League: ESL Pro Series Season 1 Counter-Strike 5on5
Date: Monday, 06/06/2005, 20:00
Details: More Information

League: WC3L Season 8 Qualify
Date: Monday, 06/06/2005, 21:00
Details: More Information

League: Season II, Unreal Tournament 2004 Teams, Groupstage 1
Date: Thursday, 09/06/2005, 19:00
Details: More Information

League: Gigaliga Allstars, Counter-Strike
Date: Tuesday, 31/05/2005, 21:00
Details: More Information

League: WC3L Season 8 Qualify, Warcraft 3
Date: Sunday, 29/05/2005, 18:00
Details: More Information

League: ClanBase - UT2004 TDM Nations Cup VII, Final
Date: May 25, 2005 @ 22:00 CET
Details: More Information

Next week my parents are leaving to Germany as invited guests of the Austrian Ambassador to Lithuania who's celebrating his silver wedding or something. I guess he is the most important/famous person they know. My parents will probably be the only two normal people there between a lot of rich snobs :-)

I wonder, if every country has an ambassador for every other country in the world, how many ambassadors are there in total? How do you even get ambassador, it's not like there is a field of study for that, is there?

League: GGL, Age of Conquerors AmeriCup
Matchdate: Monday, 23/05/2005, 00:00
Description: More information

League: GGL, Call of Duty AmeriCup
Matchdate: Tuesday, 24/05/2005, 03:00
Description: More information

League: ESL Season II Counter-Strike 5on5 Groupstage 1
Matchdate: Sunday, 22/05/2005, 20:00
Description: More information

League: GGL AmeriCup, UT2004 1v1
Matchdate: Monday, 23/05/2005, 03:00
Description: More information

League: GGL AmeriCup, AoM: Titans
Matchdate: Tuesday, 22/05/2005, 00:00
Description: More information

League: GGL AmeriCup 1v1, Quake 3
Matchdate: Friday, 20/05/2005, 03:00
Description: More information

League: ESL Pro Series Season VI, Warcraft 3 1on1
Matchdate: Tuesday, 17/05/2005, 20:00
Description: More information

League: ESL Pro Series Season VI, Counter-Strike 5on5
Matchdate: Monday, 16/05/2005, 21:00
Description: More information

League: GGL AmeriCup 1v1, UT2004
Matchdate: Monday, 16/05/2005, 03:00
Description: More information

League: ESL - ENC Season II Warcraft 3 Teams Groupstage 1
Matchdate: Monday, 09/05/2005, 19:00

It's a real shame ESR is not having an april joke this year. Unfortunately almost every admin is preparing stuff for the upcoming 2 months maintenance downtime of the site, which is starting in a few days. That doesn't leave much time for silly jokes.. I hope you understand.

Sincerely yours,

Somehow I always knew there was something wrong with my sense of smell and now it's confirmed. I've recently been diagnosed with Anosmia, which is the loss of smell, and there's not much I can do about it.

Yeah, it's pretty sad such things happen - being so young, so much things left to do and see, with so much faith in the future of mankind (and gaming) and then.. nature itself takes it all apart ;-)

What can I say.. life stinks (ok, I can't really tell)

Have a nice day! :-)

yours BooTes

I love the look of the Toyota Celica :-) If only every registered ESR user would give me one Euro!
Is it sooo much I'm asking for?? :-)

Hmmm.. I think I'm going to buy this keyboard :-) Fits perfectly with the design of my LCD - stylish silver color and slim design. The notebook-like keys are nice too! It will hit the market middle of July, can't wait :-)

Greetings to stoneeh, tB0nE, CeTuS, THERAILMCCOY, UNR-Lord Rab, edge loch, ScOOp, Paladia, Daishi, tom, umayr, ... Hope to see you around :-)

Hello :-)

Yesterday I finally got my Samsung Syncmaster 172X LCD, literally after waiting for months. What's the deal? 12ms - there are only 2 monitors this fast, the other one being from BenQ. On to my impressions: all in all I'm very pleased with it's performance - sharp, colorful and fast. I had a 19" CRT before and was told that 17" LCD = 19" CRT - apparently that's not true. The visible screen diagonale is now 43,20cm as opposed to 46cm before. Everything's a bit smaller but due to the very sharp display all is easier to read so I'm happy with that.

I don't have many games installed but from all tested (UT 2004 demo, FarCry demo, Quake 3) only Q3 made problems. I don't know what it is, seems like rendering, physics and input are all linked to each other. Mouse control was sluggish and there were cords at any faster movement. First I thought it could be my bright screen settings but I also tested the FarCry demo, which is in a bright environment and the picture and control was very smooth.. so brightness can't be the reason. In the UT
2004 demo I only noticed a very very slight blurring, nothing of concern if you aren't in the top 1% of hardcore players in this game and even then it's negligible I'd say.

Movies are no problem - I watched a short HDTV clip (720i) and not a single trace of blurring :-)
In the next days I'll get my hands on some racing and strategy games to see how those look like and I feel I won't be disappointed. Conclusion: a visual revelation!

Link: Samsung Syncmaster 172X

I'm glad a new month started - reached me download limit much too soon in January and I really hate that. So much information on the web and yet I am bound to restrictions.

Added a few docus to eMule and a few days later I was at the d/l limit. I'm not willing to wait a year or longer until they show up on some german TV channel and I'm really eager to see them so I have no other choice as to download them :-). The only alternative would be satellite TV I guess, but I can't afford that.

I have 1024kbit d/l, 128kbit u/l, a 10GB limit and 43€ costs per month. Only thing I could do is upgrade to 2048kbit d/l, 512kbit u/l, 20GB limit for whopping 110€ and that's not really worth the money as I see it.

Don't get me wrong, 1024 down and 128 up is already more than enough but 10 or 20GB are a joke. If I want I could d/l 10GB in 3 days and that counts for legal files too. I'm just unhappy with the current situation, though I know it's probably worse for others.

So, what's your provider speeds (in kbit) and how much do you pay for it (in Euro)? Do you have a flatrate or a limit? What's the best you can upgrade too?

Edit: Well, a year has past and now I'm on 2048kbit d/l, 256kbit u/l, 20GB limit, 43€ - it's better, yes, but I need at least 30GB :-)

Edit: As of January 2006 my provider updated its service to 3072kbit d/l, 384kbit u/l and offers a flatrate for 10€ more, so I pay 53€ now but I'm finally able to download as much as I want :-D

Hello! :-)

I've seen the trailer of the upcoming Appleseed movie (www.a-seed.jp) from Masamune Shirow and I'd like to get more information about it. Its makers call it "The world's first real-life-CG-anime movie" - sounds like something new and interesting, at least from the visual point of view. So are there some major (english) Anime sites out there with detailed information about it? Thanks :-)

That's what the Chinese Calendar tells me:

Dog People

Dog people are honest, faithful and sincere. They respect tradition and value honor, and enjoy helping people. The Dog is very righteous, and always is the first to speak out against injustice. He is not good at socializing with friends, and rarely shines in company, but he is intelligent, caring and a good listener.

Hey, all true.. ;-)

I get along best with the horse, tiger and pig, worst with the ox, dragon and goat!

Go and tell me yours, plz! :-)

Yesterday evening was quite interesting for me. I haven't ever played Starcraft or Counterstrike so the TV coverage of the Grand Slam was really entertaining.

First I saw two Starcraft:Brood War games between TFSC|FiSheYe (2nd @ WCG 2003) and OgerEaky. Of course it was only a glimpse at what SC is all about but the commentary was good and the games weren't boring at all (which I thought they would be tbh).

Then there were the Counterstrike games between ALTERNATE aTTaX and un-named (no idea how known these two clans are). Well, CS irritates me a bit. Players are shooting at stone walls killing people who are actually behind that wall?! How is that supposed to work? Also, when an opponent is dead the body doesn't fall to the floor but floats motionless at the same place?! They only played the same map, commentary was bad, didn't really explain what the players were doing, all in all it gave me a bad impression.

Today they'll broadcast the finals of Worms, Warcraft 3 and Fifa 2003. Haven't informed myself about who is going to play but I think I'll take a look at WC3, hopefully it's as good as Starcraft.

I had always interest in astronomy and I am very happy that I stumbled on this program I want to tell you about. It's called Celestia and is a free real-time space simulation, available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Celestia is Open Source and the ongoing development is made through voluntary contributions of individuals all around the world, may it be coding, texturing, modeling, or providing astronomical data.

Celestia is getting more and more popular and even the NASA is using it for teaching purposes. The reason for this is a simple interface combined with a powerful engine. Here's a transcript:

"Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia does not confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All travel in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit. Many add-ons and vastly improved textures of high resolution are available for Celestia."

If you visit the site you'll notice the mainpage isn't really up to date but the forum is quite active. I'd recommend to read the Celestia User Guide if you want to know details about the program.

I've put up some links to pictures, to give you a little preview of what Celestia is capable of:

#1 - North- and Southamerica with the exact light situation at around 21:11 UTC.
#2 - Close-up of the European Alps at a distance of about 1.635 km.
#3 - Mars, the red planet.
#4 - This view you'd get from a 22.656 lightyear distance of the sun with around 2.000.000 stars (there are of course a lot more stars in reality but so far the largest database available for Celestia only contains 2 million)

Edit: Links were removed, I deleted the pictures some time ago. There are lots of pictures to be found in the forums, though! :-)

Did I mention that I'm fluent in Chinese Mandarin? Perhaps you should be too someday:

About 1.200.000.000 people speak Chinese, that is a fifth of the worlds population. China is huge so many dialects have evolved and apart from written communication someone from North China won't understand a South Chinese inhabitant. That's why there is a standard oral language, called Mandarin (Putonghua) which about 880.000.000 are capable of. If you plan on going to this country, this is the language to learn. :-)

In the close future the Chinese language will advance to one of the most important international foreign languages. This century is going to be significantly influenced by the development of the Asian-Pacific region as there is an economic boom expected over the next two decades. The World Bank forecasts that China will be the most powerful economic power worldwide in 2020 (unless the American government threatened of losing power, finds a ridiculous reason to throw some bombs on China to avoid that... whatever, I lose the plot).

What does that mean for the Internet? Probably around 2007 the majority of webpages will be in Chinese and a very big part of the outer-Chinese population won't understand shit. No worries though, English won't lose it's popularity, it's the primary international language and will stay it. Also most Chinese webpages have an English translation of their content and that will remain in the future.

Nevertheless, if above said woke your interest (or worries) read on.
A good start to learn another language are numbers. While China has for many uses adopted the Arabic numeral system familiar around the world, it also still uses its native Chinese character number system. This native number system we will glance at now.

Chinese is a symbol language, all text consists of those small rectangular shaped signs that are made of many small lines in all directions and make up a syllable. Writing or rather painting those symbols itself is a science. :-) The traditional thousand years old symbols were rather complex and it wasn't too long ago that the Chinese Government decided to simplify them to make them more efficient and I think people are pretty glad about that. So here they are:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

(Zero can be drawn with a simple circle)

Go and learn them, perhaps it will turn out to be useful. You could for instance cipher your daily food shopping list, or your cash machine code, .. you get the idea, so have fun and a nice day! :-)

Finally, another point in my "things-to-do-before-i-die" list I can tick off.

Demo: BooTes-vs-[100]spite (pro-q3tourney4, 10 min, v0.51)
v0.51 seems to be a tad easier than v0.5rc9, I think those superjumps are gone but I don't think that was the deciding part.

On to pro-q3dm6 now.. :-)

Edit: I removed the link, deleted the demo some time ago.

"Demos are an art form. They blend mathematics, programming skill, and creativity into something incredible to watch and listen to."

With this said, I would like to introduce to those who aren't familiar with the Demoscene community, 3 of the most popular demos existing:

1. fr-025 - the popular demo (9 MB) by farb-rausch - Music
2. VIP2 (7 MB) by Popsy Team
3. Zoom3 (64 KB) by AND

While not glancing with galore DirectX 9 features at all they are fascinating to watch and make appetite for more. I especially like Zoom3, where the creator squeezed so much into a small file.

If anyone knows other demos who are better in his/her opinion please let me know, can't have enough of them! :-)

Links:
http://www.ojuice.net
http://www.demoscene.ru
http://www.scene.org
http://www.pouet.net

Yesterday I was looking through the list of all the music files that I've collected and kept over the years. It aren't many, about 150 songs I'd say. As opposed to my friends I'm the only one who isn't addicted to the collecting delusion.

Recently I got about 1000 songs from one of them - dancefloor music only. Apart from that I in most cases don't like this music there was one thing which aroused my interest - they were all encoded in Vorbis.

Of course I've heard of it before, everybody has I think. In fact I'd only have Vorbis encoded music if there weren't 2 little problems:

1. You don't find a lot OGG files to download.
2. My MP3-Player doesn't support it yet (iRiver will release a firmware upgrade for OGG support in December, though)

-----

Looking at the Ogg Vorbis website one can find some of the reasons that make it so great:

"Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented."

Ogg Vorbis has been designed to completely replace all proprietary, patented audio formats. That means that you can encode all your music or audio content in Vorbis and never look back.

For a given file size, Vorbis sounds better than MP3. This means:
- You can keep your music collection at about the same quality level, but it'll take up less space.
- or you can have your music collection take up about the same amount of space, but have it sound better.

-----

They also have some music examples showing the Vorbis quality, Lepidoptera by Epoq is quite nice, try it out!

...people have up to now decided to register at ESReality.com!

Not bad but this number is misleading. If you check out the users list you'll see that only about 500 people have made more than 100 posts. That's a mere 3% of people who are really active on the site.

Looks like most people lose interest in continuous contribution very fast or don't find a lot worth talking about.

Here's an idea: What about a weekly ESR discussion with a topic of the extensive gaming scene e.g. some piece of hardware (mouse, headset, TFT), software (level editor, chat-program, server-browser) or about a game like the new Halo; Other things that aren't directly connected to gaming would be for example networks or barebone-systems.

Perhaps 2 or 3 admins who are interested could decide on the weekly topic and moderate the following discussion thread by keeping it clean, bringing up different viewpoints or even organizing people with deeper knowledge of the current topic (like inviting a journalist of a monitor testing site to write stuff).

Feedback plz :-)