Command Prompt tricks - Writing file names to a text file -UPDATE

     This is the second post I'm updating with a YouTube video on my channel. This should make things a bit more clear, especially if you prefer watching and listening over reading. If you like the video, please do subscribe to my channel. Enjoy! =)

    

----------Update ends here----------

 That's right, the mysterious black window that most new users of windows steer clear of has more utility than you thought it did. (Missed my post on how to remove viruses just by using Command Prompt? Read it here : http://agzuniverse.blogspot.com/2016/05/remove-viruses-and-malware-using.html)

     The Command Prompt, hereby referred to as CMD, can do a lot of things that would otherwise require a user to download fancy programs stuffed with adware and additional installations. If the reason why you shy away from CMD is because it is too complicated - you're wrong. Although the higher-level functions require a respectable level of computer knowledge, basic commands in CMD that can carry out tons of useful functions are no-brainers.

     And through this post, I'm pointing out such a useful CMD utility : Writing all the names of files in a folder to a text file. This can be incredibly useful for making a quick list of all the files relevant to a project or something else you have on your computer. Making a list of all the files in your movies folder or all the songs in your songs folder can be a great way to back them up or use them to put up a reminder to collect or share some movies or songs.

     So, let's get on to the method. First step, of course, is to locate the folder that requires it's filenames written to a text file, and open up command prompt by either typing in 'cmd' in the search box in the start menu (Users of Windows 8 just needs to type in 'cmd' from their home screen), or launching Run, typing in 'cmd' and pressing enter.

     Then, change to the local disk drive your folder is located in by typing 'z:' and pressing enter. (Replace z with the local disk drive in your computer.) In my case, I want to change to local disk 'e'.

     Then, go to the folder you want to use for this, and copy it's path.

     Type in "cd" followed by the path you copied, and press enter. (cd here stands for Change Directory)

     NOTE: Ctrl +V doesn't work in command prompt. In order to paste, you have to right click in the window and choose paste.

     Now it's time for the command to generate the text file : type in "dir /b > filename.txt" and press enter. You can replace 'filename' with any name you want, but don't forget the '.txt' extension.

     And with that, a text file should be generated in the same folder, with the names of all the files in that folder.

     Useful, isn't it?

Remove viruses and malware using Command Prompt in Windows UPDATE

     Hi all, this is the first of the many posts I said I would update with videos. And this one is from....2013. God, it's been a long time. Back in the days when I did screen recording with Hypercam. I don't even use that laptop anymore.

     Anyway, here is the video that explains the process of removing viruses from USB drives and removable media using just Command Prompt. Enjoy!



Want a thorough article on recognizing dangerous file extensions? Read this : http://cfoc.org/windows-file-extension-list-types-of-files-exploited-by-malware/

----------UPDATE ENDS HERE----------

The Command Prompt is one of the most unique tools in Windows and in any other OS that can be used to do a ton of stuff that cannot be normally done otherwise. This also includes protecting your computer from viruses and malware. Want to know how? Read on.

Please do note that Command Prompt is no substitute for an antivirus program. This post tells you how it can be used to bring out hidden viruses in your computer. If you do this every time you connect a removable media to your computer, you can ensure you won't get infected that way. But apart from that, an antivirus program is still the best.

Autorun is your enemy!
"autorun.inf" is one of the most common viruses found in pendrives that can infect your computer when you open the contents of the pendrive. Most systems come with AutoPlay on by default. Turning it off is one the first things you should do after installing a new OS.

To turn off AutoPlay, go to Control Panel --> Hardware and Sound --> AutoPlay and uncheck the "Use AutoPlay for all media and devices" option.

Time to summon up Command Prompt for some disinfection!

For the following steps, I have a removable USB storage device inserted into my computer with a dummy virus and is recognized as drive F.

Open Command Prompt in any way you want. I prefer to do it by simply typing "cmd" from windows start screen screen and pressing enter (as I have Windows 8.). You can also open it by opening run by pressing start key + r, typing in "cmd" and pressing enter.

Now shift the directory into the storage device by entering the corresponding drive name followed by a colon ( : ) and pressing enter. So, for me, it will be f: .

Time to reveal everything inside.

Type in "attrib -h -r -a -s"
This will make all read only, system, archive and hidden files visible by removing these attributes.

Then, type "dir" to get a list of all files in the storage device.

Look at the list carefully and find out if there is any suspicious file. Any file that you are not expecting to see will probably be a virus (Especially if it has a .inf or .exe extension).

If you find such suspicious files, type "del" followed by the filename and extension.
In the above picture, my pendrive contains an autorun.inf file. So I delete it using "del autorun.inf".

After you have finished going through the files and deleting all such suspicious files, you can open the pendrive safely and do whatever you want.

Note: All viruses can also be detected and deleted by scanning the drive with a good up-to-date antivirus program.

That's about it! I hope this article was helpful!

IRC bot in Python -Tutorial

     IRC, which stands for Internet Relay Chat, was the primary was people talked on the internet, before the app revolution produced the likes of Whatsapp, Telegram and Skype. Despite the falling userbase, IRC is still incredibly effective when it comes to large group chats, due the ease with which it can be set up, the anonymity it offers, and it's promise of fast messaging and negligibly small data usage. While IRC is in no way a substitute for modern chat-apps, some of the unique features are really handy. IRC bots are among them. (Telegram allows for bots as well)

     Bots are easy to make, can be coded in a variety of programming languages, and can do everything from moderating a channel to playing a group game, in a way you can never do in an average Whatsapp group. Watch this video tutorial narrated by me (Yes, I know my accent isn't great. I'm working on it.) to learn just how simple making an IRC bot in Python is.



Full source code of the bot, as used in the video:

import sys
import time
import socket 
server="irc.freenode.net" 
botnick="thorsWarhammer" 
channel="##testchanneloneagz" 

#Establish connection 
irc = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) 
irc.connect((server,6667)) 
irc.setblocking(False) 
time.sleep(1) 
irc.send("USER "+botnick+" "+botnick+" "+botnick+" :Hello! I am a test bot!\r\n") 
time.sleep(1) 
irc.send("NICK "+botnick+"\n") 
time.sleep(1) 
irc.send("JOIN "+channel+"\n") 

while 1: 
     time.sleep(0.1) 
     try: 
          text=irc.recv(2040) 
          print(text) 
     except Exception: 
          pass 
     if text.find("PING")!=-1:
          irc.send("PONG "+text.split()[1]+"\r\n") 
     if text.lower().find(":@hi")!=-1: 
          irc.send("PRIVMSG "+channel+" :Hello!\r\n") 
     text="" 
input()

IRC Documentation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Instructions

In the above link, you can find commands to kick/ban a user, and perform various other operations with your bot or your user account.

That's all for now folks! For those who cannot watch the video I shall be updating this post with a written tutorial in a few days time. 

AGZ Universe, now on YouTube!

     Hi all, I'm very happy to announce that AGZ Universe will now have a YouTube channel, and many future blog posts will come with a YouTube video to explain things in a better way. I will also be updating several older posts with videos in the coming months. (Notice how I changed the AGZ Universe logo. Better, huh?)

     I had originally setup a channel for this blog on  YouTube waaaay back in 2013, when I started this blog. I even uploaded a small video titled "How to record sound with Hypercam"(And yes, that video still exists in the channel). I decided to pluck that channel out of the grave, and after making a full round and updating all my settings, AGZ Universe is officially on YouTube, with fresh videos to keep it going. Hopefully I will be able to keep it active this time out and contribute content that is useful to my readers (viewers?).

     Channel link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHBnATfu54X8_Ry-EfVe3Tg

     Go on and hit that subscribe button!

     I also plan to once again post blog links in the long-inactive Facebook page of AGZ Universe. So if you're a regular on FB and want to keep track of what's new in the blog, like the page : https://www.facebook.com/agzuniverse/

     (Also, if you don't mind football banter and other stuff floating around in my mind, follow me on Twitter : https://twitter.com/aswing1999 dunno what good does that do you though =P)

Thank you folks!

Dawn of Justice v Civil War

 The first thing that you might have thought on reading the title is, the hell is a film review doing on a tech blog?
     Well I don't have the answer to that either. The 'Interesting Reads' section of this blog is about off-topic things from around the web. I guess I decided to contribute some original material as well. =)

     The blockbuster superhero market saw two huge releases this year, with Marvel kicking off it's phase 3 with Captain America:Civil War and DC finally entering the fray with Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Although based on the same concept of let's-make-a-protagonist-an-antagonist, The two films had sharply different receptions. Civil War is now touted to be the best Marvel film to date, while BvS wound up on the wrong end of the critical shotgun.

     While several reviews try to avoid comparisons, this is a direct comparison between the two films. As you might expect, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. If you haven't seen either film and plan to see it in the future (You should, by the way.), stop reading now.

The Similarities

     Both films share the same concept at heart. While BvS squares off Batman against Superman, arguably the most popular superheroes pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Lex Luthor plotting to get them to go off at each other, Civil war pits Captain America against Iron Man with Zemo pulling the strings. Both involve using the superhero's emotional ties to their parents as a motive for the big fight. The similarities end there though.

Marvel trailer vs DC trailer

     Although I haven't seen this mentioned in most reviews, this is arguably where it started to go wrong for BvS. The trailer shows Batman and Superman squaring off against each other, Lex Luthor presented as a shady character, Wonder Women entering the fray, and the trio teaming up in the end to fight Doomsday. Or in other words, the entire plot of the film (sans "Martha". More on that later).

     Civil War did a much better job, 'wow'ing all the viewers, and sent the comic geeks, regular viewers and the overall hype of the film into overdrive when the internationally-loved web slinger, finally free of Sony, did a superhero landing and said "Hey everyone" at the end of trailer two. While that arguably cost them the biggest surprise they could reveal in the film, it sure as hell increased the number of moviegoers by quite a lot.

Luthor vs Zemo

     Zemo was a Sokovian general who wants vengeance for his family who were killed because Ultron decided to use said city as his personal Asteroid of extinction in Avengers: Age of Ultron. As for Lex...well he just wants to make Batman and Superman kill each other. God knows what for. Although brilliantly played by Jesse Eisenberg, the character suffers from a complete lack of depth. Either way, both villains turn out to be completely forgettable ones, unless they have a further role in upcoming films Justice League or...one of the several ones Marvel plans to drop next year. (Most likely Black Panther.)

BvS split vs Steve-Tony split

     While the factors in both films that turned the heroes against each other seems to be ignoring a LOT of good things they've done together, Civil War manages it in a much more realistic and subtle manner than BvS. Batman and Superman happen to simultaneously decide that the other hero is a threat to humanity, while 'humanity'decides both the heroes need to go for the greater good. In the end humanity ends up nuking Doomsday (giving him even more energy to absorb) while doing nothing much else except calling Superman into a courthouse and being fed 'Grandma's peach tea' by Lex. To be fair, the film did attempt to set the morality and reasoning straight, but for most it was a dredging of philosophy and dialogues that provided neither excitement nor plot progress. (Remember BvS has a longer running time than Civil War)

     Also this split results in both Batman and Superman clearly trying to kill each other, and nothing short of that. (Once again, ruined by the 'Martha' moment). Although the #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan formed the spine of the Civil War hype train, the 6 on 6 airport battle (Also hands down the best moment of the film) is just Tony and co trying to stop Steve and Bucky from escaping the government's grasp. The films never gets into kill-everybody mood (Romanoff: "We're still friends, right?" Barton "Depends on how hard you hit me") and Falcon even tries to save Rhodes when Vision's missed shot sends him and his War Machine suit into free fall. Even during the final fight between Bucky, Steve and Tony, there are no attempts to 'kill' despite the emotions running high.

Spidey and Panther vs Wonder Woman

     The Russo brothers did an Amazing job off juggling around more than a dozen heroes, giving crucial plot importance to everyone (except Ant man and Spidey, who are called on as Allies). Spider-man couldn't have asked for a better comeback, with Toby Maguire's emotional and serious character and Andrew Garfield's high school hero giving way to Tom Holland's 15-year-old nerd-genius sarcastic-backtalking Spidey, which is the most accurate representation of the Comic book Spidey so far, and the one that the audience really deserved all along. The chemistry between Tom and Robert Downey Jr is beyond perfect, and that alone made the airport sequence so much better.

     Wonder women in contrast feels forced into the plot. It would have went just fine without her (Except that Batman would have died if she wasn't there to block Doomsday's energy beam, lol). The whole point of her inclusion in the film seems just for the final conversation with Bruce Wayne, in which they decide to form the Justice League. That said Gal Gadot did pull off a pretty powerful character, seductive and deadly at the same time.

Humor vs Darkness

     This has been the pivot of all Marvel v DC discussions for the last decade or more. Right from the witty "Billionaire playboy genius philanthropist" introduced to us in 2008, Marvel films has never failed to get the whole theater crowd to burst into laughter. (This trend recently visited Fox, whose Deadpool film had nearly everyone rolling on the floor with laughter. But the Fantastic 4 reboot was a failure on a different level, though.) The Marvel tradition of throwing a random joke in what is supposed to be a serious situation and getting away with it without undermining the gravity of the task at hand still works, and works phenomenally in, for like the 4th time in this review, the airport sequence.

     However one cannot criticize DC for being dark. After Christopher Nolan pulled of a near-perfect trilogy of Batman films shrouded in darkness and emotional depth, we know the absence of jokes does not make a superhero film bland. It just makes it Un-marvel-istic, which is probably exactly what DC is looking for. If they need to successfully evolve a cinematic universe, they need their own identity, and perhaps this darkness is what that identity is. But as a personal opinion, this darkness is likely to keep casuals (The "I haven't picked up a comic book and haven't watched the other movies in the universe either" people) out of DC films.

Martha vs Howard

     Finally, we get to the moment. The moment that finally pushed Tony over the edge and had him go at Cap and Bucky, and the moment that reconciled the son of Krypton and the bat of Gotham. There is little to say about the Civil War moment. It seemed pretty much in line, pretty much what you would expect. The fact that Tony failed to identify that Zemo was doing this to split the Avengers (Unlike in Age of Ultron, where he clearly does identify Ultron's intentions and walks away from a possible fight with --guess who-- Steve Rogers.) can be compensated by the emotions running high by that point. It wasn't perfect- but it wasn't bad either.

     But the "Martha" moment though. That ruined the film for me. BvS was enjoyable despite its failings, until that moment. That had me, and several others like me, flipping out like "Dude, you where a second away from killing Superman, achieving what you've been blabbering about the whole damn film and you stop because MARTHA?!?!" This was made worse because of the brutal intensity of the fight clearly meant it couldn't stop at something subtle. 

Plot Holes

     I might add more to this section later, these are just some I got off the top of my head.

     Superman can fly to the middle of a desert in seconds to save Lois Lane, know when she's drowning or being pushed off a skyscraper but doesn't know when Lex kidnaps and injures his own mother Martha?

     Lex frames superman for killing people in the desert sequence. By sending his mercenaries to kill some people using guns. So superman ditched his super-strength and lazer-eyes for guns, huh?

     Ant man gets super strength when he grows to a giant size. The reason why Ant-man can cause some real damage while in the tiny form is because his weight does not change, so his punches have the same force acting on a lesser area, amplifying his power. So by the same logic, when he grows to a giant size, his weight should remain the same and his power should go down. So how did he rip off wings from airplanes and throw them around?

     

     Anyways, All that was something I've been wanting to write down somewhere, no offence to anyone. Thanks for reading, if you actually did. =D

Know your framerate with Notebookcheck

     Almost all of us who have tried their hand at PC gaming have been burned by framerate and support issues when buying a game. Unless you have a ultra-high end dedicated gaming PC ready to take whatever you throw at it, it is an absolute must to check out minimum requirements of a game and see if your machine can run it to your expectations. A game purchase can be wasted if your PC does not have the juice to support it in the first place. Several gamers including myself have firsthand experience of being trolled like this. (If you want to check out game requirements, SystemRequirementsLab has a thorough and accurate database.)

     However, unless you have perilously outdated graphics hardware, most games should start on all PCs, including ones sporting just integrated graphics unless it completely lacks support for a specific framework or feature used by a game. What really stops you from playing a game with a below-minimum-requirements card is the framerate, literally the rate at which your rig renders the game frames. You obviously can't play FIFA if every pass takes a minute to go through, or Skyrim if an ancient dragon turns you into dragonborn shawarma by the time you lift your mighty war hammer. The risk of overheating also always looms over under-performing graphics cards, especially if you use a laptop (i.e, notebook PC).

     While system requirements give you a fairly good idea on how things will run, a more accurate estimation can be found in this delicious service on notebookcheck.net.

     Basically, it tells you the framerate of various games , on ultra-high, high, medium and low settings, on a multitude of graphics cards. You can filter the list for a particular game(s), a particular GPU or GPU manufacturer, show only notebook GPUs. The options don't end there, extending to announcement dates, features like pixel shaders, core speed, architecture, DirectX versions and more, which can be invaluable especially to the ones building their own PC.

     If you want an uninterrupted gaming experience, you should always make sure the framerate is at least above 30 for your card. If you are willing take a slightly less smooth experience, remember that the type of game is important while assessing your framerate. A game where terrains and landscape whizz away in a blur and new areas have to be rendered on the fly, such as Need For Speed and similar games, a high framerate is necessary for good gameplay. Less rapid games like Dragon Quest: Inquisition, Far Cry and so forth can be played acceptably with a lower framerate.

     Hope that will be helpful at some point to you!

Leicester City wins the Premier League...

...And it's quite the story.

     I would have given a bit of a background here, but considering how the vast majority here at least knows about the Barclay's Premier League, the highest tier of English football , and because the reddit post that follows explains everything, I won't have to do it.

     The credit for this detailed and thorough post Titled "If you are not watching the Premier League, here is why you are missing out on the greatest underdog fairytale in the history of any professional sport." goes to the reddit user hipcatjazzalot. The post was made on February 9th this year, when Leicester was on top of the table against all odds. They have since remained at the top spot, and when Chelsea held Totenham Spurs to a 2-2 draw at the Stamford Bridge yesterday, they officially won the Premier League.

     Here is the amazing rags-to-riches story of Leicester City, the champions of England, also covering their main protagonists: The sensational Algerian Riyad Mahrez who was an unknown a few years back, their record-breaking striker Jamie Vardy who once worked at a factory and played semi-professionally, and their manager Claudio Ranieri, once rejected from multiple top clubs.

     This goose bump-inducing story is a must read, and please do watch all the videos that come along with it.

"

Leicester City, or the Foxes, are a relatively insignificant team. They are often fighting for a mid-table place in the Premier League, just as often slugging it out in lower leagues.

The way the league works is simple: 20 teams play against each other, at home and away, adding up to 38 matches in total. You get 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss, and the team with the most points at the end of the season wins. Unlike in American sports, there are no playoffs in the Premier League. This means that a team can't make it to the playoffs, then hit a good run of form and take the trophy home. No one wins the Premier League by luck or by a going on a hot streak at just the right time. They win by being consistently the best over the course of a year. It's not at all unusual for an underdog team to get off to a great start, before eventually dropping down the table as their good form inevitably wears off. It's a long and psychologically grueling season, and it's difficult to keep up the same level over a year, especially once star players get injuries. Over the course of an entire season, the top teams rise to where they belong. A team can easily finish last despite beating the eventual champions. Imagine if the Miracle on Ice players had to play in a league over an entire year - would they finish above the Soviet Union?

In addition, the Premier League is ruthlessly capitalist. Teams that finish poorly don't get to pick promising young players. There are no salary caps. The teams with the most money buy up the best players, and those that win trophies and enter elite competitions like the Champions League get huge cash prizes, and attract even more top players, perpetuating the cycle of inequality. There is a huge disparity in resources and quality between the top teams and the bottom ones, and no real mechanisms to even things up. The same teams almost always finish in the top 4. From 1992-2015 only five teams won the Premier League.

Finishing in the bottom 3 positions (out of 20) is not just humiliating; it's utterly disastrous. It means being relegated to a lower division, which means a subsequent loss of TV money, less fans coming to the stadium since they won't get to see any games against "big" teams and players, and an inevitable loss of that team's best players, who don't want to settle for playing in the lower divisions and will request to be put on the market. Meanwhile, the top 2 finishing teams from the lower division secure automatic promotion, while those who place 3-6 will go to a playoff to decide who will clinch that third promotion spot. The promotion and relegation system makes the stakes incredibly high, and a team that has been relegated may struggle years to go back to the top flight, if they ever make it back at all.

Ok, back to Leicester. An 18th-place finish in the 2003-04 season saw Leicester relegated to the Championship (the second division of English football). The next few years they would struggle to retain their position in the Championship. After a poor 2007-08 season, they sank even lower to League One (which, confusingly, is the third division of English football).

They would climb their way back out of League One at the first attempt. The following season, Leicester were widely touted as favourites to win promotion back to the Premier League. In 2013 they finally barely snuck into 6th place, high enough to secure a place in the play-offs for a promotion spot, but lost in absolutely incredible fashion to Watford.

It was the semi-final of the play-offs, a two-legged tie. Leicester saw out the first match in a 1-0 win. Next they had to go to Watford to see out the tie. Watford fought back on their turf, and as the match was winding down the score was 2-1, meaning that on aggregate they stood tied at 2-2. Extra time, and perhaps a penalty shootout beckoned. Then, with just a few seconds left on the clock, Leicester were awarded a penalty to book their spot into the final. What happened next... I will not even describe. Do yourself a favour and watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWSc3-NACSY

Following this heartbreak, Leicester would come back stronger, finishing in first place in 2013-14, securing automatic promotion after 10 years out of the top flight.

Their first season back started promisingly, with a few initial decent results, most notably a stunning 5-3 win over Manchester United. Then misery followed, and after months of terrible results Leicester sat rock bottom with only 9 matches left to play. It looked certain that the door back into the Championship stood open after just one season with the big boys.

Incredibly, Leicester managed to win 7 of their last 9 matches to secure probably the most miraculous escape in Premier League history, finishing the season safely in 14th place.

Scandal struck the club during the summer. A sex tape of three Foxes players having an orgy in a Bangkok hotel room with some Thai women leaked out. The players shouted racist abuse including "slit eye." One of the players happened to be the son of Foxes manager Nigel Pearson. Pearson and the three players were subsequently let go. The inspirational manager who had dragged Leicester out of the Championship and led them to that miraculous escape would not be there to guide the ship the following season.

No one was particularly impressed with Pearson's replacement, Claudio Ranieri. He had not managed any Premier League team since Chelsea in 2004 – back in 2004 he was shown the door by new billionaire investor Roman Abramovich, who felt Ranieri wasn’t a sufficiently glamorous manager and brought in Jose Mourinho. Ranieri had since had mixed success with various Italian teams, and his most recent job was manager of Greece – a job that ended in disgrace after just a few months, following a humiliating defeat by the Faroe Islands (yes, that place with a population of 50 thousand which is not even a country). In retrospect, there was a precedent for what Ranieri was about to do with Leicester - in two seasons at Monaco he led the club out of the French Ligue 2 (less confusingly, the second division in France) and the next season finished in second place with 80 points, the highest points tally ever achieved by a team in the French league without winning. Still, he had been unbelievably unimpressive at Greece.

Things did not look good for Leicester. Ranieri was the odds-on favourite to be the first to lose his job. Their squad was made up mostly of unknown players and a few scraps from the table of bigger clubs, including Robert Huth and Danny Simpson, discarded from Chelsea and Manchester United, respectively, for not being good enough (Huth, in fairness, had since made a name for himself as a rock-solid defender at Stoke, but he seemed by now to be past his prime). Their most expensive signing of the summer was N’Golo Kante, brought in from French team Caen - not exactly a blockbuster signing. With this context, it's easy to understand why, going into the 2015-16 season, Leicester were favourites for relegation.

Leicester came flying out in their first match with a 4-2 win over Sunderland, and went undefeated their first 6 matches, the only Premier League team to do so. After a 2-5 spanking at home by contenders Arsenal, their hot streak appeared to be over, and the universe seemed to be back in order.

Undeterred, the Foxes would continue flying. They played extremely energetic, rapid, and deadly counter-attacking football. They were well organized at the back, with all the players knowing their jobs, doing them well, winning the ball and getting it quickly into one of their devastating counter-attacks, sprinting across the pitch like a pack of wild, well, foxes. And three previously unknown quantities – N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, and Jamie Vardy, started pulling off astonishing performances. As they continued winning week after week, the pundits picked up on a fascinating statistic: 28-year-old goalscorer Jamie Vardy was about to become a record-breaker. But first, more about Vardy. If you thought this was an impressive rags-to-riches story up until now, you haven’t heard anything yet.

Jamie Vardy dreamt of being a professional footballer, but at the age of 16 he was released from the youth academy of Sheffield Wednesday, a team now playing in the Championship. He wasn’t cut out for it. Nevertheless Vardy kept playing semi-professionally for minnows Stocksbridge Park Steels, a team in the seventh tier of English football. He would spend 7 years there, working 12-hour shifts at a factory to support himself and playing on the weekends for £30 a match. At one point, after being charged with assault (according to Vardy, he was sticking up for a deaf friend that was being picked on), he had a 6pm curfew enforced and had to wear an ankle bracelet. Sometimes he had to be subbed off an hour into a match so he could jump into his dad's car to avoid breaking his curfew.

After some impressive displays, he was signed by Halifax Town, a team then in the sixth tier. He finished as the league’s top goalscorer and helped his team win promotion before signing for Fleetwood Town, now in the fifth tier. Again he finished top scorer, and again he helped his team win promotion. His impressive performances got him a call from Leicester. Finally, in 2012, at the age of 25, when most players would expect to have a few years of experience behind them, Vardy could call himself a pro.

Vardy’s first season was poor, but in the 2013-14 season he paid off, and his 16 goals helped Leicester to get back into the Premier League. Early on in the next season, he turned in a man-of-the-match performance against Manchester United, scoring one goal and setting up the other four in that 5-3 win. Along with the rest of his team, he would fail to make a mark for the rest of the season, but came to life at the crucial moment, playing a key role in Leicester’s miraculous escape.

Like Leicester, Vardy got off to a blistering start to the 2015-16 season, scoring in the first match of the season. Failing to net in the next two games, he then scored again in the fourth match. And in the fifth. And in the sixth. Twice in the seventh. He scored again in the eighth. Twice in the ninth. And in the tenth. By the twelfth match of the season, Jamie Vardy, who five years earlier worked in a factory, was the top goalscorer of the most competitive league in the world, and he had now scored nine games in a row.

The Premier League record for goals scored in most consecutive matches, 10, had been set in 2002 by Manchester United legend Ruud van Nistelrooy, one of the greatest attacking players since the new millennium. Could Vardy match the great van Nistelrooy?

Could he ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUKsTmDjEb0

Having equaled the record, there was one more challenge left: could he BEAT it? Well, what better opposition to go for it than against Manchester United themselves?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot80PrLmkv0

By the way, did I mention that Vardy did all of this with a broken wrist?

At the end of 2015, Leicester made history: they were the only team to ever go from being bottom of the league on Christmas Day one season to top of the league on Christmas Day the next season. Meanwhile, Ranieri got his revenge over Abramovich and Mourinho: Leicester City's victory over Chelsea on December 14 was the final straw in an incomprehensibly dreadful season for defending champions Chelsea. Jose Mourinho, the glamorous manager brought in all those years ago to replace the unfashionable Ranieri, was fired from his second stint at the club that catapulted him to true stardom.

Thanks for playing, Leicester, everyone said. But it’s time for the fairytale to end. Surely these plucky underdogs would start to feel the pressure, would fall apart at some point?

Last weekend was the true test. Leicester faced title favourites Manchester City. Manchester City, until very recently, were a club mired in mediocrity, having undergone a long decline after some golden years in the late 60s. In 2008, the club was purchased by the Abu Dhabi United Group, a private equity company owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. Overnight, this once middling team was one of the richest in the world. A slew of huge money signings brought a wealth of talented players, finally translating into first place success in the league in 2012 and 2014. Manchester City are for many a symbol of everything that is wrong with the hyper-capitalist world of football: all you need is a billionaire investor with a blank check, and the success will come.

Just to put the gap in resources into context between these two teams: Leicester’s starting line-up cost a grand total of £22.5 million to put together. Last summer, Manchester City brought in Raheem Sterling for a reported £49 million.

That’s right: ONE of Manchester City’s players cost more than TWICE AS MUCH money as Leicester’s ENTIRE first team put together.

Surely, surely, order would be restored?

Well, Leicester hadn’t read the script. http://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/2016/02/06/manchester-city-vs-leicester-city-highlights-full-match/

It was vintage Leicester: good organisation combined with terrifyingly fast counter-attacks. They went to the richest team in the country, and they didn’t just beat them. They carved them apart, repeatedly, in front of their fans, on their own turf. And they did it in a thrilling, entertaining way that was an advertisement to everyone about why this sport is so great. Player-of-the-season Riyad Mahrez was at his scintillating best, bamboozling the Manchester City defence with a brilliant goal. N'Golo Kante was huge in midfield, charging down the ball and starting counter-attacks. Robert Huth, the Chelsea reject, was a beast at the back and bagged himself two goals.

Leicester now sit five points clear on first place. They are well over the halfway mark. No one is talking any longer about when they will fall away. They are odds-on favourites to take the whole thing. If they do, it will be an unbelievable accomplishment. This weekend, they travel to London to take on contenders Arsenal, one of only two teams who have beaten them (the other being Liverpool) early in the season. Whatever happens, it will be thrilling.

EDIT: LEICESTER ARE CHAMPIONS. UNBELIEVABLE. Since more people are being linked to this post I've added a couple more explanations on how the league system basically works, for those that know very little, and corrected a couple factual inaccuracies (yes, Manchester City fans, you are absolutely right, Leicester and Man City did not have a similar amount of titles before 2008, sorry about that).

Also bet365 has 100/1 odds on Leicester winning the Champions League next season. It's not quite 5000/1 but it might be worth putting a quid on it.

My inbox has not been silent at pretty much any point during the last few months. The replies I've most enjoyed getting have been the "I don't usually watch this sport but this season I'm watching every game." Welcome to the greatest sport in the world.

I'm still getting over this. If you had told anyone a year ago that Wes Morgan would be one of the top defenders of the season, or Kasper Schmeichel one of the top goalkeepers, you would have been ridiculed. If you had started raving over Riyad Mahrez (now officially Player of the Season), you would have gotten a one-word response: "who?"

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You can check out the original reddit post here.

Hope you enjoyed the read!