Tag Archives: screenshots

Check Out These Sick Polygons

Weird thing about playing a ten year old game: when stuff that is blatantly 10+ years old crosses with new stuff.  Example: Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat on an updated character model.

"Yeah brah, check this out"
“Yeah brah, check this out”

Another example: flying around mountains in the old world that are textured by, like… a 10×10 pattern copied ten million times.

And yes, I know, “time is money friend” and so on.  Mostly I just think it’s hilarious, to be honest!

Also I couldn’t think of anything else to blog about, so you get belfies.  Because when all else fails, I’m gonna give you belfies because my belf is a cutie.

HAVE A NICE FRIDAY!

Pike vs. The Anxiety Boss: So uh guys, I did a raid

Fast Facts

  • Unhealthy diets and the resulting malnutrition are major drivers of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) around the world.
  • Malnutrition includes undernutrition, overweight and obesity, and other diet-related NCDs like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (heart diseases) and stroke, and some cancers.
  • What people eat has changed dramatically over the last few decades. This has been driven by shifts towards calorific and fatty foods, eating out, and an increase in food portion sizes, combined with a lower intake of fruit, vegetables, and high-fibre foods.
  • Healthy diets are unaffordable for the poor in every region of the world and people are increasingly exposed to ultra-processed, unhealthy foods and diets that lead to poorer health.
  • Policy solutions to tackle poor diets are considered low-cost. The World Health Organization (WHO) ‘Best Buys’ include interventions to reduce salt and sugar intake, such as front-of-pack labelling, fiscal tools and educational initiatives, and measures to eliminate industrial trans-fats. try out Ikaria lean belly juice.

Unhealthy diets and malnutrition

Malnutrition occurs when the body is not receiving enough of the right nutrients to function properly. This can present as under-nutrition, such as wasting and stunting, but also as overweight, obesity, and diet-related NCDs such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

Many countries now experience a ‘double burden’ of malnutrition. This is where under-nutrition occurs alongside over-nutrition, where unhealthy diets are contributing to unhealthy weight gain and diet-related poor health.[1] These unhealthy diets consist of food and drinks with high levels of energy (calories), salt, sugar, and fats, notably industrial trans fats (also known as trans-fatty acids, TFAs or iTFA).

Around the world, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, while 462 million are underweight.[2] In a study that looked at global deaths from 1990 to 2017, it was found that one in every five deaths were the result of poor nutrition.[3]

What is a healthy diet?

According to the WHO, healthy diets are rich in fibre, fruit, vegetables, lentils, beans, nuts, and wholegrains. These diets are balanced, diverse and meet a person’s macronutrient (protein, fat, carbohydrate and fibre) and micronutrient (minerals and vitamins) needs depending on their stage of life.

Generally, healthy diets contain:

  • Fat intake of less than 30% of total energy. These should be mainly unsaturated fats, with less from saturated fats. Trans fats should not be consumed.
  • Sugar intake of less than 10% of total energy, but preferably less than 5%.
  • Salt intake of less than 5g per day.
  • Fruit and vegetables intake at least 400g per day.[4]

Food systems and changes in the way we eat

A person’s ability to maintain a healthy diet is often not within their control – it is influenced by the food environment where they live, early life nutrition, income, and accessibility.[5] The ‘food system’ refers to all processes of getting food from production to our plates. The food system is often dictated by location, climate, culture, consumer behaviour, industry practices and the regulatory environment, among other factors.

Rise in ultra-processed foods and drinks

Over several decades, dietary habits have changed dramatically around the world. Globalisation and urbanisation have paved the way for a rise in convenience food and drinks products, junk food, and eating out, with fewer people growing or making their food from scratch.

These cheap and ready-to-consume food and drinks products are often ‘ultra-processed’ and high in calories, fats, salt and sugar and low in nutrients. They are produced to be hyper-palatable and attractive to the consumer, like burgers, crisps, biscuits, confectionery, cereal bars, and sugary drinks.[6]

Ultra-processed foods and drinks typically have a long shelf life, making them appealing for businesses like supermarkets, rather than highly perishable fresh goods. Intensive marketing by the industry – especially to children – has also increased the consumption of these types of goods. Increasingly, these products are displacing fresh, nutritious, and minimally processed goods, shifting population diets and food systems.

Vulnerable populations and poorer people in all parts of the world struggle to access and maintain a healthy diet. It is in these settings where ultra-processed food and beverage products are most prevalent. An estimated three billion people cannot afford healthier food choices with poverty negatively impacting the nutritional quality of food.[7]

The Things I Do For That Friggin’ Loremaster Achievement

So long story short I didn’t play Cataclysm.  I mean, I played it for about a month when it first came out, sure.  I leveled my then-main to 85, felt terribly underwhelmed by everything, and then logged out in quest reward greens, not to return for a long time.  This means I basically didn’t see any of the revamped vanilla stuff that Blizz made a big deal out of.

So, having been informed that some of it was actually good stuff, I’ve decided to do the Loremaster achievements.  On a max level character because that way I can fly.  Besides, I’m relatively certain a new character would outlevel all the zones before he or she could fully explore them, anyway.  Even without heirlooms.

And so, I sent Althalor out into the world to start doing all these fancy new quests in the fancy new revamped zones.

All well and good, yes?

Well, yes, until you get to quests that require you to “weaken,” not kill, the enemy.  Especially if these quests can’t be skipped if you want the stupid achievement.

How does a level 100 hunter such as myself deal with these quests?  Like so:

WoWScrnShot_031115_113452STEP ONE: Take off every last bit of your gear.
STEP TWO: Fly up into the sky.
STEP THREE: Dismount.
STEP FOUR: Die.
STEP FIVE: Revive at the Spirit Healer, thus eating the rez sickness.
STEP SIX: Use freaking explosive trap of all things because punching people with your bare fists still one-shots level 46s.

Why must your torment us so, Blizzard?  And why do I feel so compelled to do this in the name of a dumb achievement?

flat,550x550,075,fOh right.   Eheheh.

The Most Important Feature Missing From Garrisons

Blizzard successfully managed to put just about anything your character could ever need into Garrisons.  There are even outhouses so you can answer nature’s call in private.

WoWScrnShot_030915_125930
H… hey… I was here first! Excuse you!

But you know what Garrisons are missing?

A bed.   Seriously.  Where is your character supposed to sleep?  The floor?

WoWScrnShot_030915_130312Your followers get all those little cots in the Barracks, at least, but can your character fit in one?  Of course not.  Sorry Althalor, it’s the floor for you.  At least he’s used to getting the short end of every stick.  Poor guy.

So yeah.  Beds.  Get on it, Blizzard.

Garrisons are an interesting study.

IMO, Garrisons are, by and large, absolutely fantastic.  It’s basically player housing except that you’re the quest giver handing out quests to your underlings, and it’s just really, really fun.

And that’s weird.

Because those of us who have been gaming for just about any length of time can recognize the way Blizzard has gamified the entire process of, well… work.  Mobile and Facebook games have the art of “waiting” and “upgrading” down to a science, and garrisons are no different.  It’s all just Farmville with a fancier skin.  And yet, it’s something I can live with.  Why?

Because my garrison feels like home.

That sounds cheesy but it’s true.  You can customize it (to a degree – of course we’d all love to see more customization), it’s got your pets walking around, and it’s got NPCs and friends that you met along your journey hanging out.  It’s your own little place – when you’re tired of dealing with people out in the world, you can go to your garrison and just chill.

WoWScrnShot_030115_121811

And so, once again, I’ve let Blizzard sucker me into something.  My mind says “No, Pike, this is just Farmville,” but my heart… my heart sais “No, Pike.  This is home.”

Dear Blizzard. Fix Transmog. Love, Pike.

I like transmog.  I like it a lot.  Case in point:

WoWScrnShot_030115_173531Pretty good, huh?

It does, however, need an overhaul.  Mostly because it’s REALLY UNWIELDY.

If I want to transmog into an awesome new set, I have to dig through my bank and my void storage, pull everything out, go over to the transmog guy, pay money to transmog every item one by one, then go back to the void storage guy and pay money to put my stuff back.  It’s all a great big first world pain in the tushy.

giphySo what should we do?  Well, we should make it like Diablo 3’s system, or failing that (say if Blizzard wants to keep farming for transmoggable items a thing) then we should be allowed to stick all the gear for one set into, say, a box, and then be able to label that box and transmog into everything in that box at the click of a button.

Also it should be cheaper.  Yeah, I said it.

What do you guys think?

Edit: I have been informed that I have been Wrong On The Internet and you can transmog from void storage.  It’s still far too unwieldy because I still have to dig through all my different sets.  I still want my gorram box.  And it should still be cheaper!

Well Ain’t That Something?

Hunter/mage vs. Sunwell? You betcha.

I FRAPS’d the whole fight but I figure I won’t toss the video up unless someone asks because it’s fairly uneventful. Honestly Felmyst was the most difficult fight in the entire raid for us to do. Huge props to Mister Adequate for mage’ing it up and finishing her off after I bit the dirt on that encounter.

Now we just need Hyjal and Black Temple and then it’s on to WotLK stuff!