MacPox

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Before the Europeans arrived in continental America, there was already a bustling civilization of Aztecs, Incas, and Indians there. What happened though is that when the Europeans arrived, they carried with them smallpox, a disease that is commonplace in Europe but unheard of in America. The Europeans were affected by it, but multigenerational exposure to it has minimized the fatality percentage on their population. The Americans, the real Americans, did not have such an advantage. It was new, their bodies quite literally didn't know what hit them. The population nearly got wiped out in what could be a worse percentage toll than the bubonic plague.

Why am I mentioning this? It's almost like the same thing with Windows and Mac users. Once upon a time Mac users were a niched minority and very few took interest in targeting them with viruses and malware. Fast forward to this year, there are now much much more Mac users than ever before and more and more virus writers and malware producers are targeting the Mac. Some of the types written for Mac are actually just ported versions of PC viruses and malware. While the PC counterparts still exist, people are very much wary of them now, and with the abundance of AV software and just a general distrust for pretty much most vectors of viruses, the damage is much more limited.

On the Mac however, it's quite the opposite. With the years of reinforcement of the idea that the Mac cannot get any virus, most of the userbase is the perfect new target for old viruses. Nobody's defending, nobody's wary and we just might be looking at the smallpox phenomenon all over again.

Too early to tell? Who knows?

How to Level Up in Ingress

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

So I've been playing this game called Ingress for a couple of days now. It's an augmented reality game by google that lets two factions fight over fictional portals that appear in local landmarks (Intramuros, Rizal park, etc) using energy called XM gathered from places where there are lots of people. It's currently in closed beta but soon it will be open for everybody.  Here are a few things that I've learned:

1. Portal requests take a while, 2-3 weeks, and even then, Google can reject submissions just because.

2. There are portals around already. The quickest way to find them is to use the dashboard at http://www.nianticproject.com

3. The stronger the portal, the harder it is for lower level characters to occupy it. Leveling is key.

4. You level by doing actions, constituting action points.  Here are the levels available so far and what they mean as far as stats are concerned:

Level AP required Max XM Burster Damage Burster Range Resonator HP Best Build Portal Portal Range
1 0 3000 150 50 1000 1 160 m
2 10,000 4000 300 75 1500 1.5 810 m
3 30,000 5000 500 100 2000 2.5 6 km
4 70,000 6000 900 125 2500 3.5 24 km
5 150,000 7000 1200 150 3000 4.0 40 km
6 300,000 8000 1500 200 4000 4.75 81 km
7 600,000 9000 1800 300 5000 5.125 110 km
8 1,200,000 10000 2700 400 6000 5.625 160 km

And here are the ingress actions and their respective action points:

RESONATORS:


Placing a resonator 125 AP

Destroying a resonator 75 AP

Placing the first resonator on a portal 500 AP

Placing the eighth resonator on a portal 250 AP
LINKS:


Creating a link 313 AP

Destroying a link 187 AP
FIELDS:


Creating a control field 1250 AP

Destroying a control field 750 AP
OTHER:


Applying a portal shield 150 AP






COMBINATIONS:


Placing the final link on a field 1563 AP




Destroying a [full] portal 600 AP

Destroying a portal + (1) link 787 AP

Destroying a portal + (2) links + control field 1724 AP

Destroying a portal + links + cf + capture + mods

 When you're new, linking and recharging resonators is the best way to level. If you're lucky enough to find undiscovered portals, go for it. Items can be found by hacking occupied portals.

That said, good luck and happy gaming!
 

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