Darkademic's Blog

I've been playing StarCraft II since it was released and it is really amazing. I got into the gold league after my placement matches and I've since been promoted to platinum. So far I've had a roughly equal number of wins and losses, so the system seems to work pretty well.

I've beaten the campaign on brutal and got all but 2 of the achievements (lost viking gold and the one for completing the campaign in under 8 hours). Although quite a lot of people say they're disappointed with the campaign, I really enjoyed it. All of the missions were well designed and reasonably challenging, and none of them were just "build a base and kill the enemy" - they all included some kind of mechanic to keep you on your toes.

Below is a screenshot of my profile as it stands.



It's early days yet, and I'm sure the game will evolve just like SC1 did, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable RTS and I'd highly recommend it.

I recently quoted Penn Jillette in my Facebook status: "By any definition at all, alcohol is a mind altering drug; it's the drug: The most popular, lethal and fucking pointless, fucking stupid drug in the world".

It'd be difficult to express my thoughts more clearly than the above quote, but I can go into more detail. First of all, all recreational drugs are potentially lethal, fucking stupid and fucking pointless; its just that alcohol is by far the most prevalent and culturally acceptable drug. Secondly, before I begin my rant proper, I think all drugs should be legalised and oppose the smoking ban; not because I think they're good, but because people should be free to choose what they do to their own bodies.

Now, as a massive tea drinker, I'd be a hypocrite if I said all drugs were bad in any quantity, regardless of their effects, since tea has caffeine in it, which in sufficient quantities can be just as bad as any other drug. I drink tea because it tastes great, and in the amounts we're talking about, has no side-effects beyond the odd headache (if that). For the same reason, the odd glass of wine or beer is fine (there's even the suggestion that red wine has health benefits). My problem is with getting drunk (or whatever other adjective is applicable); getting to the point where your ability to think is affected, or worse, getting to the point where you're incapable of thinking.

I've already written a short article about this very subject, but I feel the need to write about it again because it angers me so fucking much. Getting drunk is the number one social activity in this country, and all it does is make people act like complete fucking imbeciles. There is NOTHING social about stupidity, there is NOTHING impressive about behaving like a total moron. People do it out of either a puerile and vacuous idea of "fun", or a pathetic craving for acceptance based not on value, but on doing what everyone else does (i.e. conformity). If it's the former, then please explain to me why mindless drivel and idiocy is "fun". If it's the latter, then it demonstrates a crippling lack of self-esteem that can't be repaired by drowning it out with chemicals. There's also a third reason for getting drunk; alcoholism, which itself may have been caused by factors such as depression, but this accounts only for a minority of people.

Why so many people are incapable of socialising without getting drunk is baffling. Obviously, some people are just so devoid of ideas or personality that they can't think of anything better to do; but the rest are quite often friendly and interesting people when they're not drunk, so why do they need to descend into the whirling sinkhole of vomit that is drunkeness? WHY?

All of the above deals with the social implications of getting drunk, which is enough for me to despise it, but the stupidity of getting drunk goes further. According to the World Health Organization, alcohol is responsible for more than 2 million preventable deaths worldwide. That's 3.2% of all deaths. What the fuck? Furthermore, alcohol is responsible for the loss of nearly 60 million "disability-adjusted life years", which takes into account the number of years lost due to premature deaths as well as the years spent living with disability. Well, what do you expect from an activity which involves repeatedly poisioning yourself?

Which brings me to smoking...

Smoking is a disgusting habit which can shorten your life by years, yet which has no tangible benefits. It doesn't even have a psychoactive effect like alcohol (at least not one worth considering). Sure, it's addictive, but only once you've already smoked for a long time. The only conceivable reason for smoking then, is the conformity or "coolness" factor; people may say it makes them feel relaxed or whatever, but sorry, there has to be some reason to choose a cigarette over, say, a cup of tea. Well, smoking with the knowledge of its effects simply demonstrates that you don't value your own life, or that you base your values on what other people think, leading back to the lack of self-esteem issue. Most people start smoking to distinguish themselves in some way, putting value in the perceptions of others over (or on par with) one's own well-being. Smoking is self-destruction, plain and simple.

It may seems strange to suggest that it's both an example of conformity and of trying to distinguish one's self, but both are based on an overwhelming concern for what other people think, regardless of whether they are right or wrong in what they see as good or bad.

Well, those are my thoughts, I'm sure many people think differently so feel free to leave a comment.

After watching most of the two UK election debates these past two weeks, I've become infuriated with Gordon Brown because of his pathetic lack of understanding of economics. Brown has accused David Cameron — leader of the Conservatives — of planning to "take £6 billion out of the economy" by not implementing the NI increase and/or by cutting funding to public sector institutions. This is patently ridiculous. Gordon Brown seems to be oblivious to the (obvious) difference between the economy and the public sector (i.e. government funded sector). The £6 billion won't be going to the government, but that doesn't mean it just disappears. The £6 billion stays in the economy, just in private hands (where it should be).

Similar logic lies behind the idea of stimulus packages. A stimulus package is nothing more than a massive shift of money which would otherwise be spent according to the judgement of private individuals (it doesn't just disappear). A stimulus distorts the market by putting money where it otherwise might not go. Taken to the extreme, this type of government intervention is socialism - the failure of which is blindingly obvious.

Money which is forcibly extracted from all of us via taxes can be managed neither efficiently nor in a manner which reflects the market (i.e. the real value of things), so Gordon Brown's accusations should be levelled against himself, not his opposition. An increase of National Insurance, which is a tax on ordinary jobs, will slow growth by deincentivising A; employers to employ more people and B; the unemployed to seek employment.

A Lib/Lab coalition in a hung parliament would not bode well for the UK at all. Although the Conservatives are nowhere near perfect, their economic policies are at least somewhat geared towards deregulation and spending cuts, whereas the other two parties are completely clueless.

A while back, I searched for some guidance on this subject, and whilst there are plenty of articles discussing colour profiles in general, and a few on their applicability to web design, none of them really answered all of my questions so I had to do some experimentation.

Colour profiles are something which graphic designers are most likely already familiar with (and if not, they should be). Web designers on the other hand, have probably never had much experience with them. They are basically little pieces of information which are attached to image files to tell the monitor (or other device) how to display the colours used in the image. This is necessary to achieve consistency across devices which may display colours differently to each other.

In the past, this was primarily relevant to graphic designers producing print work, as the same colour value often appears significantly differently on a computer screen compared to on paper or other materials.

Web design only deals with screens, so until recently this meant colour profiles were of little concern. With the introduction of so-called "wide gamut" monitors however, colour profiles are becoming increasingly important because wide gamut monitors can display a wider range of colours than standard gamut monitors. For example, the colour hex value #FF0000 means "the most saturated red possible" to the monitor. Since wide gamut monitors can display a greater level of saturation, this same colour value will look much more saturated on a wide gamut monitor compared to a standard one.

In practical terms, this means any images created using a standard gamut monitor, which have no colour profile embedded, will look substantially more saturated on a wide gamut monitor. Conversely, images created on a wide gamut monitor, with no colour profile embedded, will look substantially less saturated on a standard gamut monitor.

It is only by embedding correct colour profiles that one can achieve consistency across monitors with different colour gamuts. For websites, the only colour profile you should really be using is sRGB (standard RGB). sRGB can be displayed by both standard and wide gamut monitors, and so covers all bases.

Most of the above information is easy to find on the Internet, as well as information on how to properly calibrate your monitor and how to actually embed the colour profiles into the images you create. What I've been unable to find, is information about the relationship between colour profiles and colours on websites; particularly those defined using CSS.

Since CSS uses actual colour values, such as the bright red mentioned above, and since there is currently no way to attach colour profiles to CSS stylesheets, colours defined by CSS are inconsistent across monitors. The latest Internet browsers do have colour management built in, however it does not seem to apply to CSS, only to images.

With this in mind, using sRGB colour profiles in images will cause issues on wide gamut monitors (such as my own). Any images which have to work seamlessly with CSS colours, for example a gradient background which fades into a particular colour, will be noticeably incorrect, particularly if the colours are saturated. The only solution then, is to not embed colour profiles in any such images. Images which are separate from the design of the website, for example photographs, can be given an sRGB colour profile, but any images whose colours have to match the CSS can not.

I'm unsure as to why so few people have encountered this problem or suggested solutions for it, but there you go. Perhaps it will be noticed when more people have wide gamut monitors which include only the most expensive models at the moment (upwards of £500 in most cases).

I've decided to retire the name DarkReaver13 as of Monday and I've since been updating my details on a ton of websites. I've used the name for many years (since 1999 if you count when it was the shortened variant "DReaver13"), but I felt it was time to change it for a few reasons:

Firstly, the name Dark Reaver is used by several other people on various websites and games, and even DarkReaver13 itself is used by at least one other person (meaning I had to use "D4rkReaver13" on several prominent websites). It's also the name of a Death Knight on World of Warcraft, and the name of a sword in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Darkademic is completely unique as far as I can tell, other than a couple of references to "Darkademia".

Secondly, my gaming clan is called Dark Reavers, which implies either that I am subordinate to the group, or that I "am" the clan. I think it's much better to have two distinct names.

Thirdly, DarkReaver13 is a bit of a mouthful, and is actually just three separate words stuck together. Darkademic on the other hand is a single (albeit hybridised) word.

I chose Darkademic as a combination of "dark" (to retain part of the old name), "academic" (as in relating to intellectual pursuits) and "epidemic" (as in a highly contagious infection). The epidemic part also ties in with my logo which is based on the symbol for biohazardous materials.

“If your enemy is watching your knife, spoon out his eye.”

I watched a History Channel documentary on Sun Tzu's Art of War yesterday, and whilst the above quote didn't come from Sun Tzu (indeed, I myself lay claim to that little parcel of wisdom) it was very, very interesting. I've read the Art of War, however the documentary successfully extracted some of the most prominent strategic ideas and applied to them to historical conflicts ranging from ancient China, to the American Civil War, to World War II, to Vietnam.

I'd recommend the documentary to anyone with even a slight interest in military strategy or historical conflict.