(Do recall that this is written purely for entertainment purposes and that I am not in any way suggesting that I would, nor that anyone should, ever adopt such an immoral practice – to genuinely desire such a device would be deplorable...)

Well, thanks to the wonders of science perhaps such a device is not so far away…

It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the DeceptorScreen!

Despite the sound of this thing, it is not something taken from the totally impractical Death Star, but is in fact a very real fictional device.

The principle behind the DeceptorScreen is simple: the image displayed on your screen can be different depending on how far away from the screen you are. The benefits to this are staggering, as clear in Fig 1 below.

Fig 1: Thanks to the DeceptorScreen Cleopatra is safe to enjoy the best site* on the web, even though her boss, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is secretly checking up on her. (Image adapted by myself in Microsoft Paint from objects available in clipart)

*my own recently completed survey identified the best website as being either www.rambo.com or www.sylvesterstallone.com, I chose in this case to display the latter, because it exists.

Of course the principle is simple, principles always are (which is why they are called principles, I suppose); it is in the details that minor complications are revealed.

And yet this concept (that the distance from an image source can change the brain’s interpretation of the image) is actually a real one…so I think I should at least attempt to describe it!

The whole idea stems from something called a Hybrid Image (like a mule – which is irrelevant). Why a hybrid? – because the final image is produced by superimposing two separate images, meaning one image is put on top the other, hence the final image is a Hybrid of two basic images.

For a selection of real Hybrid Images and information of a more scientific nature, have a look at this excellent website: http://cvcl.mit.edu/hybrid_gallery/gallery.html. 

To put it bluntly, the human brain interprets images based on Spatial-Frequency (this is just a description of the basic structure of the image). Every image is made up of many different Spatial-Frequencies, and the brain recognises different ones at different distances, ie:

• High Spatial-Frequencies tend to dominate at short distances.
• Low Spatial-Frequencies tend to dominate when the image is further away.

This is relatively easy to manage with High and Low pass filters, for example: in Fig 1 above the image of Stallone that Cleopatra is admiring is passed through a High Pass filter, to eliminate the parts of the image that dominate further away, on the same screen another image is displayed (one of boring work) and this one is passed through Low Pass filter, so as to confuse the Boss and not interfere with gorgeous Stallone.

Referring to the two bullet points above, you can see that filtering in this way means that the “work” image can only be recognised from further away and the “Stallone" image can only be recognised from near at hand.

Other possible applications to this might be ATM screen displays, shoe price tags (to look cheaper from further away –so boyfriends can be kept calm right up to the moment they pay!), Gordon Brown’s face, tattoos (!), and so on. 

The obvious next step is to invent a Hybrid image that changes as a function of the person observing, and not of distance. Alas, this is as yet out of reach, and so both managers and minions alike have read the same incriminating remarks in the first line of this article….. or have they???          (…they have L! )

When you call up and implement the (insert: Parent, Wallet, Credit Card, etc.) to actually go out and buy the parts that you want you should make sure you check out all the latest deals from various manufacturers. (AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, etc.) This is the part of construction that is the sweetest for me. You have the authority to transform the shell sitting on your shelf (if you haven’t already got the casing) into an incredible Gaming Rig, or a simple office pc that will never see the battlefields of the far future splayed across its monitor. Choose wisely! For a Gaming Rig get plenty of Ram, a decent graphics/video card and a dual core processor which will do you plenty of favors. If you love gaming (as I do), do yourself a massive favor and do not get Vista. Skip it. Vista drains your computer’s memory and processing power setting back much of what you bought to make your computer’s performance great. There are just so many things you do not need. The best places to get the parts are online at auction sites where they practically give away incredible stuff that would cost a bomb in a shop. If you do all of the above, you can several thousand dollars. (give or take your country’s currency that is!)

When assembling your pc you might groan and tremble at the thought. Halt! All is not lost! If you really cannot do it yourself you can probably pay someone at a computer shop to do it for a moderate fee. But it really isn’t that difficult at all! Today, assembling a pc is not that bad as most motherboard jumper settings will be preset when you purchase it. In prehistoric times, there were so many settings you would have to spend ages with the motherboard manual to set it up properly. BUT today, just slip the processor in the motherboard’s processor socket, slap in some RAM and the peripheral cards and voila! You have your very own pc. Don’t you feel so proud? Now you can boast to all your pals about what a pro you are at computers. Doesn’t it feel terrific? Just don’t forget to add in the DVD drive, etc., otherwise you won’t be doing much with it.

Good Hunting/Assembling!

First Things First

The first step is to pledge allegiance to the Republican Party. This type of technology in the hands of a Democrat could significantly alter mankind as we now know it. You must also acknowledge that if your relationships suffer due to continued use of this program as karaoke - defined as uttering sounds that may or may not sound like the words of the songs - I am not liable. And last, but not least, you must promise that occasionally you will leave a nickel or a dime in the coin return chute of any vending machine so that it will create a small sense of joy to some random person who will find it at some point in the future! Who doesn't smile when they find extra change in the return? And the world could use more smiles.

Let's Get To Work

The following steps will show you how to manually add lyrics to your songs. Before we head off to the internet, open your Windows Media Player (WMP). Right click next to the "Now Playing" tab at the top of the player and enable the "show classic menu" option. You can uncheck it later if you prefer not seeing it but we are going to use the menus often enough to keep it visible for now. These instructions I am giving you assumes that you have the latest version of WMP installed. (Version 11) If you are not sure, click the help button and click on "About Windows Media Player". This will tell you what version you have installed. If it is an earlier version, I suggest that you upgrade to WMP 11. It is so much better than the earlier versions.
Now click the "Play" option at the top and go down to the "Lyrics, Captions, and Subtitles" option and click "On if Available".

1. Find a Web site that catalogues song lyrics. Most will let you copy their lyrics without jumping through any hoops. Highlight the text of the lyrics and then either right click and select "copy", or use Control+C. Make sure that no other parts of the page get highlighted accidentally. You only want the text. Here are four Web sites where you should be able to find your songs and they are user friendly.
   
   
   • http://www.elyrics.net/
   • http://www.lyricsmode.com/
   • http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/
   • http://www.oldielyrics.com/
   
   Here is a cool little known secret: If you take the main word of a ".com" website such as "oldielyrics" in the fourth website I listed above, and type it into your address search bar and then hit Cntrl+Enter, your computer will add the http://www. before your word and .com after your word.}
   
2. Open your WMP and click on the Library tab. Find the song you just copied the lyrics for and right click on it. (Fig. 1) Highlight the "Advanced Tag Editor" and hit enter. This will open the "Advanced Tag Editor". (Fig. 2)
   
3. Select the "lyrics" tab, choose a language, select the "add" tab, click in the blank text box and paste your lyrics by either right click and select "paste" or Control+V. (Fig. 3) If you stop at this point, you will have "static" text that does not scroll as the song plays. If you want the scrolling text, click on the "Synchronized Lyrics" button just below the text box. You will see that the lyrics are now loaded with each line having a time value next to it. This value represents exactly when each line of lyrics will be visible on the WMP.
   
4. Below this, you will see the same information graphically. Sometimes the WMP errs on the exact time to display each line. If this is the case click the value in the time column, select "edit" and then type the new time value. (Fig. 4) You can check how accurate it is by hitting play and watching when the red lyric bar crosses over the time bar. You can also edit the lyrics to add or change words in each line. If you need to add a whole line, hit add, type in the new line of lyrics and then assign it a time value. When you hit enter, it will insert itself in the correct place.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

To get started, open up Adobe Photoshop, and create a new document. I made mine 500 by 500 pixels, but it really can be any size you want.

After your new canvas opens, look at the toolbar on the left, and select the Lasso Tool (or you can just hit the L key, and the lasso will become selected).

After you have the Lasso Tool out, draw a very rough circle on the canvas, like this one.

Tip: Don't try to draw a perfect circle, it makes the explosion better when it has a rough base, it would look too perfect.

Next, go to Select, and then Feather (or just press Alt+Ctrl+D).

After you press Feather (or use the keyboard shortcut), a dialog box will pop up, asking for the Feather Radius. Type 80 in the textbox, and press OK.

Now, a more even circle should appear. Also, keep experimenting with different Radius', who knows, you might find out something cool.

Next, go to Filter, Render, Clouds.

You should see a big fluffy cloud appear in the middle of the canvas, where the circle was, like this.

Now go to Image, Mode, Indexed Color…

After you clicked Indexed Color, go to Image, Mode, Color Table.

After you click on Color table, click on the dropdown menu and select Black Body, then press OK. This changes all of the colors in the piece, and you are left with something that looks like this. You get something different every time! Experiment with different color tables, different Feather Radii, and different circular figures.

About Scripting

For those of you who want to go out there and make a bot, I won’t lie, you have a lot of work cut out for you. Firstly, you must download mIRC, which can be found here: http://www.mirc.com/get.html. Once you have that installed on your computer, your best bet is to pick at the help files, which can be located under the menu tab “Help” – “Help Files” – “mirc.chm”. There are a ton of pages full of instructions on how to write scripts using the mIRC language. If you stick at it for a month, working with scripts for around 30 minutes a day, you should have the hang of it, and be able to write the more simple scripts that get the bot to say something in reply to what others say.

A Bot’s Capabilities

Bots are able to do more than anyone would think. Bots can have conversations with people. They can be scripted to reply to anything. They can reply to greetings, insults, anything you want them to. Bots can even reply to actions, if you “huggle” or “slap” a bot, it can be scripted to reply accordingly. For example, if you “slap” a bot in IRC, it can “run in a corner and cry” and say, “what was that for?” But this isn’t the limit of a bot, bots can play games with you, such as tic-tac-toe, truth or dare, hot potato, slot machines, death matches, scramble games, etc. And for those fans of RuneScape, I’m sure you’ve already seen this, but bots can be scripted to look up your characters statistics of the game.

Customizability of Bots

One of my favourite things is that you can be creative with bots, and customize the script like you’d want it. I made a script that warns a user when they swear, and gives Op & Half-Ops the choice to punish the violator. If they chose to, the script bans the person from the channel for 1 minute for each time they swore, and then unbans them. This is a very good example of a script that fits my desires. It helps warn users not to swear, and does not necessarily punish them; it leaves the choice up to the Ops and Half-Ops of the channel. Heck, you can get your bot to sing (well, say song lyrics) to anyone who joins that has “cat” anywhere in their name. Just to show you the endless possibilities of mIRC scripting.

About GuKa

GuKa is an IRC Bot that uses many scripts from various people. GuKa was created only a few months ago by an amateur scripter, Guble [who also goes by the nick |Mitch|].

Note: GuKa only joins approved channels. This is to prevent abuse. To get your channel approved, email Mitchell.Carrington@gmail.com Another Note: When you see angle brackets around text, such as or , this means you must fill in the proper name or time. Example, if you want to insult Bob, you would type = insult Bob

Op & H-Op Commands

Note: For these commands, GuKa must be at least an Op on the channel

• Voice Gives the rank of Voice (+)
• DeVoice Removes ’s rank of Voice (+)
• Hop Gives the rank of Half-Op (%) [Ops Only]
• DeHop Removes ’s rank of Halkf-Op (%) [Ops Only]
• Kick Kicks from the channel
• TB Time-Bans from the channel for the specified in minutes
• KB Kick-Bans from the channel Note: If GuKa is an Admin Operator of the channel (AO), Ops can use these commands:
• Add 3 Adds to the auto-Voice list for the channel
• Add 4 Adds to the auto-Half-Op list for the channel
• Add 5 Adds to the auto-Op list for the channel
• Del Removes from the channel’s access list

Misc. Commands

• RandFact Displays a random fact
• Quote Displays a random quote
• ZdzQuote Displays a funny quote from the Zdzira RuneScape Clan
• Joke Displays a random joke
• Seen If GuKa has seen before, it displays where and when
• Insult Insults using an advanced vocabulary
• Kill Attempts to kill . Various ways this can turn out
• Teach Teaches an interesting fact
• Page Sends your
• GL Wishes good luck on the specified
• Gratz Congratulates on their
• Thx Thanks on
• Find Invites to the channel you are on, on behalf of yourself
• Resend Resends the last link that appeared in the channel
• Protect Enables protection against offensive commands
• UnProtect Disables protection against offensive commands
• Credits Displays a list of credits to who’s scripts mine were adapted from

Custom Greet Commands

Note: A Custom Greeting makes GuKa say a message every time you join a channel with GuKa

• SetGreet greeting Sets your greet to greeting
• DelGreet Deletes your old greeting
• TestGreet Tests out what your greet will look like
• Greet Greets you with your set greet

RuneScape Commands

• RSFact Displays a random RuneScape fact (Note: Some facts may be obsolete)
• RSPic Displays a funny RuneScape picture
• AddRSPic link to picture Adds your link to picture to the list of funny RuneScape pictures

Death-Match Commands

• DM Start / Join a Death-Match [ 2 Players ]
• Abort Ends the Death-Match
• Score Displays your score
• Turn Displays whose turn it is
• Eat Heals your HP

Death-Match Attacks:

• Pipe (Iron Pipe) Fairly strong weapon
• DBS (Double Barrel Shotgun) Very strong, uses a lot of ammo
• Rifle (Sniper Rifle) Fairly strong, usable when frozen
• Shotgun (12 Gauge Shotgun) Strong, usable when frozen
• Freeze (Liquid Nitrogen) Not very strong, but can freeze your oponent
• DE (Desert Eagle) Weak, but is the strongest weapon if your HP is low

Slot Machine Game

Note: This game is still under construction

• Slot Pulls the slot lever
• Cash Displays how much Slot Credits you have

Truth or Dare Game

• TOD Starts the Truth or Dare game
• EndTOD Ends the Truth or Dare game
• Truth Gives you a Truth question
• Dare Gives you a Dare
• Turn After you give your answer, this sets the game to ’s turn
• AddTruth Adds your to a list that will be considered for use
• AddDare Adds your to a list that will be considered for use

Language Commands

• Spell Checks to see if you spelled correctly. Offers suggestions if you are incorrect.
• Translate Translates from lang1 to lang2. [Supported Languages: English (en) French (fr) Spanish (es) Italian (it) Portuguese (pt) German (de) Dutch (nl)]
• Slang Looks up slang definitions of your . Warning: Some may be offensive.
• Define Defines the . If the is not defined, you may define it
• SetDefine Sets a definition for the

Lets go to the Start button, then click on All Programs when the menu pops up. Then look for "Accessories", then look for the paint program, and click. When that opens up, you will see on the left side, some buttons, these are your tools that use to create with. Up top, are the color's you have. If you need more, above the colors, it reads colors…. Click on it and you have even more choice in colors!

The Tools

The two dotted lined shapes are your free-form select. This is where you pick a place in your art specifically, to do more with.

The Eraser: Just what you would use an eraser for.

The "Paint Bucket": This is where you can fill in all at once with a single color.

The Eye-dropper: This is used for when you need the exact color that is already in your art, but in a different spot.

The Magnifier: This will "zoom in" or magnify your art so you can see the pixel size.

The Pencil: Just as you would use a pencil on paper.

The Brush: This is your paintbrush to create with. When you click on the brush, look under the tool section, you find another section of dots, squares and slashes. This is the SIZE of the brush you want it to be.

The Spray Paint Can: This is called the "AirBrush" tool. This is if you need to have an air-brushed look, or spray-painted look. Under the tool section you have the sizes of spray you can pick from.

The Text: You can even put text in your art. Under the tools, is how you want the text, either with a background, or with no background. You can even pick the font you want also.

The Straight and Curved Lines: This is if you want to make a straight line or curvy line, from point A to point B. After you make the curvy line, click anywhere on it and hold the mouse button and "pull". This will put the curve into the line.

Pre-Shaped Lines: These are the Rectangle, the Ellipse and the Rounded-Rectangle. These are pre-shaped to make perfect shapes of what you want, in any size you want.

The Polygon: This is the semi-arrow shaped button. This is when you need something like a graph, showing the up and downs of something.

The words on top: file, edit, view, etc, are pretty much the same as in the word processing program.

Now that you know Paint: Try it out and play with it and have fun!

Let us go to the Start button, and then click on All Programs when the menu pops up. Then look for "Accessories", then look for the paint program, and click. When that opens up, you will see on the left side, some buttons, these are your tools that use to create with. Up top, are the color's you have. If you need more, above the colors, it reads colors…. Click on it and you have even more choice in colors!

The Tools

The two dotted lined shapes are your free-form select. This is where you pick a place in your art specifically, to do more.

• The Eraser. Just what you would use an eraser for.
• The "Paint Bucket".This is where you can fill in all at once with a single color.
• The Eyedropper. This is used for when you need the exact color that is already in your art, but in a different spot.
• The Magnifier. This will "zoom in" or magnify your art so you can see the pixel size.
• The Pencil.  Just as you would use a pencil on paper.
• The Brush. This is your paintbrush to create with. When you click on the brush, look under the tool section, you find another section of dots, squares and slashes. This is the SIZE of the brush you want it to be.
• The Spray Paint Can. This is called the "AirBrush" tool. This is if you need to have an air-brushed look, or spray-painted look. Under the tool section you have the sizes of spray you can pick from.
• The Text. You can even put text in your art. Under the tools, is how you want the text, either with a background, or with no background. You can even pick the font you want also.
• The Straight and Curved Lines. This is if you want to make a straight line or curvy line, from point A to point B. After you make the curvy line, click anywhere on it and hold the mouse button and "pull". This will put the curve into the line.
• Pre-Shaped Lines. These are the Rectangle, the Ellipse and the Rounded-Rectangle. These are pre-shaped to make perfect shapes of what you want, in any size you want.
• The Polygon. This is the semi-arrow shaped button. This is when you need something like a graph, showing the up and downs of something.

The words on top: file, edit, view, etc, are pretty much the same as in the word processing program.

Now that you know Paint… try it out and play with it and have fun!

There are tons of things you can do here, beside just type. Think of the screen as you pen and paper. One thing about paper on a computer, you never run out of paper! There is no use for products like "Write-Out", that covers up your mistakes….on the computer, you just use the "backspace key" to correct mistakes., or use the spell/grammar check.

Now, let us open a word processing window. Go to your start button, then click on All Programs at the bottom, then scroll down until you see "Microsoft Works", click on that, then look for Word Processor, and click. It should only take a few seconds to open up. You have a blank piece of paper now, with a line flashing at the top of it. This is the cursor line, this is where your typing is. It will move along as you type.

Type a short sentence, or paragraph of anything. Now, look on top where it reads… File, Edit, View, Insert and etc. This is your toolbar in which to work from. Let's go to FILE, click on it, then look for "save as", and click again. A window should pop-up asking you to name your paper. You can either use the backspace key, or click on the end of what is already there, and backspace each letter backwards…. Then type in what you what to call this that you typed up, then click on "save".

To find it again, just click on the start button, then move your mouse up to Documents and click. The Document window will then open, and you should see your paper there that you just typed up and saved!

Pictures

Let's click on your document again, let it open. Now, look up on top… INSERT, and click. Move the mouse down until you see "picture" highlighted, then move over to "from file", and click. The Picture window will open, now click on the "sample" folder that is there, and yet another window will open, this is where the pictures are. Pick a picture and click. The picture should be in you document! Now click again outside of the picture, to un-highlight the picture, and you have a picture in the document! Then you can either go up to file, and click "save" or to remove the picture, just click on it, and use the backspace key to remove it.

ClipArt is done about the same way as inserting a picture. Go to Insert, move your mouse to picture, then move it over to "clipart", and click it. The ClipArt window will open, and then you can pick from hundreds of clipart pictures and click to get it into the document. Now, go ahead and see what all those other little icon and words on the top are for, try them out… see what they do, and have fun!