -, Normal, Bottom
:: Back again?! I told you to go away!
@>
: Else
@>Text: -, -, Normal, Bottom
:: What are you doing here?! Go away!
@>
@> Control Switches: [0003: Grumpy Town 1] = ON
@> Play SE: 'Close1', 80, 100
@> Set Move Route: This event (Wait)
:: $> Turn Right
:: $> Wait: 3 frame(s)
:: $> Turn Left
:: $> Wait: 3 frame(s)
:: $> Turn Down
:: $> Through OFF
@> 

 

See if you can re-create it for your own town.
As an extra exercise, see if you can change it into a "self switch" instead of a regular switch.

8. Moving NPCs

Everyone just standing around like idiots makes the town look a bit "dead", so let's add some moving npcs.
Dogs, cats, messengers running around, old people shuffling.

Go to the event layer (F6) and add a new event. Select a random person from the "people" graphics (or monsters, or actors, as you see fit). Next, you will have to look at the two sections: "Autonomous Movement" and "Priority". Set the "Type" to "Custom". This will unlock the "Move Route..." button, press it and add a simple path. Don't forget to enable/disable the walking animation, so it looks like the character is actually walking instead of gliding.

For example:

$>Walking Animation ON
$>Move Right
$>Move Right
$>Wait: 60 frame(s)
$>Move Left
$>Move Left
$>Move Up
$>Move Down
$>Wait: 60 frame(s) 

 

This will cause the NPC to move in a repeated L shaped pattern before returning to his original position.
Next, the "priority" section. By default this is set to "Same as Characters". This means the player will block NPC movement, and vice versa. If the player is blocking the NPC's path, it will pause it's loop. If you set it's priority to be above, or below players, then movement will not be blocked either by the NPC, or by the player.

If you wish to make it look as though a NPC just walked into a house, you can set the: "Transparent ON / Transparent OFF" flags when you have them walk into a house door.
Note you can make monsters use this behavior just as easily, and have them react to "player touch" to initiate a battle.

9. Two way Bridges

Bridges are cool, but a bit tricky to make. If you tried creating a canyon, and spanning a straight bridge across it you'll notice a few problems.
* You probably can't walk "onto" the bridge if the tile on the edge of it is the cliff edge tile.
* If you didn't use the cliff edge tile, then you can probably walk "under" the bridge, and straight onto the cliff face where the bridge is attached.
* If you walk under the bridge, you'll walk onto it !

Worry not, as all these problems can be fixed, but it does take a bit of work to set up initially. Once it's up and running you can copy this technique to your heart's content across your entire RPG.

Take the image below as a guideline.

The colored dots won't appear in RPG Maker, they were added with paint.net as a reference. Each color represents an event, which can then be copy and pasted onto the dots with the same color. Let's start with the black, yellow and blue dots.

* Black: Create a new event, and set a graphic (Tileset-B at the bottom of thte list has some good bridge elements). Set the priority of the event to be "Above Characters". Next is something you might not have done before. At the top of the edit event dialog we select the "New Event Page" button. This will create a new event page which we can then modify and set special conditions on. In this case we need to add a "switch". Create a new switch and call it "0004:bridge" (or other number if available). Lastly, on this new event page set the priority to be "Below Characters". That's it, just copy this event to create the base bridge.
* Yellow: In order to prevent the player from being able to walk off the sides of the bridge we need to block the sides when the player is on the bridge, and remove that barrier if the player wants to walk under the bridge. Create a new event, and set the priority "Below Characters". Next we add a new event page and on this we set the priority to be "Same as Characters". On this second page we also set the switch condition just like on the black event (0004:bridge)
* Blue: To prevent the player from walking onto the cliff from under the bridge we will create a blocking event that works much the same as the sides of the bridge - but in reverse. Create a new event and set it's priority to "Same as Characters", then like the yellow event we create a new event page and add a switch condition to "0004:bridge" and change the priority. In this case "Below Characters".

That takes care of the bridge itself, now all we need to do is ensure the switch gets turned on and off when the player walks near or away from the bridge. That is where the green and red events come into play.
* Green: Create a new event and add a new line to it's contents "Game progression -> Control Switches", set "Bridge = ON". Also important next, is to set the "Trigger" (found below the priority field) to "Player Touch".
* Red: Copy the green event you just created (you can ctrl+c, ctrl+v on just about anything you like). And edit the control switches line to "OFF". As an extra you can set a switch condition on this event that checks "0004:bridge is ON", but this is somewhat redundant.

Finally, copy and paste the events into the correct position to ensure the player always walks onto them. Then playtest your newly created bridge.

Credit to Keile (MMOC forums) for the initial guide & test project.

To be continued.

Calling all Bloggers!

So, I was poking around the net looking for some of
my favorite old WoW blogs and much to my surprise the majority was dead or missing entirely. No posts in over a year, or simply replaced by a placeholder site.

Sad days,.

Obviously we all know WoW is on a decline, and it's been a good year and a half since the last expansion, but still. Surely there's some "stuff" worth posting about other than just WoW? I wonder where the shift in writers has gone off to. Surely not Tumblr, since, well... Just looking at it makes your gray matter decrease in size much like reading 2 line Tweets from twitter. It's shit.

I could guess Youtube and perhaps Twitch since there's money to be had there, but what is wrong with some good old classic "writing"? I'm curious to see how many of the people who started around Vanilla or The Burning Crusade are still writing (even if you're not playing anymore).

So, calling all WoW (and related) bloggers, where have you all gone?
Or even, where do you think all the others went to?

I'm planning to write a nice big post sometime later to highlight the WoW related blogs that are still active and running, feel free to drop me a line if you'd like to do a link exchange and get your blog linked from there. Just link to "this" post or blog in the meantime.

Music

Time for some music.

You'll have to excuse the randomness of my tastes, but hopefully you'll enjoy some of these!
Sometimes you just have one of those days when LOUD is the way to go.

First one is by Aknotronic, one of my WoW guild's members.


Nonpoint-Bullet with a name:


Disturbed The Sickness (Album:


U recken - Tania:


Crystallize - Lindsey Stirling: