EVE Online

Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in a science fiction space setting. Players pilot customizable ships through a universe comprising over 7300 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of jump gates. The star systems can contain several phenomena including but not limited to: moons, planets, stations, wormholes, asteroid belts and complexes.

Players of Eve Online are able to participate in any number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, manufacturing, trade, exploration, and combat (both player versus environment and player versus player). The range of activities available to the player is facilitated by a character advancement system based upon training skills in real time, even while not logged into the game.

Taking place 20,000 years in the future, the fictional background story of Eve Online explains that long ago humankind, having used up most of Earth's resources, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way. Eventually, humans expanded to most of the galaxy. Resources became contested and war broke out. When a natural wormhole was discovered, dozens of colonies were seeded at its other end, in an unexplored galaxy dubbed 'New Eden'. An artificial wormhole generator was built to support the collapsing wormhole. When the natural wormhole collapsed, however, it destroyed the generator with it. Cut off from Earth and its much-needed supplies, New Eden's colonists starved in the millions. Five known colonies managed to return to prominence, eventually rebuilding society together. These colonies make up the five major empires in Eve: the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic, the Caldari State and the Jove Empire.

The reason I chose to review EVE is because the game is in my opinion one of the most complex games I have ever played. Another factor is that EVE simulates many real world scenarios such as the player corporations which mimic real world trade, communication and competition.

The in-game economy in Eve Online is an open economy that is largely player-driven. While non-player character merchants supply some basic items, players can gather the necessary raw materials to manufacture almost all of the ships and ship modules in the game. The amount of money or materials in the universe is not fixed and, as such, the economy operates under supply and demand.

Players can organize themselves into corporations. Corporations are run by one chief executive officer (CEO) who controls the corporation's assets. The CEO assigns roles to corporation members such as director, accountant and personnel manager. Corporations may also band together to form alliances.

Corporations take up numerous business models such as mining, manufacturing or "ratting" (hunting NPC pirates for their bounties and loot). Corporations can levy income taxes on their members, which skim off a percentage of every member's earnings. Many corporations offer a variety of benefits to their members, such as free or discounted ships, equipment, formal training, and organized corporate group operations.

Among the many activities that corporations can organize is piracy. Pirates may camp stargates waiting for other players to arrive, attack players operating in asteroid belts or hunt for players carrying out an NPC agent-assigned mission.

Illegally attacking another player in secure space will result in a loss of security standing; CONCORD, the interstellar NPC police, will arrive shortly to destroy the aggressor's ship. There are, however, legal ways to attack other players in high-security space.

Whole corporations and whole alliances can officially declare war on (or "war-dec") other corporations or alliances for a weekly fee, permitting all members of the involved corporations or alliances to attack each other without loss of security status or the intervention of CONCORD. The weekly fee can be eliminated if the war declaration is reciprocated. War declarations will clearly flag a player's enemies, so the player can determine who can legally attack and be attacked.

Piracy is part of the game, as is protection racketeering theft, and ransom. One infamous example is a corporate infiltration and heist where one corporation infiltrated a target corporation over the course of nearly a year. They then performed a virtual assassination on the target's CEO and proceeded to steal billions of ISK worth of corporate property to which they had gained access. Events of this nature are debated both inside the game world and in the media.

In 2009, a player alliance known as Goonswarm was contacted by a disgruntled director of rival alliance Band of Brothers, the largest alliance in the game at that time. The disgruntled director then stripped Band of Brothers of a large quantity of assets including ships, money and territory, and disbanded the alliance.

Such dangers are an inherent part of Eve Online's virtual economy and thus are purposely not dealt with by the developers. Players are expected to make financial decisions based (among other factors) on the possibility of other players' financial malpractice, much as in real-life economics.

EVE is different to other video games in the fact that it is able to draw such a large gathering of people without pretending to be something that it is not. There is no goal or ultimate task in EVE. It is entirely up to the player how far they want to take their experience. One of the more prominent aspects in EVE is the quality of player. I have played with many people, even people from the BCT class, we are great friends and this what EVE is all about. It is an extremely complex game, but it can also be as enjoyable and relaxing as what you want it to be.

Fractus

In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself (i.e. the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts). Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines, are statistically self-similar: parts of them show the same statistical properties at many scales. Self-similarity is a typical property of fractals.

Fractals have always intrigued me since I learned of their existence. I feel this would be hard to explain as I have always known about them. So even as a child I would have experienced the beauty of fractal self-similarity. I feel that this is perhaps how we identify individuality in objects as humans. I perceive fractal symmetry as being one of the most important elements that can be observed in our world.

Self-similarity has important consequences for the design of computer networks, as typical network traffic has self-similar properties. For example, in teletraffic engineering, packet switched data traffic patterns seem to be statistically self-similar. Fractals are an important part of our physical world as well as mathematical and abstract forms. Many parts of our own bodies are fractal in nature, just think of the form of the DNA double helix structure within the nucleus of our own cells.

A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented geometric-shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole. The roots of fractals within mathematics be traced back to the late 19th Century, the term however was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured." A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.

Fractals appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms). Natural objects that approximate fractals to a degree include clouds, mountain ranges, lightning bolts, coastlines, snow flakes, even various vegetables (cauliflower and broccoli). However, not all self-similar objects are fractals—for example, the real line (a straight Euclidean line) is formally self-similar but fails to have other fractal characteristics; for instance, it is regular enough to be described in Euclidean terms.

Trees and ferns are fractal in nature and can be modeled on a computer by using a recursive algorithm This recursive nature is obvious in these examples—a branch from a tree or a fond from a fern is a miniature replica of the whole: not identical, but similar in nature. The connection between fractals and leaves are currently being used to determine how much carbon is contained in trees. This connection is hoped to help determine and solve the environmental issue of carbon emission and control.

Fractals have the ability to capture your imagination and keep you transfixed more so than other forms of art. Fractals have allowed us to view mathematical algorithms and complex occurrences in nature from a different perspective. I chose to review the subject because fractals have a great influence in the natural world. They are one of my favourite art forms, the fact that fractals can be seen in nature, mathematics, and art makes them very unique.

A short video that displays graphic fractals and audio that relies on self-similarity