London at night, from above

When you first look at the photos of Jason Hawkes posted at www.boston.com, you just feel like the word "wow".

Moving from picture to picture, it's hard to keep up with the amazing photography.

These are definite candidates for new wallpapers on the computers I work on.

Cool USB gadgets

The link to 21 cool USB gadgets can be quite an eye-catcher. The list is diverse and allows for both play (dart launcher) and functionality (Podcast Studio).

The people at ThinkGeek have been presenting cool gadgets for years and years now, and it is always a lot of fun to check out what they have in stock today (e.g. the powered by USB list).

The Plug and the disposable camera

The Plug has a very interesting feature about a disposable camera that was left on a bench for people to use, and the owner would return at a later time to reteive it.

First, I must admit I have not read or seen The Plug website prior to their latest Digg, the one that sent me there now.

It seems like a nice site/community, and yes, I had to have a look around after seeing this idea of theirs take shape and form.

It is their installment with the camera that I find most interesting - would it work in other places around the world? would it work in other cities? Is the kind response and participation of the chosen ones who've used that roll of film a unique phenomenon native only to the location in which that was tried?

I found another fun article in that same issue (March 2008), about tiny bumber stickers

Fractal Art

Digg has had another surprise for me in relation to Fractals. I've come across this link to Fractal Art, which features (after the jump) a collection of beautiful Fractal Art.

In the link above, you will also find a link to a GPL Fractal picture generator of sorts, called Apophysis. I never thought I'd see an Open Source, GPL Licensed Fractal program like that, and it's definitely a good surprise.

Myself, I still have a special place for Mandelbrot Set, the first Fractals I saw and was taught about.

The Shadow Priest in World of Warcraft - part 2

In World of Warcraft, there are three talent "trees" that your priest character can choose talents from. Choosing most of your talents from a specific tree would render your character to be called by that tree; i.e. a Shadow Priest, a Discipline Priest and a Holy Priest.

Most players pick their main talent tree as either Shadow or Holy, and pick up some talent from the Discipline, as they see fit. Therefore, most priests you see playing are either Holy Priests (vast majority) and Shadow Priests.

Priests are a relatively rare character choice, as they are mainly healers. They are equipped with the best healing spells and incantations around, and therefore preform the "Healer" position when questing in a group or in raids. Other healers of note include Paladins and Druids which can build their own talent trees to be healers.

Shadow Priests preform the DPS role in a group/raid. They can deal a lot of damage, and they have the advanage over other types of DPS that they can also heal very well and aid the main healer if they need.

I've described this in detail in my previous post on the Shadow Priest. In this post I'd like to comment on its role in BG's from 50-60 and the way a Shadow Priest can level and aid in groups/raids.

As mentioned before, being a Shadow Priest means your are a DPS and therefore can deal a lot of damage to your opponents. You can level your priest by questing and by doing dungeons. Both will generate the experience points you need to get to your next level. Usually, both will also get you reputation with a certain faction, which is good for you for future use.

It is probably better to quest as much as you can if you want to level faster. Dungeons are great fun, but as you just kill mobs and bosses and don't complete any quests there (unless you have a quest to do in a dungeon, which is also common), then you can get more experience points by questing. You can still level via dungeons, but it might take longer and prove a bit more tedious than mixing questing and doing dungeons every so often.

Also, remember that when questing you will also kill a lot of mobs (most quests) and by doing so you will be able to get more loot (which you can sell for silver to a vendor) and by completing the quest you will get an experience points compensation for your trouble, which is in most times better than just killing mobs inside a dungeon without a quest to do so.

That is also why when you go into a dungeon, you should ask all your party members to share any quests they have for that dungeon with you.

When you get to level 58-60 and have the Burning Crusade, you will consider moving to the Outland. Questing in Outland is superior to questing in Azerroth or in Eastern Kingdoms, the loot is better, the rewards are better, and the honor and experience bonuses from quests are better.

As can be expected, the Outland dungeons are also a lot better than the ones in Azeroth/Eastern Kingdoms.


In all dungeons, Shadow Priests are worthy secondary healers and are very good at spamming mass-healling for the whole group with the aid of a spell called "Vampiric Embrace" (see also in wowwiki). Using this spell the Shadow Priests can help the team by healing the whole group through DPSing the target.

That is one of the unique features I found the Shadow Priests have that make them an excellent addition to any 5 men group, let alone a raid.
--End of Part 2.

In Part 3 we will discuss the importance of the Shadow Priest in levels 60-70 and questing and raiding in Outland.