The City and the Stars

Posted by Richo On June 4, 2011 ADD COMMENTS

Welcome to the second installment of Dust Jacket, Nerd Culture Podcast’s fortnightly review of the greatest Sci-Fi novels of all time. I’m joined by Luke Walker, NCP regular and world’s harshest critic.

This week, we’re turning our eye to Arthur C. Clarke’s 1956 classic The City and the Stars.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Diaspar is the final refuge of mankind, a sprawling cityscape protecting its inhabitants from the ravaged earth that lies beyond its protective dome. In this seemingly Utopian world, there is no poverty, no disease, no strife. The city is run by an artificial intelligence known as the Central Computer, allowing the citizens of Diaspar dedicate their long lives to art and creativity.

The Diasparans are essentially immortal. They live for thousands of years, never aging or dying. When they grow tired of life, their consciousness is absorbed into a vast memory bank, where it is stored for centuries, until it is reborn in fully grown bodies created by matter replicators.

Despite this seeming utopia, Diaspar is culturally stagnant. The city has remained the same for countless millennia.

Our protagonist is Alvin, an anomaly in this seemingly perfect world. He lives in a culture that can easily tend to his every need, yet remains discontent. He feels trapped within his utopian society and longs to explore the world beyond Diaspar.

Escaping the confines of the city, he begins to unlock the mysteries of his world and discover the secret billion year history of humanity. Along the way, he discovers new cities, ventures into space, and meets whole new life forms.

DC to reboot Universe part 2

Posted by David On June 3, 2011 ADD COMMENTS

Well there is no denying that DC’s decision to reboot their entire universe has gotten the comic communities buzzing. And, as expected from the master marketers they are, new information keeps flowing out.

New titles. New creative teams. New continuity. Check it out below (Warning, image intensive)

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DC to reboot Universe

Posted by David On June 1, 2011 ADD COMMENTS

The interwebs were abuzz today over the news that DC Comics will rebooting their universe, with 52 of their titles receiving brand new #1 issues.

Arising from the Flashpoint mini series by Geoff Johns, which deals with the Flash (Barry Allen) stuck in an alternate version of the DCU, the new #1 will introduce a fresher spin on classic characters of the DC Universe.

Think of it as a cross between Crisis on Infinite Earths & The Marvel Ultimate universe.

New creative teams will also be taking over from the current ones, with Grant Morrison on Batman a particular highlight for me.

Expect new costumes, continuity retconned to oblivion & John’s beloved Cyborg to become a major player. There’s even talk of Superman and Wonder Woman being an item.

I have mixed feelings about this. I am a fan of alternate reality stories, and the Marvel Ultimate universe started well, but do DC really want to do something like this? Couldn’t they have just released their own Ultimate line of comics and left the main DCU alone?

We’ll be following this very closely, with more news as it comes.

Tell what you think of all this. Excited, Angry or Don’t Care? Leave us a comment.

Conviction spec

Posted by Brian On May 30, 2011 1 COMMENT

Welcome to my second WoW spec – Conviction, a Discipline Priest DPS spec for leveling and PvP.

Click the link to open Wowhead and see the talents & Glyphs –

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGorRsrcRbo0hZh:cmqdVaMzc

 

 

ROTATION

Shield > Holy Fire > Smite (until your Holy Fire debuff dissolves) > Penance.

If you want to throw in some more damage or a heal, then I recommend doing so after the Smite, and before the Penance, that way, you get the fullest effect from your Glyph of Smite. Keep your shield up at all times.

OTHER

You will need a good amount of spirit, because this spec can be a bit of a mana hog.

If you want to do some healing, remember that your Smite heals a friendly target within 15 yards of your enemy target, for 100% of its damage (even more if you have just Holy Fired your enemy target!).

TESTS

This is a spec that can prevent and deal damage very well. It has been tested for PvP as well as leveling, and soon to be tested in a few instances. The rotations are very simple, and can be improvised on the stop with little DPS loss.

The PvP test have gone very well, with the only complaint being mana replenishment. That aside, the healing and the damage have been above par, since after all, when this spec deals damage, it heals, and when it’s preventing damage, it deals it too.

UPDATE: I originally thought that this spec would run out of steam too easily for instances to really be of any use. However, contrary to my thoughts, this spec actually was never mana starved. Even with a disc priest as the healer, since that healers shields were better than mine thus preventing the talent that returns mana when the shield breaks, I only ran out of mana one time, which my shadow fiend promptly corrected. The specs damage was very nice, and also made “topping off” possible due to all of the damage spell’s healing potential. All in all…I wish I had made this spec sooner because the supposed benefits for the Shadow spec in Cataclysm were actually extremely contradictory and made leveling from 80 to 85 a chore, whereas I leveled from 83 to 85 with Conviction very smoothly.

Podcast – Episode #1

Posted by David On May 27, 2011 2 COMMENTS

Episode #1 features:

Popcorn Junkie: Source Code

Dust Jacket: The Dispossessed

From the Racks: Action Comics #900

War Room: NCP’s Top 5 Villains

 

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