Saturday, December 17, 2011

SOPA and PIPA Could Mean the Death of the Internet as We Know it.

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I need to help spread the message about yet another congressional attack on our freedoms.

I'll direct you to eff.org's description of the bills:
The Internet Blacklist bills — the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) — would have a disastrous effect on online freedom of speech. In order to understand the ways a site placed on the blacklist could be denied a chance to connect with an audience, we’ve used our Free Speech is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link chart
PLATFORMS & WEBHOST
The Internet Blacklist bills would subject non-domestic platforms and webhosts to the possibility of court injunctions that could require to payment interruptions or even DNS blocking in the U.S. Preparing for and responding to this legal action would be expensive, and would create an incentive for those platforms to impose more restrictions on user uploads. Further, platforms that haven't yet been developed will have more difficulty getting off the ground without a legal team.
PAYMENT
The Internet Blacklist Legislation would allow the U.S. government and individual rights holders to seek court orders requiring payment processors and ad networks to stop doing business with blacklisted sites – even if those sites contain non-infringing content.
DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM
The Internet Blacklist Legislation would require service providers to limit access to a blacklist of sites that the attorney general or a court has deemed to be infringing. PIPA explicitly mentions DNS blocking as the technique to block sites.  The latest version of SOPA requires only “the least burdensome, technically feasible, and reasonable means designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order” but also that  “Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible." But, realistically, the consensus is that DNS blocking, in spite of its tendency to fracture the Internet geographically, is the technique ISPs are most likely to use.
SEARCH
Under the Internet Blacklist Legislation search engines would be required to remove blacklisted sites from their results. PIPA uses the term "information location tools", which refers to section 512(d) of the DMCA. SOPA refers to "Internet search engines", and requires them to "prevent the serving, in response to a query, of a direct hypertext link" to a blacklisted site.

For more information, and to easily write your representative in congress:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/13/1044899/-House-Judiciary-Committee-to-pass-SOPA-this%C2%A0week?detail=hide

A great video hosted by TotalBiscuit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM&feature=g-all-lik&context=G27f82f8FAAAAAAAACAA

http://americancensorship.org/

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Mists of Pandaria

If you're any type of Warcraft fan at all, by now you've surely heard that Blizzard has announced the next expansion in the WoW series will be Mists of Pandaria- and if this is breaking news to you, perhaps you need to relocate from under your rock more often.

I haven't quite made up my mind how I feel about some of the proposed changes, so I want to let them fester in my brain a few days before I comment.

Coming soon- Paladin-Bias rages -or- raves about Mists of Pandaria!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Time-Lost-Freakin' Proto Drake!

Well, it finally happened... I've killed the TLPD!


For anyone that has been following my to-do list posts, killing the TLPD has been something I've been trying to do since WOTLK was released. Prior to today I'd only ever found a corpse of the rare spawn- despite probably 10 or more Vyragosa kills.

Given the lull I'm feeling with the Cataclysm at the moment, I decided to invest some time into farming this mount (not so much farming as it was AFK'ing with the volume all the way up). I played a lot of Madden, watched youtube or movies, but generally didn't do anything WoW related while camping- which certainly saved my sanity, although it absolutely killed my /played time.

A lot of credit goes to NPCscan- if you don't have this mod already, go download it now!

Living up to its name, it has taken me way too much time to find and kill the Time-Lost Proto Drake (I don't even want to estimate an actual number of hours), so now it's time to pick my next camping target- Poseidus or the statues in Uldum... any suggestions?

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Pre-Cataclysm To-Do List Re-Revisited

I thought it would be fun to take a third and final look at my pre-Cata to-do list now that we're well into the expansion.

For those of you that don't know, wayyy back in June I posted my list of things I wanted to accomplish before the release of Cataclysm. I figure with the 4.01 patch presumably being released tomorrow, now is a good time to take a look and see how well I did!

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  • Finish the Insane achievement!
  • Finish my "Salty" title.
Get exalted with Hydraxian Waterlords.
  • Get exalted with Silverwing Sentinals.
  • Get Exalted with The League of Arathor.
  • Get the Battlemaster achievement.
  • Get Shadow's Edge (and Ideally Shadowmourne).
  • Get the achievement for 100k honorable kills (55k 39k 20k to go).
  • Kill King Krush to finish Frostbitten grr.
  • Get all of the argent tournament tabards.
  • Complete the Hero of Shattrah feat of strength achievement.
  • Finish my AQ quest chain.
  • Get all the blacksmithing recipes I still need.
  • Compete my old class sets: D1, D2, T1, T2, and AQ set.
  • Farm the following mounts:
  • [Deathcharger's Reins] from Stratholme.
    [Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake] from Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.
    [Reins of the Azure Drake] from Eye of Eternity.
    [Reins of the Dark War Talbuk] from Nagrand.
    [Reins of the Green Proto-Drake] from the mysterious egg.
    [Reins of the Onyxian Drake] from Onyxia's lair.
    [Reins of the Raven Lord] from Anzu in Sethekk Halls.
    [Sea Turtle] from fishing.
    [Reins of the White Polar Bear] from Brunhildar dailies.
    [Reins of the Twilight Drake] from Obsidian Sanctum 3 drakes, 25 man.
    [Reins of the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth] sold in Dalaran.
    [Reins of the Time-Lost Proto-Drake] rare spawn.
    [Swift Alliance Steed] from ToC tribute chest.[Mimiron's Head] from Yogg Saron.
    [Reins of the Ironbound Proto-Drake] from the Ulduar 25 meta achievement.
    [Invincible's Reins] from Lich King hard mode...
    [Argent Hippogryph] from the argent tournament.
    [Ashes of A'lar] from Kael.
    [Crusader's White Warhorse] from ToC tribute chest.
    • Farm the following pets:
    [Giant Sewer Rat] from fishing in Dalaran.
    [Ice Chip] from the Midsummer event.
    [Parrot Cage (Hyacinth Macaw)] rare drop in STV.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------

    Still struggling with some drops, but I made some huge dents in this list. How do you think I did?

    Thursday, September 1, 2011

    Tuesday, July 19, 2011

    Minecraft Revisited

    Hello!

    Happy Tuesday i reckon'. Today I wanted to take a few minutes to revisit my Minecraft post from wayyyyy back in the early days of the blog. (Psst, go check it out if you haven't already CLICK ME!)

    My dream castle is coming along slowly. I grew to really dislike the look of the cobblestone blocks, so as you can see I redid almost the entire structure. Take a look and let me know what a great job I'm doing!


    Errm, this isn't quite finished...


    The revamped roof area.



    The moat is currently a waterfall until I finish it. Here you can see all the blocks used to create just one outer wall.


    The moat is still a work in progress...


    Another angle.


    One of the newly designed interior rooms.


    The full frontal view of the 3 levels.


    Sky bridge with side entrances.


    My favorite feature, the sky
    bridge.

    I plan on putting more work into this eventually. It has been a huge undertaking to conduct all the terraforming by hand. I'm actually starting to have flashbacks to my SNES days of playing another game that features terraforming...



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    Paladin-Bias

    Tuesday, July 12, 2011

    Happy July!

    Hi friends on the interweb,

    It's been a few weeks since the last post, so a quick status report.

    I took a vacation- now I'm back.

    New posts coming soon!

    Saturday, June 18, 2011

    Graphically-Challenged

    Based on a semi-true story, and having to deal with tech support last weekend.


    I intend on making this into an actual comic.

    Sunday, May 22, 2011

    DING! Level 1

    Today is the one year anniversary of Paladin-bias!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    In celebration I baked a birthday cake to share with all 3 of the people who view my blog!

    I look forward to keeping this blog going for many years to come. Go back and check out some of the posts from the past year!

    Enjoy, friends. :D


    -|-|-|-
    Paladin-bias

    Monday, May 16, 2011

    Months Behind Dot Com...

    Hello blogosphere!

    I had the opportunity to read a borrowed copy of the Christie Golden novel based on the World of Warcraft during some downtime at work- so of course my immediate thought was too do a book review... many months after most of you have already read the book.

    For those that haven't already read The Shattering, be warned: potential spoilers ahead!

    Christie Golden's World of Warcraft novel: The Shattering, contains accounts of the events leading up to the devastating Cataclysm that ravaged Azeroth- as detailed in the third expansion to the wildly popular online MMO.The story follows two (occasionally intertwined) story arcs representing the two factions of the g

    ame world- the Alliance and the Horde. The Alliance story follows Anduin Wrynn, Prince and heir to the throne of Stormwind, as he matures into a young leader among his people and the Alliance, and discovers his own affinity for the Light. The Horde story arc features Thrall, Warchief of the Horde, as he struggles with understanding the mysterious elemental disturbances occurring across Azeroth while trying to balance his role as the leader of his people during the time immediately following the war for Northrend. Within the Horde arc is the plight and uncertainty of Baine Bloodhoof as he struggles to reclaim his homeland after the death of his father and subsequent coup by the scheming leader of the Grimtotem Tauren, Magatha.

    The book is very effective at intertwining all of these stories with the natural disasters occurring with increased frequency throughout Azeroth. My favorite story arc of the book was the journey of young Anduin Wrynn, and oft unutilized character in the game, as he transitioned from childhood to adulthood

    Overall the story was engaging and entertaining. As a fan of the game, the book didn’t necessarily provide much information that I didn’t already know, but it did give insights into some of the logic behind the scenes and some additional story lines for some underused characters, like Anduin. For example, the highly contentious decision to promote Garrosh to warchief comes across as actually a very difficult decision for Thrall- that doesn’t appear to be the case in the game, which jumps straight from a Thrall-lead horde to the rule of Garrosh.


    "If anything about this seems natural to you: congratulations, you're a weirdo."

    The novel does have some room for improvement from a fan’s perspective. If you have read any other reviews of the novel, you’ll note MANY fans bemoaning the rushed/forced romance between Thrall and Aggra- and I am of the same opinion. The love story felt out of place and so obviously manufactured that it detracted from the important storyline of Thrall returning to his shamanistic roots.

    Overall I enjoyed the story, it was my first attempt at reading a Warcraft novel, and definitely exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations. Casual fans will enjoy a look into the political background of their favorite factions, while dedicated fans will enjoy the story leading up to the elemental invasion of Azeroth. I look forward to exploring more of the books from the Warcraft series, and advise any fan of the game to do the same!


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    Paladin-Bias

    Sunday, April 24, 2011

    I think I'm going insane....


    Correction: I'm already there!


    I finally crossed the Insane title off of my Cataclysm to-do list (yes, I realize it is months late, real life happened!)

    Join me in celebrating this accomplishment, which came as the result of about 50,000 gold and 20-50 hours of dedication.

    Go me!



    Thursday, April 7, 2011

    Help Wanted

    I had a discussion with someone the other day, after a trainee who was into LARP'ing impressed me. I joked that maybe we should start posting our help wanted ads in elvish...


    So yeah... I made a help wanted ad in elvish... enjoy!



    Thursday, March 3, 2011

    All quiet on the western front...

    Good afternoon everyone!

    It has been far too long since I last posted, so I wanted to say "hi" and let the world of blogging know I'm still alive.

    Look for new content on Paladin-Bias coming soon!

    Tuesday, January 11, 2011

    Original WoW Fiction! The Dread Citadel

    Good afternoon internet!

    Paladin-Bias is pleased to present some original WoW fan fiction (based very loosely on an actual Naxx run). This is part one, with the conclusion to follow some time in the near future when I get around to writing it.

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    The Dread Citadel

    It was cold, the kind of cold that cut right through fur or cloth, to chill the very essence of you. The walls beside us were wet and streaked with stains of various colors, and it appeared to have some kind of slime or mold growing sporadically across the crumbling stonework.

    I shifted in my armor restlessly as I waited in the murky gloom of the dread citadel, Naxxramas.

    "Where is that fool?" Snapped the human crouching beside me. He was a short, stout man by human standards- however he was still relatively tall compared to my people. Beneath his helm he wore the same sour scowl I had seen for the past two months, since he had replaced our last warrior.

    Beneath his heavy plate armor, I could see he wore a vibrantly colored shirt- possibly in an attempt to convey he was of a noble house or that he had some wealth, although since I'd known him, he had never felt obliged to buy a round for any of us after a well-fought battle.

    What he lacked in social grace, he made up with brute force and blind, adrenaline-fueled aggression. I can recount numerous battles where his blood-thirst has been a boon to our plight.

    "I'm right here you dog." Snarled a voice from the shadows. From the darkness, a druid crept towards us; shape shifted to resemble a ferocious beast. I watched a tendril of drool dangle precariously from his jaw, before dropping unceremoniously to the damp floor.

    The warrior grumbled an inaudible reply, assuming his subservient role to the obvious leader of our group.

    "Aye, and what is it? What's at the end 'a the tunnel?" I called out to the druid, cutting through the tension, the priest a few yards away sighed in relief and returned to pouring over a scroll he was attempting to decipher.

    "The tunnel is filled with a noxious slime, it stretches a few yards before opening up into a massive room." The druid replied with a low growl, "It's Gluth." He added with a smirk, and a snap of his jaw.

    The faces around me went pale, their expressions immediately changed to a mixture of concern and doubt.

    After a few moments our hunter, a sly night elf who was as quick with his wit as he was with his bow and quiver, broke the silence, "The foul plague-dog of Naxxramas- his jaw is the infected maw of the scourge war machine." At this he laughed, "HA, nothing Prometheus and I can't handle!" He said as he thoughtfully pat his pet, a harmless looking dog that was sleeping with his head in the hunter's lap.

    To this, the usually reserved priest replied, "Yes. The hunter speaks the truth, the Light will aid us in this holy task."

    "Ha, that idyllic skirt-wearer wouldn't know the Light if Uther's mace whacked 'im across 'is ruddy head" I thought to myself as I shifted my mace from its resting place on my left shoulder to my right. "The true path to the Light is through glorious battle."

    "We need a plan." Said the squat gnome mage bluntly, peering from behind the priest.

    The mage was unusually terse for a gnome, and he didn't share the love for engineering and technology beloved by his brethren. Instead he chose to live the life of a nomadic mystic, focusing on always growing his knowledge of the arcane, and caring for nothing else.

    Make no mistake, his interest in our companionship was nothing more than an agreement made out of practicality- the best way for him to practice his ever growing repertoire of new, more powerful spells was to get some real battle experience- and we were just useful enough for him to stick around.

    Through all of this our resident shaman remained eerily silent. He sat alone, a few yards away meditating. Surrounded by his spiritual totems, he prayed to the elements for guidance.

    I spit on the ground, muttering under my breath, "Filthy savage." The shaman, shot a quick glance in my direction, but I didn't care. Praying to dirt, snow and whatever other pagan things they believe was an affront to the Light.

    The druid looked behind him in the shadows, "Go scout the tunnel, make sure there aren't any traps." He snapped to the empty shadows.

    "Yeah? Sure, send me to do the work while you scum sit here. Anything you ask my master." A voice replied smugly. A shadowy figure darted by, our resident rogue. He was a dwarf like myself, but that was where our similarities ended. He was rude, sneaky, mischievous, and deceitful- and I was fairly certain he had pilfered from my coin purse on more than one occasion. I often wondered why we kept him around.

    To be continued…