The BTD series was a distinguished one. Most will call it the “mother of all tower defense games”. Because that is what it was.

BTD stands for Balloon Tower Defense, and it is a wildly popular game among kids and adults alike. The point of the game is to place towers which will pop balloons when they came into a certain range. As you steadily progress, rounds get harder, money gets dry, and your strategy is what you will need to survive.

A Quick Introduction

Ballons (or bloons in BTD speak) get steadily harder to pop as you go along. The first few layers of a ballon are ordinary, from the innermost red to a varying blue, yellow, pink, green, and so on. Each of these bloons have a different effect after they are popped. For instance, the pink ballon will spawn 2 yellow ballons when popped. Learning about these effects are the first step to becoming decent at BTD5. While different colored bloons make them a little more powerful, there are also special types of bloons that have different effects.

The camo effect, as seen with the two center bloons in the picture below, can only be seen by certain towers. You can mostly figure out whether a tower can see camo by its upgrades, as almost all towers can’t see camo initially, but with an upgrade it may be able to. Some towers will never be able to see camo on their own (but with some help), and some can just see camo without any upgrades (Ninja Monkey).

The regen effect, seen by the heart shape of a bloon, allows it to slowly regain layers if that bloon hasn’t been popped recently. Regens are not particularly dangerous, and their effect is practically eliminated in late game, where your towers will attack so fast that the regens won’t have time to regain layers.

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Lead bloons can only be popped by some towers. Again, lead ability can usually be determined by upgrades and pure intuition alone (fire, lighting, etc, pops lead). If you really aren’t sure, however, you can always search up that tower name and find out.

Black bloons are immune to explosions, while white bloons are immune to freezing. Zebra bloons have the properties of both black and white bloons. Ceramics are a much harder to pop ballon, because the first layer takes 10 hits to pop before it releases a Rainbow bloon.

MOAB-class bloons are especially dangerous. The regular blue MOAB is the easiest MOAB-class to pop, and after it gets popped it releases some ceramic bloons. The BFB is even harder to pop, and releases 4 MOABs. The ZOMG is the hardest MOAB to pop, and has 4 BFB inside it! This means that a ZOMG will eventually release 16 MOABs!

Upgrade Notation

Each tower has two upgrade paths. These paths allow the tower to be good at two different things. For example, the first path of a ninja tower allows for good popping power, but the other path provides a nice bloon stun. The third and fourth upgrades can only be purchased for one path. So purchasing 3 upgrades on one path will lock the other path to only two upgrades. A quick way to tell someone how many upgrades a tower has on each path is very simple, with numbers like so: 4/2. The number on the left tells how many upgrades the tower has for the left side path, and the right number tells the number of upgrades on the right path. An tower that is not upgraded at all will be represented as 0/0. If there is room for any number of upgrades on a certain path, it can be shown as *any number*/x. For instance, a 2/x tower has 2 upgrades on the left path and any number of upgrades on the right path.

My Main Strategy

This method of beating BTD will work for most Beginner and Intermediate maps, but struggles at higher difficulty. This is just an easy and fun way to beat BTD5. This method can be executed in hard mode. The nice thing about this method is its pure simplicity. It only uses a few types of towers and is easy to get going.

Ninja Tower

This tower is a good starter, and a very versatile tower. It can pop camo without upgrades, and is very cost effective. Place a 0/0 ninja at the beginning, and it should be able to easily handle the next few rounds. Be sure to upgrade it as you get money, or place more if you need to. Generally speaking, this is only a starting tower, but an overall good one.

• Camo: Can pop without upgrades
• Lead: Can pop with semi-expensive upgrades
• Better at indiviual bloons than at MOABs

Monkey Apprentice

The only reason I put this tower in here is because of its cheap lead popping ability. It can see camo and pop lead, which is a rare and useful combination. A 2/0 or 2/1 Monkey Apprentice is fine for the rest of the game at popping lead, mostly because of its lightning, which can pop many bloons at once, making it a nice tower for rushes. It is better at dealing with individual bloons than at MOABs.

Banana Farm

The banana farm doesn’t pop any bloons, but helps players get more money to purchase other towers. This is an incredibly useful tower if used correctly. I always use the 3/x or 4/x upgrades for typical farming because of its instant rewards. Be sure to place it when you can place it, because timing is key with this tower. Earlier is better, however, because you can make more profit off of the tower.

This post has been in progress for 3 days and is not finished.

Rap is by far my least favorite genre of music. It sounds like pure cacophony in my ears, and I will listen to anything but rap.

But after listening to a little of it recently, I noticed something interesting. Rap actually sounded like poetry!

The cuss words don’t exactly radiate the “poetry” mood, but they are. They use the aesthetic properties of rhythm and meter to make the song better. A rapper is forced to use rhythm because they are preforming this song. It needs to sound nice and flowing (catchy, too!).

The words that a rapper says also have the poetry feel. Some raps seem to talk about very deep issues in a totally unique way.

While raps, cacophonous and full of cusses, don’t sound good to my ear, I see the root of all the appreciation and glory that rappers get. Rap is an art that we should appreciate, like any other. If someone is having trouble doing this, ask them to write a rap of their own. They will soon stumble into the challenges of rhythm, meter, and syllables. They will realize that rapping takes a lot of skill.

I’m probably the last person to realize this, but rap is a very unique form of poetry.

Lightning strikes with a vengeful force
as the flames erupt in a firey inferno.
The storm continues 
with an unabated force
as the tree gets ripped straight from its stump
and the winds rushed with such an intensity
that even God himself stopped to watch.
The earth shakes with such fervor
that buildings fall,
smoke is summoned,
and the apocalypse appears near.
We think that we control nature
that we are somehow influencing it,
but when Nature takes its revenge,
it will do so with an ardour never before beheld
and a vengance so justified,
that we will simply shake and bow
towards our rightful leader,
Mother Nature.

Pokemon is one of the biggest anime franchises ever. With a full and competitive series of games and cards, it is very developed.

This guide will cover the competitive Pokemon battle, with the online game Pokemon Showdown.

The concept of Pokemon is simple: you choose 6 of them to be on your team, and then fight with other players. The games are always turn based, where you take your turn with your Pokemon, and then the other player does so as well. The first player to use attacks that make all 6 of the opponent’s Pokemon faint will win that battle.

The Basics

Each player is allowed one attack that they get to use on their turn. This attack is chosen from a Pokemon’s moveset of 4 moves. Once one player uses a move, the other player uses another move, and then the turn ends.

Stats

The stats of a Pokemon play a huge role in deciding how effective any attack is on another Pokemon.

Speed (Spe) and Priority

The speed of a Pokemon determines the turn order. When two Pokemon face off, the Pokemon with a higher speed will usually go first. Speed doesn’t matter, however, when you are using a priority move. Showdown will usually tell you if a move is priority if you hover your mouse over a move. Priority will override speed, meaning that if you use a priority move, you will usually go first. There are also different levels of priority, however, and if your opponent uses a higher priority than you do, they will go first. Moves usually have a 0 priority, where in that case, speed will determine the turn order.

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Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense (Atk, Def, SpA, SpD)

Attack and Special Attack are very close to the same stat. If you use a move that will directly touch the opponent (You can figure it out with the name: Tackle, Body Slam, Dragon Tail, etc.) it is called a physical attack. The damage for this type of attack is calculated with the Attack stat in mind. If you attack a Pokemon with a Special Attack, the Special Attack stat is used to calculate damage.

The defense stats work the same way, but they help to curb enemy attack damage. If someone attacks you with a physical attack, the defense stat is used to help curb damage. The Special Defense stat is used for special attacks.

Typing

All Pokemon and their moves will have a type. There are 18 different types, and each one has different weaknesses and resistances. For example, if you used a water type move on a fire type Pokemon, then your move will deal twice the normal damage. This is called a super effective move. Likewise, if a fire type move is used on a water type Pokemon, then the move will only deal half as much damage. This is called resistance. There are a lot of way that these types interact, and it does help to memorize them. But in Showdown, you don’t need to! If you go to the chat bar and type “/weak” and then a Pokemon’s name, the game will tell you exactly what that Pokemon is weak and resistant to. This way you can make more informed decisions about the moves you make. Any type that may appear in bold for a certain Pokemon means that it is doubly weak or doubly resistant to a move of that type. For instance, a rock-type move on Charizard does 4x damage to him, so a rock type move would be a wise choice to use against Charizard. Be careful, because some Pokemon are also immune to select types of moves! Any Ghost type, like Gengar, is immune to fighting type moves. This means that your move will do no damage to the opposing Pokemon, and you have wasted your turn! The /weak command will tell you about this too, but beware!

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Status

Special and Physical moves are the two types of attacking moves. But a status move doesn’t deal any damage. It instead inflicts a status or changes the stats of a Pokemon.

Paralysis (PAR)

When you paralyze a Pokemon, their speed is cut in half. They also have a 25% chance of not being able to use a move every turn that they are paralyzed. Electric Pokemon cannot be paralyzed.

Poisoning (PSN)

A poisoned Pokemon will lose 1/8 (12%) of their maximum HP even turn. Poison and Steel type Pokemon cannot be poisoned.

Badly Poisoned (TOX)

A badly poisoned Pokemon will lose 1/16 (6%) of their maximum HP on their first turn. The damage then stacks by 1/16 more HP every turn! The second turn will deal 1/8 (12%) of damage, and the third turn will deal 3/16 (18%) of damage. This stacking effect ends when the Pokemon is switched out.

Burning (BRN)

A burned Pokemon will have its Attack stat cut in half, and 1/16 (6%) of damage is dealt to the Pokemon at the end of each turn.

Freezing (FRZ)

A frozen Pokemon will not be able to attack. It can be thawed out, however, by some moves. Most of these thawing moves are Fire-type, and Showdown will tell you if a move can thaw out of a freeze.

Confusion

When a Pokemon is confused, it has a 50% chance of damaging itself. A Pokemon can snap out of confusion in 1 to 4 turns.

Infatuation

A Pokemon can be infatuated by a select set of moves, and infatuation behaves like confusion.

Leech Seed

After a Pokemon uses the move Leech Seed, the opposing Pokemon is inflicted with a Leech Seed. A Leech Seed will steal 1/16 of a Pokemon’s maximum HP and give it to the opposing Pokemon. This effect can be extremely annoying at times, but switching Pokemon will end the seeding effect.

Flinch

Some moves have a slight flinch chance, which makes the opponent unable to attack that turn.

These are all statuses that you can inflict upon your opponent. But some status moves can make your own status better by increasing your stats, such as your attack or physical attack. But make sure that you have the right attacks to make use of your stats! If you start raising your attack but you only have a special attack moveset, then the increased attack isn’t going to result in increased damage.

Stats

The Stages of Stats

When you read a move’s description, you may encounter something like: “Raises attack by one stage” or “Lowers defense by 2”.

This refers to the number of stages that your stats get multiplied by. One stage is equal to +1/2 of your current multiplier. If you current multiplier of attack is 1 (no stat changes) and you raise your attack by 1 stage, the new attack multiplier is 1.5. Two stages will increase you multiplier from 1x to 2x!

Lowering stages work likewise. For defense, for example, lowering three stages will put your multiplier at 2/3, or 0.66x multiplier.

Strategy

If you are switching into another Pokemon, you may consider using a Pokemon that has an attack boosting move, like Swords Dance or Calm Mind, and then sweeping with that Pokemon.

Be sure you use switches wisely! Switch only when you have to, because switching takes a valuable turn and your opponent gets the opportunity to deal damage to you with none in return. If you can manage to find a move on a Pokemon that will deal extra damage, then you may consider switching.

Read your opponent. If you switch to a Pokemon that is super effective on the other one, then read the switch and take advantage of it. Maybe if you know that they will switch at a certain time, you can use a crippling move on them.

Know the items and abilities. They aren’t there for nothing. If an opponent is spamming a certain move, maybe the item is forcing them to do so. Take advantage of this. Perhaps you may want to prepare a powerful attack, or put up defensive moves. If you predict an opponent’s switch, you give yourself valuable time.

The key to improving, however, is to play new games. Don’t be afraid to try new strategies. Learn from your losses. And never give up.

The Slapper was a neat project done by me and my friend Domonkos Kezsei. Domonkos and I made this project to settle a long time problem posed by a card game we played- Egyptian War. In Egyptian War, a player has to slap cards to claim them before other players do. The person with the most card would win. The dispute was that the slaps would be extremely contested, so arguments would ensue over who would claim the cards. Since we played with 8 or more people, our hands would be scratched and batters from everyone slapping as hard and fast as they could on the cards. In addition, if a player was farther away from the cards, he or she would have a disadvantage. This caused fighting among ourselves for the prime spot in front of the cards.

To fix this problem, Domonkos and I created an electronic “Slapper” which would take care of this problem. What it did was, that when a player pressed a button, the screen on our device would tell the user whether or not they won or lost the slap. The (in most cases) one player who would have the win screen would win the slap, and so take the cards. Since the device would communicate wirelessly, distance wasn’t a problem. And since none of our hands had to make contact, none of our hands got brutally murdered from all of the slapping.

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The Process

The Slapper didn’t come easy. An everlasting cycle of debugging, testing, and trying again was essentially how the Slapper was born. When we came up with the idea, Domonkos and I were excited to get it working. So we began.

We used the micro:bit hardware and software to create our project. It was a simple to use but versatile platform which was ideal for our purposes.

First, and always first, is the brainstorming. We took out the papers and pencil, and got to work. Initially we were thinking of a very complex architecture, involving stages of execution, joining a room, a host device, and so on. We did try to pursue this path, however, we ran into a whole plethora of obstacles which we simply were not prepared for.

The next stage of development was the perseverance. What was first a rush of initial determination turned to a seemingly desperate, futile attempt to think of a new solution. Domonkos decided that we should push on with the old idea, and kept going with it. And I helped him too, because I didn’t see anything else we could do.

We had come up with everything, from A to Z. We had gone back to the drawing board too many times, and we were on the brink of abandoning the project.

The Final Solution

Both of us were working on our final solution, the one solution that we thought up of that may work. And it failed again…

And when we were trying to fix this final solution, some sort of magic must have happened.

We took out some code here and tweaked some code there, and we tried it and it half-worked! After some quick fixing of this initial code, we managed to get a barely working prototype.

This was great news for us, because we had invested considerable time (5+ hours) into this project, and finally getting it to work was a big eureka moment for us. More improvements were made and then we actually got to use it!

Both of us were reflecting on the progress and making of this project recently. We spent so much time thinking through our solution, but the beauty of it all is that it was that it worked on accident!

The big bang theory is the most widely used and accepted theory of how the universe formed. But, at least to my knowledge, there are a lot of crucial holes in this theory. I am fully aware of the mounting evidence supporting the Big Bang, and I don’t know very much of it. The Big Bang is just a theory, after all.

The first problem I have is the association of cosmic background radiation with the Big Bang. Cosmic background radiation is the white radio noise that can be heard throughout the universe. How exactly do scientists know that this radiation is because of the Big Bang? How do they even go about proving this? The laws of physics didn’t even apply when the Big Bang happened. So how do you know that this noise came from the Big Bang?

How do we even know the universe started? What if it didn’t start? It was instead just always there? This sounds crazy and almost mad, but a lot of revolutionary scientific discoveries are.

Again, I don’t know that much about this topic and so am not the most credible person to talk and opinionate about it. But here are just some of the logical flaws that I see in the Big Bang Theory.