How to get into zakum while being at the restroom…
Stereotypical hacker.
Shhhh…
Piece of cake now…
Word travels fast!
Stats on Zakum Hat
Welcome back to grade school antics, folks! If her physical flaws, annoying voice, and terrible humor didn’t make you hate her, perhaps this pseudo-racial bash on the Chinese language will. What’s next, ebonics? Ironic that she’s recently gotten a lot of exposure because she thought Kelly Ripa was “homophobic.”
I had some negative stuff, but I removed it and instead put this up. Thanks Loan
Just a few pictures… too lazy to write captions.
Broan Economy (Examining Maple economy in general)
It’s not hard to believe that a real economy can exist within an imaginary society. Traditionally, you kill something and it drops a certain amount of gold/money/etc. This model is still commonplace in Maple and the flaws that come along with it since it introduces an infinite amount of revenue into the economy. With the advent of the free market – that can be found in other games as well – a new element of viable player-run personal economy prompts a rise in a more dynamic commerce. Handling such elaborate environments can be just as difficult as the monetary rewards that quests, training, etc. yield.
A major problem with the economy is the artificiality, the ability to buy/sell to non-playable characters and the infinitely durable items which would lead to economic problems. The end product of such a system would be the increasingly massive amounts of money flowing into the economy decreasing the value of items (aka deflation). In order to combat that, new players that join create demand that bring a natural equilibrium, a tax system, and now the maple version of “item decay” with curse scrolls that have the possibility of breaking items when they fail — monetary drain, niiiice.
The elasticity of the currency even translates into the real world with the exchange between Dollars and “Mesos”, determined by a highly liquid (if against Terms of Service) economy. This should all but eliminate deflation but there is a different enemy to the economy, cheaters – who unnaturally produce inflation across the board. They are the major contributing factor, in my opinion, and to a lesser extent the [hacker*] guild ‘S3XYinFM1′ (of which I hold no grudge against) which I believe is relatively inactive now. While it isn’t a monopoly, it is monopolistic behavior. Which everyone can agree on… is bad. It fosters anti-competition and monopolistic tactics. I’m severely lacking in sleep so…
Let me switch gears quickly, since I don’t want to droll on and on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thaiJjang
Some people have the misconception that this is the Jjang group that is so overwhelmingly known because of the first two videos. There’s a distinction between the Jjang group and the Jjang guild. The Jjang guild is a guild that I’ve started and I’m the only original Jjang and the rest are my beloved close friends in this guild. Just thought I let you guys know.
I wanted to take this opportunity to reinforce that statement, for those who are unaware… however he summed it up quite nicely – so I won’t. These are the original members of the Jjang crew/clan/group: jackumiJjang, hyunieJjang, thailover, thaiJjang, KonJjang, appleJjang, binaJjang, sonicJjang, GreenDemon, luluJjang, linaJjang, rhyJjang, littleJjang, hottieJjang, babieJjang and kyuubiJjang. That’s it as far as I know.
Edit : I think the comment I left on JtheP’s blog was poorly constructed/thought out.
* = I previously said “supposed legit” however, it is confirmed hacker guild – whether they like to admit it or not.
Jjang Guild vid (direct link to download vid can be found here).
Grief regrets selling his claw
“Ho looks like twins” lol
Why not just ban them… GMs are too lenient.
GM is all over his nuts.
GMs can’t loot or drop items (she said so herself)
Another Zakum killed.
To all my random visitors, enjoy your stay
6th Annual Eric Wong Thanksgiving Alumni Classic
(Even though this is a recent tradition, only on its sixth year, it is a tradition nonetheless.) It’s that time of year again. The 6th annual Wong Thanksgiving Alumni Classic will be held this Thursday, November 23rd at an undisclosed location, bring your A game and leave your shit talking at home cause we playing for real now. Best bring your bib… because it’s going to get messy.
Place: Eh, we’ll decide when we meet up. Time: 11 am, The 23rd of November, Thursday, Thanksgiving Why: Because I seriously doubt any one of us will be cooking dinner.
Anyway, it’s a tradition. Hoop it up in the morning, grub it up in the evening.
You know how to get in touch.
I know, it’s like the cast of “Bay Watch”… just a bunch of beautiful, perfect, well formed molecules
Edit – Late [formally] posting the info this year, but we already have more than enough for a full run. Guys, no “mobile bar” this year… too excessive last year, so we’re going to try and tone down the alcohol a bit.
Native Americans: CC PLZ Pilgrims: NO U
Wrong, probably. Funny, in a jackass sort of way… yeah.
I am really looking forward to seeing Japanese ace Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch. There’s a ton of hype, mostly caused by the $51.1m bidding war for the rights just to negotiate and reportedly a figure expecting to exceed $16m for his annual contract, a WBC record of 3-0 with 1.38 ERA and MVP honors. At 17 years old, he threw a 250 pitch, 17-inning win in the quarterfinals in high school. A day later in the semis, he threw 15 pitches and collected three outs for the win. The finals? a no hitter… I could go on and on.
D-Mat, Bazooka, Dice-K, Nice-K… Matsuzaka mania, whatever you want to call it – I just can’t wait to see it.
You heard that nickname here first…. Daisuke > Dice-K > Nice K (strikeout)
12:58am 11/12/2006
First Zakum killed by Broan Legits.
Congrats to thaiJjang and soupmonster for getting helms. Congrats to everyone who participated, mark it down in the books…
I didn’t want to make a vid, but everyone kept telling me to frap it. Then when I did, I had to host it somewhere… and I figured I might as well add some bg music and then upload it elsewhere, etc. I literally spent like 60 seconds on it, so it’s not exactly George Lucas-like Industrial Light and Magic…
Note: I did not spend any time editting it, so don’t judge me on that It’s a big file sitting at roughly 400mb.
Pre-fight antics.
The very beginning of the 1 dmg assault on Mushmom
Got bored…
Another pic.
Double level up.
Now onto nonsensical rambling.
It’s not easy finding an Asian homeless person – trust me, I’ve tried. Granted, it’s a sweeping generalization of a statement, but the Asian homeless in the United States exist in numbers vastly smaller than those of other marginalized groups, not to mention, the majority.
According to a 2004 survey of 27 cities across the United States conducted by the National Coalition for the Homeless, 49% of those homeless were African-American, 35% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic, 2% Native American and 1% Asian. Yes, you read that correctly—1% Asian, a figure that probably doesn’t correspond to the ethnic distribution breakdown Asians within the given United States population.
We’ll try to uncover and break down the reasons why it’s so difficult to locate homeless asians. But, surely they exist, so the two questions that remain are what exactly aren’t these statistics picking and where are these Asian homeless?
After checking below the surface, it’s apparent socioeconomic characteristics such as ‘crime’, ‘unemployment’, and ‘substance abuse’ all reflect a minority group’s struggle and are strongly correlated to the rate of homelessness within a population. Factors like age, mental illness, substance abuse and being a war veteran have all been linked to homelessness. So what is it about the Asian Diaspora that makes us less vulnerable to these things than other groups within the American landscape?
Given all the attention and studies revolving around the term ‘model minority’, we can start there. All roads regarding our seeming success appear to lead back to this.
The term ‘model minority’ has become broadly synonymous with Asian-Americans, describing us as a shining example of success for a marginalized group in the United States. It was first coined in the 1960s by a social demographer by the name of William Peterson, but obviously became a popular catchphrase for the media to describe Asian-Americans trumpeting our scholastic and social success, within the ‘success ladder paradigm.’ Statistical data gathered by American Census Bureau (2002) cross-comparing ethnicities according to ‘median household income’, ‘individual income’, ‘college degrees’ and ‘high skill occupation’ are just several of the many yardstick standards used to measure level of success with Asians outscoring the rest.
The ‘model minority’ label is a high bar to live up to, not to mention, dismissive of the experiences of those Asians who don’t fit into this idealistic paradigm, aka those struggling which include the ‘Asian homeless’—
Regardless, there’s some validity to this coined label. Whether this is partially because Asians have a harder time asking for help from social services who conduct surveys remains, to date, unknown. But what is culturally evident is that the Confucian values within an Asian culture undoubtedly contribute to the low rate of homelessness within the Asian sub-culture.
The biggest one being education, an association with Asians that’s been beaten into us, but that’s only because it’s true. According to Confucian values, one’s social ranking is determined by one’s educational background and competition between families, is common-place. Families or individuals who’ve already been here for a generation have yielded a second and even third generation of highly-educated offspring. Or at the very least, ones with a college degree and at a significantly higher percentage than other marginalized groups only slightly trailing after the white majority. And having a higher education means having a higher level of occupation which means yielding progeny with similar values and results.
The reasoning for these impressive numbers for education could be two-fold: One, immigration restrictions which dictate, for the most part, immigrants coming from Asian countries such as China, India or Korea, must have specialized skills or enter the country, for study under a student visa. This would explain why there’s a high concentration of Asians in fields such as computer programming, engineering and medicine. Immigrants that enter the country illegally are the most vulnerable to falling prey to homelessness. However the community-mentality of Asian culture with a Confucian-model base acts as a safety net for those who arrive to this country underneath the system. In almost every major city, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, there’s a Chinatown, a Koreatown and a Japantown serving as a familiar mini-society within the greater one, where immigrants, legal or not, can go to at least communicate with their own kind and also be integrated into the skilled or unskilled work force.
Second reason for the higher levels of college degrees amongst Asians is simple.
In most Asian societies, the children are the parent’s ‘retirement plan’ and it’s expected for them to take care of them when they’re old. It’s a Confucian-based family model of caretaking. For this same reason, you also won’t find as many Asians in retirement or nursing homes. Therefore, it serves the parent’s best interest to give their children the best possible educations that will afford the salary allowing this, regardless of whether in the United States or abroad.
Family takes care of family. Whether it be a macro-family, such as communities like a Chinatown, or a micro-family, such as an actual nuclear family, caring for the mentally ill, the old and war veterans, three groups that fall prey to homelessness, are usually a family affair. And while the majority of homeless women are victims of domestic violence, it’s even rarer to find a homeless Asian woman, although in Asian communities such as the Cambodian and Laotian, the figures are higher than in those Asian communities who’ve been here in the states longer, such as the Koreans and Japanese.
However, the ‘model minority’ concept has flaws that don’t pick up on important cultural nuances. Although Asian households, on the surface, report as more affluent in ‘median household income’ than whites, Asian households have multiple earners in the family, including the children, with longer hours and less days off. So per person, it could actually be lower income than that of whites.
So, while it is true- there are less Asian homeless people than any other ethnicity – the actual numbers can be skewed by socio-psychological matters that aren’t immediately obvious. Asians simply may not resort to homeless shelters. Or else, given the community-minded aspect of Asian living, those who live below the poverty level, such as 40% of the Vietnamese living in northern California, may group together and pile their resources living in cramped conditions, however not on the streets or in shelters.
While it’s true, statistics aren’t a flawless read on the overall picture, it’s apparent that the very same Confucian values that gave life to a term like ‘model-minority’ for Asians are the same source for why there aren’t many Asian homeless people.
We simply take care of our own.
>>>
Brand new look!
What is ‘religion to me’ and ‘the meaning of life’.
There are many different faiths in this world and while examining my own beliefs, I feel that regardless of religion, as long as you have faith and continue to pray… you’ll end up doing just fine. I don’t necessarily buy into mandatory visits to a house of worship. Faith, your beliefs, and the [possible] existance of The Lord is within you. Since that’s the case, then where ever you choose to pray – God will be with you. Why do we need to be in this church or that church? Anyways, that’s just my opinion which we’re all entitled to have.
As far as the meaning of life, I suppose we’re all striving to find that answer. So far, this is what I’ve come up with: Love, be loved and do as much as you can for others who may be less fortunate than you. While that doesn’t quite sum up what I think or truly feel, it represents something I think we can all agree with (haha). However, I’m not sure we’ll ever find a definitive answer in our lifetime. Life is the search. Live the best life you can… and then you’re gone. That’s the general plan anyways.
What’s your answer to these two questions ^_^
Is God evil?
A serious discussion taking place within the confines of Maple Story?! No way! While they didn’t quite put it so eloquently, I’ll dress it up for them. Basically, it boiled down to this: How can a just God create a universe containing such great suffering. Let’s ignore how flawed this question is, the syntax, does God exist, human self-destructive bahavior by nature, etc. for a moment. Is God evil, for allowing humans to possess powerful emotions of pleasure and pain and its release. My take on this is a resounding ‘no’… what a source of great relief, eh.
Who decides what is evil and what is not. That’s based on individual perspective which is often times further complicated by third party perspective.
>>> Let me cut this short, because this just happened…
I dislike cheaters, commonly known as “hackers” in game, and Num1stunna (a.k.a BootyDo a.k.a LoadedLux a.k.a Turftaik) just recently started cheating – knowing how much I disliked cheaters, he did it anyways. So I removed him from my buddy list immediately and went about my way. After a lot of begging, I reluctantly added him again with a simple caveat that I’d no longer treat him the same way. No, cheating does not make you a “bad” person but it does reflect on your character. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you people with imaginatively designed analogies to seek poetic justice… that’s not my style. Let’s break it down into one simple concept. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You pushed… I pushed back.
It doesn’t matter to me if you’ve been my friend since birth or for two minutes, I won’t make any exceptions so don’t expect special treatment. Cheating is a betrayal of that friendship.
(she said so herself)
It’s a big file sitting at roughly 400mb.
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