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SPIRIT

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Blog Entries posted by SPIRIT

  2. SPIRIT
    So for fun, I thought I'd go through the different forums to find out which is the highest voted topic by Reputation Points. And then hand out pretend Internet Medals to the ones with the best score.
     
    Obviously Reputation Points are totally unbiased and a completely accurate metric for the quality of a post.
     
    ... Actually, I don't think anyone really looks at them. BUT I DID. FOR SCIENCE.
     
    The following is a list of the top 10 Comedies on BZPower based on the Reputation Points held by its first post... at the date and time that this blog entry was posted. Obviously there's nothing to stop people from going around and adding more points to their favourite Comedies, but I'll know that you did it. And I'll do the "shame on you hand gesture".
     
    Uh... so yeah, the list:
     
    10. ~♥~ Kokoro no Ice ~♥~ by GSR with 13 Points
     
    9. Staring Contest Continues by Onuki with 16 Points
     
    8. WHAT IS THE POTOO?! 2 by Voltex with 17 Points
     
    7. The Adventures of Sumiki's Dad - by Sumiki's Dad's Son with 20 Points
     
    6. Wedding Announced by Onuki with 23 Points
     
    4. (Tie) WHAT IS THE POTOO?! by Voltex with 26 Points
     
    4. (Tie) Hakuna Vakama by Onuki with 26 Points
     
    3. Poor Kongu... by SPIRIT with 28 Points
     
    2. Game, Set, Match by Eyru with 30 Points
     
    1. The Kaita and the Storyteller by GSR with 35 points
     
    Congratulations to GSR for getting the gold, Eyru for getting silver, and me for getting bronze. Special mention to Voltex and Onuki, the only people not in the top 3, but still in the top 10 multiple times. Ordinarily, I'd make the winners wonderful medals in Microsoft Paint, but as we all know, Microsoft Paint is being discontinued, and that's totally the reason not because I'm lazy.
     
     
    So what forum should I do next?
  3. SPIRIT

    That Awkward Moment

    By SPIRIT,

    That awkward moment when you're pretty sure you've Streetpassed someone you know, but it's so improbable that they would have a 3DS that you're not sure how to bring it up in conversation with them.
     
    Is there a lengthy German word to describe this emotion?
  4. SPIRIT

    Memory Lane

    By SPIRIT,

    Ah, SPIRIT has homework again, so you know what that means? Yep, a procrastinatory trip down memory lane looking at some gems from his Brickshelf gallery.
     

    Gotta love the classics.
     

    Anyone remember when this movie was eventually supposed to happen?
     
    A MOC of Thok I made back in late 2005 based on preliminary pictures
     

    Movie-style Jaller.
     

    "You and Ashbear got no wrong-quarrel. Just doing her duty."
     
    The truth comes out at last.
     
    Best idea for LEGO ever.
     
    The wondrous days when I was the world champion at the Spinner Challenge.
     
    The wondrous day when I ninjaed Greg.
     
    Not in Kansas any more.
     
    It all makes sense now.
     
    Not Slytherin, eh?
     
    A whole gallery of what could have been...
     
    Silly Toa,
     
    Trix are for kids.
  5. SPIRIT

    Have you prepared?

    By SPIRIT,

    I just want to make sure that everyone here has a secret password ready just in case they travel back in time and need to convince their past selves that they are from the future.
     
    A good Future Password would be something that you have never told anyone, impossible for anyone to guess, and that would give you the greatest flexibility in terms of time travel (i.e. the earlier this password would work on you, the better). My own password, for instance, would let me convince all past iterations of myself up to 1995.
     
    Be especially careful about the first two rules. If there's even a tiny chance that someone could guess your password, that defeats the whole purpose. Because it is more likely that you will be a victim of an elaborate ruse than future you actually travelling back in time, you have to make sure your password is something no one else could ever know (I mean, this is just standard preemptive inductive reasoning, guys).
     
    Now some naysayers out there might be wondering why you even need a password at all. Surely you could just be like the guy from a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and predict some future event to show everyone you're telling the truth. Well that's a horrible plan! First of all, in the time all of you have been alive, we know how to predict eclipses and other astronomical events, so you aren't convincing anyone with that shtick. Plus, how many of your have memorized recent history? Unless you're an autistic savant, you're going to have to sit around for a while waiting for an event you remember to transpire. Complete waste of time.
     
    If you can't think of something past you would know that know one else knows, then may I suggest making a Future Password now? Who knows, a future version of you could be spontaneously appearing right about... now.
     
    ... now.
     
     
    .... now.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    ... now.
     
    Dangit.
  7. SPIRIT
    Back when Journey to One came out two years ago, I said to myself, "hey, remember all those movie spoofs you wrote back in the day? Weren't those fun? You should totally write one for this Netflix thing because it's going to be around forever."
     
    Then they announced the cancellation.
     
    "Hey, it's still cool, it'll be nice to do one last thing with Bionicle before saying goodbye forever."
     
    Yes, well, little did I realize that it would end up taking two years! Granted, I was finishing a master's degree, moving countries, and starting a career, so there were a few more things taking my attention than when I was a teenager going to school for 6 hours a day, but this was still pretty difficult. My standards as to what constitutes a joke have certainly risen since I wrote my first movie spoof back when I was 14, but also the dialogue in Journey to One was harder to intersperse with jokes and I've just become a lot more susceptible to writer's block in my old age.
     
    However I did finish it.
     
    There were many times I wanted to give up. It certainly didn't help that this didn't have nearly the readership the previous instalments in the series had, but I kept telling myself that I didn't get into writing for the praise. I did it because I had something to say.
     
    Even though it was hard work, I'm glad I did it. A final homage to a franchise I loved so well. And now my legacy as someone who finishes everything he started on this site remains intact. (Please ignore all memories you may have of my many unfinished projects.)
     
     
    If you'd like to check it out for yourself, I encourage you to give it a read.
  8. SPIRIT

    My Thought Process

    By SPIRIT,

    Hmm, I think I should buy some tea.
     
    What kind of tea should I buy?
     
    Maybe I'll buy a whole bunch of different teas to see which ones I prefer.
     
    A varie-TEA pack.
     
    ...
     
    What have I become?
  10. SPIRIT

    A Thought

    By SPIRIT,

    The value of the Internet is that we all equally have a voice



    But remember that not all voices should be equally valued



    Meditate on this and your jimmies shall never be rustled again


  14. SPIRIT
    Six years prior, early on a Sunday morning, the young boy that would soon be known as SPIRIT logged onto his computer. He had visited the BIONICLE fansite known as BZPower a few times to look for BIONICLE-related news and he decided that it was high time that he joined himself. With that, he clicked the button marked "Become a Member" and tried registering for an account name that he thought he would like to have: SPIRIT. Having not seen any other SPIRITs on the forums, it came as little surprise when it worked. And with that, a new age was born...
     
    In the year 2043 A.D., under the new world order, SPIRIT arose to become Supreme Overlord of the World and June 1st became a national holiday, celebrating not only the anniversary of his membership on BZPower, but also the day that his ground forces destroyed the last settlement of the free world. Citizens wear images of blue Faxons on their sleeves to remember that on that day in the year 2009, SPIRIT was denied his Faxon due to a server glitch.
     
    Yeah, that was an excerpt from a history text book I got from the future.
  17. SPIRIT
    » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «Okay, at the end of Brother in Arms 7, Mazeka and Vultraz are transported to a strange land. 
    Here, the trees are banded with gold, massive beasts are disguised as lakes, and the roles of Toa and Matoran have been reversed.
     
    Then it hit me.
     
    They aren't in Spherus Magna.
     
    They're actually in...
     

    » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «Soviet Russia! 
    Think about it! In Soviet Russia, you do not protect Matoran, Matoran protects you. In Soviet Russia, you do not swim in lake, lake swims in you. In Soviet Russia, you do not get confused by web serials, web serials get confused by you.
     
    Turaga Dume's going to be behind all of this. Mark my words.
     
    I'll take my next Golden Key to Nongu now.
  18. SPIRIT
    My Pokéwalker went through the laundry... AND SURVIVED!
     
    And accumulated over 1 300 steps to boot.
     
    In your face, Nintendo!
     
    Which is more than I can say for my LEGO Harry Potter game, in which I've become trapped in a room with a white dragon with no escape (and I've done some Google searches that confirm this is a glitch). I hope TT releases a patch soon...
  19. SPIRIT
    So today marks 365 days of me living in Australia (in addition to it being Canada Day) and it's certainly been an interesting year for me. In this entry, I will talk about my average interaction when meeting an Australian for the first time.
     
    When Australians hear me speak, it doesn't take long for them to realize that something is awry. The more tentative Australians will ask where I'm from, but the bolder ones will flat out guess, which I always find much more interesting. To some Australians, I apparently sound either Irish or English, but those with better hearing can easily detect my North Americanness.
     
    And when they do, you can see the internal struggle on their face as they try to guess whether I'm American or Canadian. Ultimately, it's a fruitless exercise since urban middle class Americans (for the most part) sound just like urban middle class Canadians. Anyway, once they've gotten this far down the conversation, the Australian must make a choice: is he Canadian or American? It normally goes like this.
     
    "Are you American?"
    "No, I'm Canadian."
    "Oh no, I'm so sorry."
     
    Alternatively.
     
    "Are you Canadian?"
    "Yes."
    "Oh, thank goodness. I wanted to say American, but I didn't want to offend you."
     
    So yeah. Australians love Canadians and think calling us Americans is the worst insult ever. Clearly they are not aware of our reputation for politeness and easygoingness.
     

    Oh good, they have both of these emoticons.
  20. SPIRIT

    Masculinism

    By SPIRIT,

    Look up "masculinism" on Wikipedia (it contains certain adult themes, so I won't link it here).
     
    Come on, majority-male fansite, let's spread the word! Women can open their own doors!
  21. SPIRIT

    Paradox-free Time Travel

    By SPIRIT,

    "Paradox-free time travel? Now I know you're crazy, SPIRIT."
     
    This has been bugging me lately, so I felt I needed to get it off my mind. So listen well, sirs and madams, while I explain the mechanics and feasibility of time travel that doesn't have to interfere with physics or logic as does much of the time travel we see in popular media.
     
    Parallel Universes
     
    First thing's first. For paradox-free time travel to be possible, we need to assume that there are parallel universes or timelines. Many prominent physicists agree upon this, that our universe is simply one of many floating in the 11th dimension. Where do these universes come from? They split off every time a sapient being makes a decision, thus making all possible choices for them real.
     
    Now, we also have to assume that humans have free will. You can argue the philosophy of this until the cows come home, but if humans don't have free will, they can't make choices, and then we can't have our parallel universes, and now we have some angry physicists.
     
    But wait, couldn't random events trigger these timeline splits? Like what if the sun randomly blew up one day?
     
    Nope. And to explain why, here's a quote from Stargate:
     
    "According to Newtonian physics [...] if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time."
     
    Now, assuming we have free will, that means that apart from the choices we make, all things that happen in the universe are inevitable and governed by fate: a domino effect throughout the universe that began since the dawn of time. Therefore, unless something with the ability to make conscious decisions intervenes, everything will happen in a predetermined way that will not alter from timeline to timeline.
     
    In conclusion: human decisions make parallel universes.
     
    The Nature of Time
     
    "Time isn't made out of lines! It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!"
     
    This is absolutely wrong. Time is made out of neither lines nor circles, it is more like the branches of a tree. We'll call the trunk of the tree the original timeline, the one that existed when everything began. Then come along us clever humans who can make conscious decisions. Each decision we make, the tree branches off, each branch representing the various different choices we could have made. This is obviously quite a large tree.
     
    Now, don't get me wrong, universes aren't shaped like trees (physicists can't agree on the shape, but it really relevant at the moment), rather, the conceptual functioning of the splitting of timelines looks like a tree.
     
     
    The Time Machine
     
    Right, we've got our parallel universes and we've got our time tree, now for the fun part: our time machine. Before we begin, we have to imagine that cost and technology are not an issue as this deals with things that may take eons for humanity to develop.
     
    The machine itself doesn't need to be anything fancy. Just something big enough for you and anyone you intend to bring with you to fit in. Here's what it needs to do, though:
     
    1) Escape the fourth dimension
     
    According to Einstein (who seemed to know what he was talking about), we live in four dimensions of space-time (length, height, depth, and time). As we are all moving forward through the fourth dimension at more or less the same speed (except for those of us who can move at the speed of light), if we want to move backwards through time, we will need to escape its clutches. Now, since dimensions 5-10 are somehow wrapped up in superstrings, we'll need to journey to the 11th dimension, or the plane that contains all the various universes on membranes (just go with me on this, it's what physicists are saying).
     
    Going forward through time is much easier (just freeze yourself and wait), but if ever you want to get back to where you started, you're still going to need to go back.
     
    2) Make you feel at home
     
    As you depart the fourth dimension, you'll find that you sorely miss the laws of physics as the atoms that form your body begin folding in on themselves. So, the interior cabin of your time machine will need to retain or simulate a pocket of four dimensional space-time so that you don't crumble into dust.
     
    3) Be able to navigate the "time tree"
     
    Since your eyes probably aren't adjusted to working in the 11th dimension, you'll need your time machine to have the capability to detect your point of origin on the time tree and then calculate where it is you would like to re-enter the fourth dimension. Once again, problematic in that the concept of "where" would be quite different in the 11th dimension, but let's just say it's doable.
     
     
    Changing the Past
     
    The main issues that people have with time travel is that if you mess with the past you could alter the future so that you would never have travelled back in time in the first place, thus never having changed the past...
     
    This is a paradox. Logically, an action cannot cause or prevent itself from occurring.
     
    Therefore, as your time machine enters the past, you will instantly create a new time branch, given that you did not exist in the original series of events. Now, you can do whatever you like, even kill your past self with no adverse effects because the future that your actions create is a different one than the one you came from.
     
    Similarly, if I were to go into the future and bring back a Playstation 4, I would create a different timeline and thus a new future than the one the device originated from.
     
     
    Benefiting from Changing the Past
     
    Unless you wanted to watch the Egyptians build the pyramids or see what colour dinosaurs were, chances are you travelled back in time to change something in order to improve the life you presently live.
     
    Let's say you're a broken-hearted inventor with a time machine. Five years ago, your wife got in a car accident and now you're all alone. The accident was preventable, though, and you could have saved her. So you go back in time and save your wife's life. She happily returns home to your past self and it looks like all is well.
     
    Feeling rather pleased with yourself, you return to your own time only to find that nothing has changed. "That's right," you say. "I need to go to a future that stemmed from the change I made." So you hop back in your machine and jump one universe over, to the exact same time, where you find your alternate universe self still happily married.
     
    Now you're left with a difficult decision:
     
    A) Let them live together happily and get on with your life.
    B) Convince your alternate universe self to trade lives with you (this shouldn't be too hard, heck, in your life, you own a working time machine!).
    C) Kill your alternate universe self, dispose of the body, and then pretend to be him.
     
    Sticky, yes, but paradox-free.
     
     
    Well, I hope you budding geniuses out there will be able to use this lesson to work out the kinks in your time machines. If this does help you, you can repay me by getting me a pet Compsognathus.
  22. SPIRIT

    Kanoka

    By SPIRIT,

    Is it better to be feared or respected?
     
    I say, is it too much to ask for both?
     
    With that in mind I humbly present you the crown jewel of Ta-Metru's Duty Line. It's the first weapons system to incorporate the latest in proprietary Launching Technology. They say that the best weapon is the one that you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree! I prefer… the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dume did it, that's how Metru Nui does it… and it's worked out pretty well so far. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee you the bad guys won't even want to come out of their huts.
     
    For your consideration…the Kanoka Disk Launcher.
     
     
     
    Edit: Please link to images over 750 kB - let alone 70 MB.
    -Wind-
  24. SPIRIT

    Autocorrect Story

    By SPIRIT,

    Lets play a game. I'll type a whole story using only autocorrect suggestions. Let's see what we get:
     
     
    The fact I can see it as an excuse for the year and I don't think that I have a great way of the day before I get a follow back on my way home from work to be the first half of the year and I don't think that I have a great way of the day before I get a follow back on my way home from work to be the first half of the year of high quality of life and the first half of the day I have to go back and I don't know how much you love it and it is not the same thing to say I have a good time with the new version is better to be the best of the year of high quality of life and the first half of the day I have a good time with the new version is better to be the best of the year and a lot more fun and addicting and I don't think I can see it as an excuse for the next few weeks of school tomorrow and I'm still not sure what I was a great way of life is so cute I can't even see it in a while ago but the fact I can get it right away with the same thing to say I have to go back and I don't think that the two sides to be the first half of the day before the end of the year of high quality and the other hand is the only thing that would make it a lot of the day before I go back and I have a great way to the gym today and it was the best thing to say I love it and it is not the same time as the best thing to say that I can get it right away.
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