Answering Genesis: "Standing Up in the Milky Way"

As most people are probably decently aware, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is currently airing a rebooting of Carl Sagan's famous Cosmos series. As someone who's very interested in science, loves learning about where we came from and how the universe works, I was very pleased to hear this and have been watching it and, for the most part, thoroughly enjoying it. If you haven't seen it yet, or Carl Sagan's original series, I highly recommend it. It's very educational, brings up a lot of very interesting science, and has a lot of interesting and deep thoughts on where we came from and our place in the cosmos.

Naturally though, seeing as a lot of the topic is the scientific understanding of our past, this made a lot of creationists, well, not very happy. Answers in Genesis has been posting a series with their reviews of the Cosmos series, so I want to take this time to look at their arguments, analyse them and, well, defend the Cosmos against them.

So! Let's begin!

Recipe: Single serve apple crumble

I had a few comments intrigued about a Facebook picture I put up last night of my dessert that I cooked up from an idea that I blatantly stole from MasterChef New Zealand.
Specifically, what the thing on the left is. The short answer is, an apple crumble.

It's a pretty terrible picture really.

Now, you probably have your own various fruit crumble recipes but this is the recipe I more or less used. If you think things can be done better, let me know, I might try it out or I might just change what I've written here. It's all a little sketchy because I was kinda making it up as I went along, but oh well, here goes!

This recipe is just for a single serve. Increase the recipe depending on how many people you want to serve and tada!

2012 Transit of Venus

So, most of you have probably heard vaguely of this, but I suspect most people don't actually know what's going to happen in a few weeks. So, I'll basically say this. The last transit of Venus you'll see in your lifetime (Unless you manage to live for the next 105 years) is going to happen on the 5th or 6th of June (Depending on your timezone). What does this mean? I'll go into more detail in a sec, but basically, the planet Venus is going to pass over the face of the sun, similar to a solar eclipse.

A minor nitpick about SW:ToR story

So, Star Wars: The Old Republic is offering a free trial weekend and I apparently got a whole week of free trial because I don't know why and I fully intend to not be lazy and actually play the game a bit and do a blog like I did with my Rift one the other day, but firstly, I want to make a comment on the story. And why I don't like it so far.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Yeah, I know, a lot of people are gushing about how amazing the storytelling is in SW:TOR but there's one huge thing that was bugging me. Firstly though, I just want to make one minor note so that you know the context and so you can abuse me for having not played the game enough: I rolled a Twi'lek Jedi, because it's freaking Star Wars and I can't play a Star Wars game without being a Jedi, and so far, I'm level 4 or so. So no, I've barely made it through anything, not even the start zone yet, so chances are, I'm entirely wrong about what I'm gonna moan about, and it's just the way I'm seeing things from my low levelled vantage point. So why am I posting this as a separate blog post and not just writing a big blog post about my adventures in TOR? I'm not sure, but I kinda want to discuss this and spend a decent amount of time on this and not detract from a blog going on about the game more. Plus, it's a problem that basically every MMORPG suffers from and probably isn't even solvable but it's still one that Bioware should've worked around.

But anyway! That's enough prefacing. Onto my problem!

Journeys into Rift

Aren't I a sexy devil?

So, awhile ago, Trion released their much anticipated game, Rift. But before they did, they released a public beta. Being public, I was like "Hey! Chance to try out the game and see what I think!" So I did. And, well, I didn't like it. Yeah, it wasn't a terrible game but it failed to capture my interest and I never went any further. In part because, well, I hadn't enjoyed the beta, so I wasn't going to shell out the $80 or so for a game I wouldn't play. Well, that was nearly a year ago now and since then, they've (finally) released a trial account. So! I downloaded the client, started it up, made myself a character and decided to have fun!

2011: The year in review

For those of my two readers who don't know, for the last... oh, five or so years, I think? I've reviewed the year from my own point of view. Well, it's nearly that time of year where the earth reaches that arbitrary position relative to the sun where the Gregorian calendar says a new year begins, so! Let's have a look at 2011!

Cleverbot won't make my shield drop.

Disclaimer and backstory: As of this post, I've killed heroic Gunship Battle 15 times, Baleroc 16 times and Asira Dawnslayer 18 times and I've never had their shields drop. Which is annoying. So, Nika suggested I ask Cleverbot how do get a shield to drop. This conversation is what followed. Text in bold is what I said.