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I really like the Security Now Podcast with Steve Gibson, alternate podcast link on TwitTV, Steve is a total Nerd Baller, he has had Nerd jobs since he was 13 years old!
He also provides some useful computer software, including freeware.
Computer Nerds may want to look at SpinRite (Note: SpinRite is NOT free) his HDD recovery tool, it works on pretty much any HDD, even things like Tivo and console games.
I find this podcast useful for Computer news and tidbits, and sometimes neat Hacker tidbits.
Not saying it is for everyone, I am not a true hard core computer geek myself, but I usually understand enough from this show to know if I want to google or look up links mentioned to learn more.
I also like the fact that they provide several resources for each podcasts, including transript, below is a list from Gibson's website:
If you have any other tech or computer security podcasts that you recommend, please suggest them in the comments section below.
No need to log in to post.
GL HF,
Cliff
This game, Liquid`Jinro(T) v SlayerS.Brown(P), on Daybreak, from Korean Ladder cast & uploaded by Ipp, from RagequitTV on 4/20/2012, shows Jinro's Ghost/Nuke focused late game vs Protoss.
I was impressed with Brown's strong defense to this Ghost/Nuke style Jinro used, my comments & thoughts, with spoilers below the VOD.
SlayerS Brown was using good tactics, that displayed a solid understanding of the difference between his race (Protoss) and the enemy Terran.
Yes, everyone knows the differences, but not everyone integrates those differences fully into their strategy and tactics.
Brown clearly did in this game.
After an even fight, no one ahead or behind, at 41:09 game time ( 29:36 VOD time) he instantly warped in 19 Zealots and pressed attack again, since he knew Terran couldn't rebuild that fast.
Additionally, tactically speaking, that played to the weakness of the Ghosts, as a spell caster, when they use up their mana they are much weaker!
I think the Protoss' unit comp was important as well, though not the unit comp I would use vs heavy Ghost, Brown was making a lot of HT, and keeping a lot of Archons around.
That seems counter intuitive, since an Archon is basically nothing but a glowing ball of shields, and EMP drops shields 100 points at a time, but I think Brown was doing this to try and draw EMP's from the Ghosts.
EMP costs 75 energy, and it takes at least two of them to seriously weaken an Archon, and a Ghost with no energy to cloak is a lot easier to deal with, also Jinro was using Ghost/Marauder/Viking, and Archons are neither Armored or Light.
So Archon would not get hit by bonus damage from Ghost or Marauder attacks!
Plus you would maybe do some splash damage to cloaked Ghosts with that many Archons.
Brown was also keeping 2-3 units cued up on each Robo (you can see this at ~45:44 game time/32:52 VOD time), I found that very interesting, normally in the early game that is a bad idea, because it ties up resources that could be better spent on something that will complete sooner.
It seemed like Brown was doing it deliberately though, perhaps he was trying to minimize replacement time on his Robo units? I am not sure why he was doing it, but I am pretty sure he was doing it on purpose.
If anyone has any thoughts on that please share them in the comments section.
Hope you enjoyed this game as much as I did, if you would like to see more posts like this click Starcraft 2 Thoughts, you can also find that label at bottom left of the blog post, or in the Label Cloud at left side of the Blog, as well as other, selected labels.
Was worth a chuckle and a grin IMO, and I am sure my sister that is a Math Prof will find this amusing, not to mention, considering how she drives she may need it to ^_^ (had to put that in there in case she reads this!).
As the Article at i09 points out, the fact that another car obscured Officer's view probably had more to do with case being thrown out, though I have heard from friends that know something about law & court, Judges often like pictures charts, graphs, etc.
So that might have had something to do with it as well.
I really liked Harstem's (P) play in this game vs FXOBratOK (T), cast by Duckvillelol.
My comments with spoilers below the VOD.
I like Harstem's style of Active defense, he does a very good job of scouting and preparing for drops during this game.
At ~11:14 game time (8:11 VOD time) he smoothly
deflects a planned elevator attack with good scouting, by 1 of the 2 Observers he had out. and positioning Stalkers to 1 or 2 shot the Medivacs.
It cost him the Observer, but he instantly starts making a second.
He lost severl Observers in this game, which as a Coach I think is a VERY good thing, he was losing them because he was being very active in scouting with his Obs, almost aggressive level of scouting you might say.
Well into the middlegame he was keeping two Observers on the field, except for the brief amount of time it takes to make a replacement when one is killed.
Think about it this way, each of those Scans to kill an Obs cost the enemy a Mule, in addition to the information provided by the aggresive scouting.
I found Hartem's (P) base layout in his main interesting, not sure if I like it or not, I will have to do some testing to be sure.
I think part of the reason for the wall, never got to see for sure, is because he plans to rely on HT warp in & Feedback, vs Medivac, as a key part of his base defense.
The wall, pretty clearly shown by Duckville at ~17:00 game time, would allow him to warp in a HT, or two, on the opposite side of the wall from enemy's Drop, giving time to Feedback & then morph to Archon if needed.
Then at ~13:36 game time (9:52 VOD time), Harstem warps in a HT and Feedbacks Medivac, he was also using the Stalkers as support to cover the Main mineral line, while the slower Zealots stayed by the Naturel mineral line to defend those Probes.
At ~11:14 game time (8:11 VOD time) he smoothly
deflects a planned elevator attack with good scouting and Stalker in
position to 1 or 2 shot the Medivacs.
I really liked Harstem's HT play, he made them a useful part of his early base defense, and he also used them well offensively, even though BratOK had Ghosts out, he seems to favor having the HT trail the main army, and using Blink to try and snipe Ghosts, or scare them ^_^
I am biased in favor of HT though.
I favor getting HT first, I don't like trying to make Colossus before 3 bases, generally speaking, I think HT make for a far smoother transition out of Gateway focused play.
A Phoenix opening is a different situation IMO, I like Robo Zealot Drop transition into Colossus for Phoenix openings. For more of my thoughts on Phoenix PvT openings see Starcraft 2 Skills: PvT Beating Bio with Phoenix & Drop.
If you would like to see more posts like this one, click the label Starcraft 2 Thoughts, that label and others can be found in the Label Cloud at left side of the SC2 Blog.
Every post has labels at bottom left of the post as well, they allow for cross referencing, or narrowing of the broader categories found in the Label Cloud.
I don't think this is a good direction for Esports.
I wouldn't want to be affiliated with Brazzers, or similar companies, not because of the sex, but because in my opinion, the porn industry exploits people with severe problems.
So for me, the question is more about the values & attitudes of the companies involved. I really don't care to be associated with people I can't respect and trust.
Though there is a lot of explicit talk about sex and drugs on Loveline, Dr. Drew works on educating people, to help them make good, informed, decisions.
Dr Drew works on building people up, not taking exploiting their weakness.
Overview: The HSM is a new series of SC2 Showmatches sponsored by Cliff's Esports Corner & NanMan, we plan to have HSM for several holidays every year, we have at least three more planned this year.
Prize Pool for the first HSM is $75, and we are following Totalbicuit's
model, so the winner will receive $50 and the loser will receive $25
Since the HSM is a holiday event, the show will be cast from replays.
While we would would prefer a live event, just like you do, this way the players are free to spend the holidays with family and
friends, and everyone can still enjoy the HSM over the holiday, when
there are not many Starcraft 2 events (other than the IPL 4 in Vegas T_T)
NanMan will cast live (he will not have seen games ahead of time) Friday, and we plan to have the VOD's up by the next day.
New game on the way, read details here http://0x10c.com/, the description vaguely reminds me of RedDwarf & Hitchhikers Guide:
In 1988, a brand new deep sleep cell was released, compatible with
all popular 16 bit computers. Unfortunately, it used big endian, whereas
the DCPU-16 specifications called for little endian. This led to a
severe bug in the included drivers, causing a requested sleep of
0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years. It's now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people
are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction,
with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long
since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.
Zinger is a GM NA Zerg, he is Korean, but was born in the United States. He is currently a College Senior at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) majoring in Computer Engineering, and he has a job lined up as soon as he graduates.
He started playing more competitively in SC2 when he discovered that his
College, had an official team in the Collegiate Star League (CSL).
Zinger's CSL team, is currently
ranked very high in the league and they will soon be playing in the
playoffs.
One of his college teammates suggested he join, the primarily Korean, clan PlayXP (XPn) as it had a
strong roster for practice partners.
Zinger greatly improved his play, "by
constantly pestering my clanmates for practice matches" after joining XPn.
Zinger hasn't participated in any matches representing XPn until recently, he was not part of XPn's roster during the American Pro League
season.
I first saw ZingerXPn play in a LXG Open, several months ago, before he made GM.
His play reminds me more than a little of Violet, so I wasn't
surprised when I learned while interviewing him, that Violet is one of
his favorite Zerg.
Both NanMan (founder of LXG) and myself, became instant fans of Zinger, and started following him, after that LXG Open.
Zinger is my favorite non pro player, though both Zinger & myself want him to become pro or semi pro. I have been doing what I can to get him recruited by a pro team.
I should have asked him if his parents would support him going Pro?
I wonder if Korean parents are more accepting of that than a lot of foreigner parents? Great question for followup interview!
Replays from Thundertoss' Top 200 KOTH, can be found on the left side of his blog http://top200koth.blogspot.com/ though they run behind at times, Thundertoss is at and/or involved with most big SC2 events, which is one of the factors that can delay replays getting uploaded.
In this Idra vs sWs game, cast by Ipp of RageQuitTV, you can see that though Idra is changing his build, or strategy, he doesn't seem to have all the element coordinated yet.
I am not picking on Idra here, it just seems clear to me that he is either changing some of his game play, because of the influence of Stephano, or at least testing some of those concepts.
Since Idra is such a high profile, skilled player, I feel these games that show that even high level GM's have a learning curve for new builds may provide inspiration to others.
My comments & observations, with spoilers below the VOD.
Early in the game, Ipp makes a point about Idra not getting Roach speed, I think he missed the fact that Lair hadn't finished yet, so Idra couldn't get Roach speed till it finished.
I like several of the things Idra did or tried to do in this game, I really like him taking the Gold as 3rd, that is something I have been coaching Zerg players to do on several maps.
Since I am convinced in general it makes defending an expo easier for Zerg, Zerg units tend to be short ranged or melee units, so they need to get good surrounds.
The Central Gold bases on almost every map that has them is far more open than normal Naturals or thirds.
However, at ~13:26 game time (9:47 VOD time), Idra puts his 4th hatch down in the normal location for a 3rd. I believe that was a rather large error.
I think he should have taken the other Gold base, the one closer to his Protoss opponent.
This would have provided several advantages:
faster reinforcement for his Roach aggression
deny logical 4th base to his opponent
lots of minerals with 2 Gold bases, so he could have spined up a lot more, like Stephano does at times
would have provided another layer of defense (aka Defense in Depth), both for his first gold base, but also for his main, layered defenses enable flanking, rear, & surrounding attacks
in connection to denying his enemy a Gold base & adding a layer to his own defense, even if he lost the second Gold, he would have taken some of the resources from it, so it would be worth less to his enemy, additionally it would cost the enemy more time and units to take it, so if the game was really close it might throttle opponents income significantly even if enemy took it away from Idra
It would also have strengthened the containment on Protoss
To see more posts about Idra just click the label Idra, that label & others can be found at the bottom left of every post. Also selected Labels can be found in the Label Cloud at left side of blog.
