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You might be interested in The KGV 2008 database, The Graffiti hack, and ways to learn cantonese.

 

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How to kill someone and get away with it

By brian on Mar 23 (#31)

1.     Get a gun, way ahead of time (like a whole decade beforehand).

a.     Take a bus from your home to get your silencer, before getting your gun from some other shop. Don’t drive a car. You can also get on someone else’s car if you wish. Choose a small and quiet model.

b.    Pick a small civilian gun. Choose models which fire common bullets to minimize possibility of tracing you from the bullets fired. I prefer Smith & Wesson Model CS45 Chief's Special with .45 ACP bullets. This gun is very small and cannot be seen inside your pocket.

c.     Buy around 30 bullets. You’re bound to missing some on a mission.

d.    Report the loss of your gun to the police. Say you got robbed at the bus station home. It was dark and the robber kept poking your ribs. Pay any potential fines. Now you’ve got yourself an unlicensed gun.

e.     Disassemble the gun, and make scratch marks inside its barrel. Police can track the source of the bullet from the marks the barrel makes with the bullet. Create extra scratches to confuse the police. If possible, sand the inside of the barrel.

f.     Make yourself a dust shield to cover the tip of the gun just to prevent invisible gunpowder from spraying on your hands after you shoot.

g.    Wash your gun in gasoline to remove any fingerprints you left from the gun store. Dry it in some open space. Do not dry it near open grass fields.

h.     Wrap your gun in disposable polyester cloth.

2.     Print two fake license plates. One for the front and one for the back. Do not take license plates off. Make the number easy to remember, so that any pedestrians will think they remember the number when they will report to the police.

3.     Get your gear ready.

a.     White, long-sleeved shirt with blue long jeans, or the most common outfit in your region and time of the year.

b.    Wear sports shoes of your choice, as long as it does not make noise on any surface, e.g. wood, plastic, marble, glass. Make sure your shoes don’t squeak. If your region has snow, tape a smaller piece of black cardboard under your shoes to avoid detection of footprint shapes.

c.     Prepare a backpack which is made only from black nylon. Avoid any model which allows fabric to come off. You will need the following items. Place items into the backpack procedurally:

·   1 plastic bag

·   1 mask (you can wear it if you want)

·   1 piece of high quality cloth (the ones for glasses)

·   2 pairs of transparent latex gloves. Yes, color matters.

·   1 wrapped, silenced gun from before.

·   1 pair of new leather gloves.

·   1 pair of used leather gloves, purchased from ebay.

·   1 pack of unopened, disposable raincoat.

4.     Schedule the day. If you plan to kill at 3pm, arrange a shopping session with your friends at 3pm and that you’ll all be meeting in a shopping mall. Kill at 2:45~2:55pm.

5.     Go to your target’s place. If the place does not have guards, ignore steps containing guards.

a.     Park opposite to your target’s house/apartment. Examine the building for backdoors and try them if you can.

b.    Disable the telephone line. Some of the residents will be dialing 911.

6.     Go up to your target’s door.

a.     Open your backpack with your dominant hand. Do not let your backpack touch the ground at any time.

b.    Take out one pair of latex gloves and wear them. Don’t touch the outside.

c.     Using gloved hands, wear another pair of latex gloves on top of that.

d.    Wear your leather gloves on top of that.

e.     Open your raincoat package and wear it.

f.     Unwrap your gun from the cloth. Unlock it. Put your cloth back into the backpack.

g.    Hold your gun with your dominant hand and your backpack with the other hand.

h.     Either knock on the door, or ring the door bell. Stand away from the peephole.

i.      If the target is not here, tough luck. Abort mission here.

j.      Regardless of who opened the door, point the gun at his/her forehead and shoot. Repeat until the person is dead.

k.     If that was your target, close the door quietly. Escape. Ignore steps below until it makes sense.

l.      Step into the building and eliminate anyone in your way until you reach your target. Kill him/her. If you cannot find him/her, kill off the entire building. Kill screaming women first to avoid alert from other floors. Then kill people at the counters because… there might be alarm buttons under the counter. Make sure you perform all the killing within a minute.

m.   When you’re finished, go out from the backdoor. Don’t open the door with bullets. They can tell how tall you are just from the height of bullet entry. If there isn’t a backdoor, exit from the front door. It should still be open, anyway.

n.     Exit the building. Take off your raincoat and your leather gloves, and put it inside the prepared plastic bag.

o.    Remove the cardboard on your shoes and rip them apart. Put the pieces inside the plastic bag. Tie the plastic bag and remove any air.

p.    Dump the used pair of gloves inside a rubbish bin near the building, used as fake decoy evidence.

q.    Enter your car and drive to the closest shopping mall. Avoid getting traffic tickets.

r.      Park in the closest shopping mall. Remove the fake license plate before entering the shopping mall.

s.     Dispose your plastic bag in some bin.

t.      Dispose your latex gloves in some other bin.

u.     Dispose your cloth in some other bin.

v.     Dispose your raincoat in some other bin.

w.    Dispose your mask, if you have one, in some other bin.

x.     Meet with your friends and do some shopping.

7.     Get away with it.

a.     Your license plate is not the same as what pedestrians saw. The dirt in your tire doesn’t really mean anything because you didn’t park in front of the targets house.

b.    You have no fingerprints left at the place.

c.     Your friends can proof you to be with them. You say you woke up at 12pm and took a shower before going out.

d.    Since your bloodstained tools are all in the plastic bag, you have no blood on yourself.

e.     Your footprints never appeared at the scene.

f.     It works best if nobody saw you, so please wear the mask.

g.    Note that you still have a gun with you, so please either keep it safe, or dispose it along with the items in the previously mentioned plastic bag prior to police investigation.

(1 vote)

5 Reasons Tablets Suck, and You Won't Buy One

By brian on Mar 20 (#26)

Jesse Schell, in his famous DICE talk, explained why the iPhone succeeded and the iPad will flop. Paraphrased:

Convergence doesn't happen. Technologies diverge, for the most part. The PVR diverged from the desktop computer which diverged from the game console. The only reason why the iPhone, a case of convergence, was so successful was what he called the "pocket exception" - things that go in your pocket converge with each other.

The Swiss Army knife is an example of convergence: it has scissors, tweezers, knives, files, screwdrivers, etc. It does nothing perfectly and everything adequately. The iPhone is like that. But if someone got you a "Swiss Army" kitchen utensil, with a spatula and a ladle and tongs and a couple knives in a single sheath, you would think it was the stupidest thing in the world. "And that's why everyone hates the iPad."

Link

(0 votes)

All Hail the Old Waterloo Identity

By brian on Mar 15 (#19)

University of Waterloo Logo

(Do you fancy white or black?)

Welcome! and If you think the new marketing logo represents nothing like us, this is the perfect spot for information about the old font of the University of Waterloo.

Fast Facts

  • The old (Pre-2009) identity for the University of Waterloo is UW. It has been changed to just Waterloo starting 2010.
  • The old logo is made with the Eidetic font. Solex is used for document text.
  • Currently (2010), the university is using the Gotham font for its marketing and faculty wordmarks. If you see a bolder version of Gotham, it is called Gotham Bold (obviously). You can download the font here and the wordmarks here.

The Situation

Waterloo is phasing out our logo AND had removed their old logos from the graphics website.

Now what?

This post provides procedures to restore your self-esteem and/or simply lets you reminisce over the good times when Waterloo actually does the right thing.

What the Emblem Stands for 

What does the new logo mean? It, like the old logo, means nothing. Its job is to bring forth the name of the university. The old one, as a bonus, gives viewers a look of our emblem. A closer look into the old logo reveals a message, concordia cum veritate, a phrase I remembered by heart. It means "in harmony with truth" in English, and is exactly what I strive to live for. In harmony with truth. In harmony with truth. In harmony with truth.

Our motto can be seen in the Physical Activities Complex (PAC), near the gym entrance. The new logo throws the harmony bit away.

University of Waterloo Physical Activities Complex

The new, bold logo creates mismatch for what the university stands for.

Why the New Logo Doesn't Work (for me, anyway)

  • We suit the logo, the logo doesn't suit us - Waterloo students have long been considered innovative. In fact, we are so far ahead of the game that no other university dares to challenge our position. We stand for innovation and, whenever people see our good 'ol 50-year old logo, they will remind viewers that we have the tradition of being innovative. By changing the logo (and cheapening the look as a side effect of using sans-serif instead of a serif font), we have lost the link that connects our roots, our tradition, and our future projection.
  • The new logo shows how the university works inside. They screwed up the initial design. Students surprisingly unite and revoke the design. Following the disagreement, the university pushes out three new designs and asks students to choose among the three. What?

We are meant to be able to choose not only among the three new logo designs, but should also be given the choice to not make any changes to the current logo as well.

No option given? 

The Materials

The Waterloo graphics department has had the old logos removed from their website. You can no longer obtain the logos. (I've also noticed a lack of keywords matches for UW old logos or Waterloo 2009 logo downloads on Google, so I came up with a plan to release information here.)

Deep within the Internet (god knows where, right?) lies a copy of Eidetic and Solex font, as well as all old Waterloo wordmarks and shield, along with an identity guide. Your quest is to download them and use them however you wish.

The Guide - Summary

Being a new-waterloo-logo rebellion doesn't mean you can use the old logo improperly, and since there was a guide for it, we shall conform to the old visual identity.

The first thing you'll notice is this:

Waterloo logo identity

Then comes the list of colours you should be using:

University of Waterloo logo colours

The picture above just tells you how you should be using the following colours:

  • CMYK = (0,0,0,100) or RGB = (0,0,0) for the black
  • CMYK = (0,11,51,0) or RGB = (255,224,144) for the yellow
  • CMYK = (5,100,71,22) or RGB = (185,20,57) for the red

Other Rules

Waterloo had also laid out several rules regarding usage of the logo, which can be summed up to:

  • Don't change the logo's font, opacity, proportions, structure, and location of the shield. 
  • Don't put things on top of / under the logo. Rule of thumb: it should stand out.
  • Don't frame it to make it stand out, either.

What about faculty logos?

They can be found on page 10 of the Visual identity PDF. It says it is page 8 on the page so make sure you look on both pages.

Will I get into trouble?

Probably - but if I can make Waterloo look less of a clown with coloured ribbons all over it, I will happily do so. You know, at least that will give me and my degree some level of credibility when I graduate.

Gotham? Six colours of bands? Marketing? New faculty logos? Really...?

 

ps the six new pantone colours are awesome on their own.

(0 votes)