Inside the Citadel

This is just greatness. The Combine’s Citadel is a massive structure of steal and technology used in their war against the humans (Resistance). Alyx’s Dog helped me to get inside the citadel by lifting one of the walls and when I sneaked in I found my way to some transport lines, some part of a production line. I thought that’s where people are processed to become transhuman combine forces.

The line took me through amazing parts of the great Citadel. A great and, though it’s weird to say, an impressive effort has been put into creating the Citadel. I just passed above 3 Striders and they did nothing to me. They were just passing through. I wonder if these are Combine creatures or just war machinery controlled or programmed by the Combine.

There were many small cells, which look like those that hold people, similar to the one in which Dr. Eli Vance was held captive in.

I also saw some devices that I didn’t recognize and 2 people being slaved into work. I recognized several Combine Gunships being stored and transported through the Citadel.

They took all my weapons when I was just dropped from the air into a field that dropped me down slowly. A confiscation field has been activated as a voice warned me. All my weapons has been stranded in the air and destroyed/taken by the devices, except for my Gravity Gun. The Gravity Gun seemed to have malfunctioned the confiscation devices. And then it dropped into the floor.

Transhuman Combined forces approached me with gun fire. Now I have to kill one with my gravity gun and take one of their weapons and continue the Resistance movement and find Alyx Vance and save humanity!

Whoa. The gravity Gun killed the 3 transhumans with one shot each! They didn’t drop any weapons though. The Gravity Gun seems to have been altered. It’s extremely powerful now. Colors white and looks like it’s almost going to blow up. The gun sends my enemies flying the air and drop into the group shocked and electrified! Yeah! My HEV suit could be charged to up to 200 now! I am the one!

Resistance From inside the Citadel. Freedom!

Morgan Freeman

Attending a session on Paediatrics

I went to attend a Paediatrics session with my Dad today. A pharmaceutical company was sponsoring the event and featuring a vaccine to the Rota-virus called Rotarix. A logical path from death of millions of people to the Rotavirus was stated in a statistical but interesting way.

Diarrhea is the second most cause of child fatality in the world. And 40% of the instances of diarrhea are caused by the Rotavirus.

The other session was about “murmurs” in infants hearts. The doctor talked about the grades of murmurs and when someone should send the infant to the hospital in case of a murmur and when its ok. The doctor listed some questions asking when to send a child with murmurs and also listed some rules as to when to send a child to the hospital in case of murmur.

Interestingly, the doctor didn’t follow the rules in all of the questions. The rules were a mere suggestion as he said, and someone must take the overall context and his judgment in the end. I was lucky to have the chance to talk to him for a minute after his lecture. Unfortunately, like all the medical doctors I have ever known, their perspective on Computer Science is non-existent and as a consequence their faith in AI is very low.

The doctor agreed that he has to incorporate his own thinking and not follow the rules as there are no rules. The rules still provide us with useful information, as they roughly associate actions with murmur grades.

I wish I can meet medical doctors who are also enthusiastic about the applications of computer science and especially Artificial Intelligence in the medical field. They are the domain experts and if they are also the knowledge engineers, some great advances in the field of AI could be made.

For me I’ll just keep my mind lit up. I’ll dig and research AI techniques and make more medical doctor friends. Despite their relative computer-illiteracy (sorry), they are interesting and enjoyable people most of the time. I am looking forward to the day where I can also dig into medical research also.

The final lecture was by my Dad. He talked about an underestimated problem: Sudden Infant DeathS (SIDS) or Sudden Infant Unexpected Death (SUID). The factors are genetic, environmental and another that I can’t remember. The sad thing about SIDS is that many families don’t perform the preventative procedures that minimize the risk of sudden infant death. Good care should be taken around infants because they can simply die. SIDS is obviously untreatable; hope one day we’ll cure death.

Wild Fire

Wild Fire

This video game is awesome. Inspired by Imagine Cup 2010 theme, the game is about encouraging people to volunteer to organizations that aim to help the community achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. As you recruit volunteers and guiding them to organizations, and avoiding the bad ‘agents’ who don’t mind a Societal Collapse (that’s when you lose,) you learn about MDGs and read stories and facts related to the while in game.

The game’s music is very appropriate, calm and inspiring piano and soft tunes. The game’s graphics are simple and help clear your mind. I wish the game was a little more sophisticated though. The bunch of students from Thailand who created the game, deserved to win the Game Design Imagine Cup contest for the 2010 year. Hope they release another version of the game!

I haven’t been able to see the Twitter feature functioning, but it’s a cool idea to have Twitter integrated into the game.

By Implication is the company the students established. Hope they keep up the good work!