Posts Tagged ‘other’
The last two months in a picture (and also words)
So it’s been approximately ages since I’ve done anything in this space, so I figured I’d quickly summarize my last two months with a picture.
(Numbers are roughly clockwise)
1) My torn-apart Eee PC 901. A while back, I broke the LCD by using it as a carrying handle, a use it neither was designed for nor deserved. So I ordered a replacement and assumed I’d be able to install it myself. This was a good assumption; expecting the shipper to send precisely the right model was not. All-in-all, the pins didn’t match up and the backlight didn’t work. Ordering the right part soon.
2) Machine of Death. A great book that I’ve been reading. I think it might be the first actual hold-it-in-your-hands paper book I’ve bought for my own personal reading enjoyment in years.
3) 3D glasses. I was on an Amazon shopping spree and figured why not.
4) My newly repaired Macbook Pro. The turdbiscuits at the Apple Store finally believed me that the issue was the same one I told them it was all along, namely that the Wi-Fi card was Wi-Fried, and repaired the slut of a laptop. So far, so good, but I’ve renamed it “Morgan”.
5) Playstation 2 and Persona 4. I picked up a used PS2 and a bunch of games for dirt cheap over the holidays and have really been enjoying it. Persona 4 is the one game I’ve spent the most time on, over 20 hours according to my save file but many more hours were played but lost to death. It’s really quite fun and I’m looking forward to playing more of it.
6) Magic: The Gathering deck. Yes, I’ve gotten into Magic. I have a few friends with whom I play a couple times a week and currently have 3 decks. Hopefully, I will be able to refrain from converting my entire life savings into trading card form.
7) My DVD copy of The Social Network. The local Blockbuster is shutting down and are in the process of liquidating their DVD inventory, so everything is on sale for, again, dirt cheap. I picked up the special edition of what I consider to be 2010′s best film for a delicious $8.
Otherwise, most of my time has been spent on game development and school. I made another Oceanspirit Dennis game and am currently working on two other unrelated, non-OSD game projects. I also might be working with a certain someone on a certain something that may or may not certainly be a book.
Everything You Need To Know About Economics
If I want to graduate on time and receive both my Electrical Engineering and Computer Science degrees, which I do, my school forces me to pay up and take a summer course completely unrelated to my major, which I am. Thus, I’m stuck in the night-class purgatory that is microeconomics. I’ve had three classes so far and am fairly sure that I have learned everything there is to know about economics. If you, for some demented reason, want to enter this strange field, here is all you need to know:
- A fourth grade level understanding of mathematics. Seems those three semesters of Calculus were all for naught, at least in economics. Here is a comprehensive list of all the mathematical concepts I have used in this course: averaging two numbers, the point-slope formula, solving a simple single variable algebraic equation, and percent difference.
- Supply and demand. High supply and low demand mean low prices; low supply and high demand mean high prices. Or something like that. There’s other factors, but we’re not supposed to consider them because we’d have to solve equations with more than one variable. Gasp!
- Profit is total revenue minus total cost. If reading this made you feel enlightened, then you have a promising career projecting the future of the national economy on MSNBC.
- Those cheeseburger-flavored Doritos are kinda neat the first time, but get really gross really fast. High-level stuff, I know.
- Please let me integrate something before I lose my mind. My brain is melting.
So, in short, if you are not at all mathematically inclined and want a big fancy piece of paper saying how special you are, economics is for you. Hopefully, I’ll survive until the fall semester, when Physics 3 and Probability will have a chance to revive my dead brain cells.
Also, totally unrelated, but you should keep your eyes peeled for this sweet game that’s emerging very soon from the creative womb of my good friend and coworker, Igor Hardy.
Oceanspirit Dennis
As my love of the name “Dennis” should be quite evident by now, it is no coincidence that some fellows and I created a character, nay, a new universe containing the name. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you…
Oceanspirit Dennis
The basic idea behind OSD is that through all manner of unusual events, I ended up drawing the above picture and a hero was born. He is the forbidden lovechild of Batman and Cloud Strife, torn between a life of crime-fighting and being a typical JRPG protagonist poof. As such, he is perfect game-starring material and has so far been the focus of five games. Here they are in chronological order.
- OSD: Scourge of the Underworld, by Ben304
- OSD: Scourge of the Underworld DX, by me.
- OSD: Mighty Pirate, by Ben304
- OSD: The RPG, by discordance
- OSD: Pirates On The Poopdeck!, by Ponch
So you can see the guy has quite a career ahead of him. In fact, if downloads aren’t your thing, you can actually play Scourge of the Underworld right here in your browser by clicking these words! Pretty sweet, huh? One thing of note, part of OSD’s genesis involved a forum troll with a particularly loose grasp of the Queen’s English, so a couple of those games have appropriately incoherent dialog as a homage. Not mine, however, which instead includes voice acting! NICE. Here’s Oceanspirit Dennis’ new look, too.
Also, I played the first three hours of Metal Gear Solid 3 with a friend the other day. Or, more accurately, I watched two hours of MGS3 and played an hour.
Finally, new Hardydev review by me on a pretty sweet game called Yoomurjak’s ring. This one is a video review, baby.
A Love Story
Here’s a touching romance tale I wrote a while back. I hope it makes you cry.
In North Dakota in late March, Jack Frost was having his swan song for the year. After a long, typically cold winter, the last blizzard of the season seemed intent on making an impact. Roads were impassible, stores were closed, and a large percentage of the small town of Rutmuffin was snowed in.
“FFFFUUUUUU-” Jeremy shouted, stumbling in the front door.
His wife looked up from her Better Homes and Gardens magazine. “I told you it wouldn’t run.”
“I hate the cold. I hate winter. I hate North Dakota and I hate the US Postal service,” Jeremy replied. “What ever happened to ‘neither snow nor rain’ and all that?”
“You know that was never actually their motto.”
“You know what I mean, Sandy.”
“Still,” she responded, “it is a shame that the replacement part for our furnace would get stuck in this storm.”
Jeremy was not amused by the irony. Something else was bothering him.
“Why don’t you take off that damn Snuggie?” he asked curtly.
Sandy looked in shock. “It’s warm! Plus I can read my magazine without having to adjust a blanket.”
“You sound like one of those freakin’ commercials,” Jeremy snapped. “How incompetent do you have to be to not know how to operate a simple blanket?”
“Are you calling me stupid?” Sandy said, her voice starting to crack.
“No… no, it’s just…” Jeremy trailed off. “I just think you’re better than a Snuggie. I watch the people on TV and they just seem so idiotic, so typically American, and I’ve always thought you were above that.”
Sandy’s eyes started to water. “I know how you feel about them, and I want you to be happy, but try to understand. I got this thing from my mother for Christmas and it’s really quite practical. You of all people should understand that.”
Jeremy sighed. “I do. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I want you to know that I really do love you.”
A grin creeped its way across Sandy’s face. “You know… ” she whispered, “there’s another reason I’m wearing the Snuggie…”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“I’m only wearing the Snuggie.”
“Oh…” Jeremy heaved as Sandy’s smile effected one on his own face. “Is there room for two in there?”
And they made Snuggie Love.
McCarthy Chronicles: Episode 1 Video Review
Here’s a short little video review I made to a short little adventure game. I did it for A Hardy Developer’s Journal, a site you should totally read every day at least 14 times.
Game created by Steve Poulton, aka Calin Leafshade. Site: http://thethoughtradar.com
Download game
5 things we’d better have by the end of the next decade or I’m seriously gonna lose my mind
Every generation has a different view of the future, but people have been hoping for some things since the 20′s and humanity continues to drop the ball. Things like…
5) Space Elevators
Get this, according to Wikipedia, the technology for these things has existed since 1978. They’d even pay for themselves! After you get the elevator operational, just charge gratuitous amounts of money for people to have a couple hours in space. It worked for Richard Branson, and he hasn’t even taken anyone yet.
4) Spinal cord Bluetooth implants
This great idea belongs to Andy Ihnatko and would eliminate the need for printers, displays, keyboards, speakers, hell, basically everything needed for using your magical audio-visual communication and computation device today. Of course there’s the obvious security issues of your brain being open to wireless hacking, but there’s nothing in there that you haven’t already posted to twitter, facebook, and youtube.
3) The death of 3D
I don’t care what anyone says about 3D being “more realistic” or “the next big advancement in cinema/gaming.” They’re wrong. It isn’t. It hurts your eyes and causes visual overload. When I saw Avatar, (one word review: meh), I spent the whole time thinking how much I’d rather see the film in 2D, or at least a better film. Avatar’s problem was that the 3D made the already-pushing-it-in-terms-of-believability aliens lose all realism and turned them back into digital freaks. Also, particles in 3D are the most distracting thing ever; you’re trying to watch two characters converse but your eyes can’t lock down on one of the dozens of vertical planes in which movement occurs. Stupid flower petals/ashes/holy flying anemonae.
2) An Apple tablet
Seriously, Apple, get on that.
1) Laws against the stuff the 60′s people wanted
I know, personal jetpacks and time machines would be cool, but have you stopped to think about how impractical and dangerous those things would be? Time machines, if possible, have the dangers of paradoxes up the bum and jetpacks would need way too many safety features and airspace regulation. Don’t even get me started on artificial intelligence. Some of these things are just too dangerously powerful and powerfully dangerous to be created.
So on the whole, humanity as a whole has a lot of work to do over the next 10 years to keep me happy, which, admittedly, is probably not the best goal for the entire world to pursue.
12 hour retrospective.
So I succeeded in staying in bed for 24 hours straight. All in all, it was a fun experience, though I don’t plan to do it again anytime soon unless it’s for charity or something. Some highlights…
- I’d say most of my time was spent with video games, and most of my video game time was spent with Fallout 3. So far, pretty nice game, though arguably inferior to Mass Effect in most ways besides combat, graphics, and auto-saving. But it’s a different type of game for a different audience.
- It seems every time I rent Spider-Man 2, the DVD is scratched or really dirty or something else that prevents me from watching it all the way through. I still don’t recall if I’ve ever seen the whole thing.
- The best way to scare off someone on Omegle asking “m or f?” is to respond “lioness.”
- Richard Feynman’s a beast.
I’m staying in bed for 24 hours straight.
Thank you Ryan North of qwantz.com for the inspiration!
Well that’s my plan. I’m gonna stay in bed for 24 hours straight. Instead of going to bed and simply not getting up, I’m going to start at noon CST tomorrow and go to noon on friday. Why am I doing this? Why not? I’m officially on winter break, so I can do whatever the heck I want.
I will be a little bit more prepared than T-Rex; I’ll have all my electronics within arms reach, as well as a cooler full of tasty treats and maybe a microwave.
About the electronics, my Macbook Pro will not be joining my experiment on account of it being a broken piece of crap. Even after formatting both partitions and doing a full reinstall, the old girl’s still crapping out on me. I did upgrade my Windows partition to 7 and it’s pretty nice. The best part, though, is that I more than doubled the partition size so I can download all the games I want. I would very much enjoy playing my latest purchase, Knights of the Old Republic, except for the aforementioned fail. But I’ve got an appointment at the Apple store before zero-hour tomorrow and I’ll just drop the thing off.
So yeah. 24 hours in bed. I think it’ll be fun. I’ll have my Xbox, my iMac, and Richard Feynman’s autobiograpy, and I’ll be tweeting all the way.
Grab Bag
Let’s have some structure:
- Video games: I recently beat Mass Effect, and let me say that it is definitely one of the best games I’ve ever played. It gives COD4 a run for its money as my favorite Xbox game. Sure, it has a lot of flaws (annoying inventory system, the MAKO vehicle, Unreal engine 3), but it more than makes up for them with an incredible story, truly lovable characters, the best dialog system I’ve ever encountered, and more than tolerable combat. Go buy it now. Other games I’ve been playing recently: Left 4 Dead 2, Saints Row 2, Spider-Man 2, and Modern Warfare 2 (see a pattern?). All of them are really good, but none of them are quite as epic as Mass Effect. I’m planning on getting the collector’s edition (EDIT: For the sequel in January, that is), which is something I’ve never done.
- Computer problems: If you’ve read my twitter in the past two weeks or heard my screams of anguish (audible radius: 2000 km), you’ll no doubt know that my computer is friggin’ screwed up. I have nearly exhausted my options for fixing it, but I don’t think it’s too late yet. After some preparation, I plan to back up all my essential stuff twice, including app licenses, and do a complete format and reinstall. I’m probably going to end up doing this for both my Mac and Windows partition, so I’m going to use this opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7 and increase the size of my Boot Camp partition. I honestly don’t know why I’m upgrading, since the last 3 times I’ve upgraded my computers I’ve wrought nothing but sorrows.
- Christmas: I hate Christmas music. I like Christmas, but I hate the music more than anything. Other things I hate more than anything include the cold, rain, final exams, and media whores. Why I’m in Memphis during the winter and why I still have yahoo.com bookmarked is beyond me. But once again breaking my own rule of never announcing anything until it’s done, I have plans for literally 9 different thing for my holiday break. Instead of breaking my rule outright, I’ll just bend it a little by giving the first letter of each: M, C, A, K, F, T, P, S, and B. Guess away.
Quotation marks are not for “emphasis”
I can see many ways this can be taken out of context.
A New Form of Protest
I might just be the next Ghandi. Well, maybe not, but this new form of protest I’ve come up with will hopefully catch on as a new form of civil disobedience. It is called…
PENIS PROTEST
Penis Protest is a radical new way to get your point across to the Man. Basically, it entails saying the word “penis” a whole friggin’ lot to make the people around you uncomfortable; like the penis game, except with a message. Since penis is not a very socially accepted word, yet not regularly considered an obscenity, passers by will hear you saying penis a lot and will therefore become quite nervous and uneasy. This awkwardness will temporarily create a block in mental activity, thereby allowing the protesters to subtly insert their true message into their captive audience’s subconscious. It doesn’t take long for the new recruits to get in on the penis action and start multiplying. Consider this hypothetical example of Penis Protest in action:
Protester 1: “So I guess the penis of what I’m saying is that when you look at the big penis, all the penises fit together!”
Protester 2: “I agree one-hundred penises.”
Protester 1: “So did you see the penis for that new documentary on penises?”
Passer-By: “Buhuhuh… I’m lost and confused!”
Protester 2: “PETA must be penis stopped!”
Passer-By: “Alright!”
Of course, Penis Protest is not limited to this particular method! In fact, PP is open to interpretation. While some may interpret it in the above fashion, others may instead wear t-shirts with the word “penis” on them, or perhaps put split second flashes of the word into promotional videos for subliminal messaging. The penis possibilities are endless!
Sexy Haikus
I really didn’t want to put the word “sexy” in the title as I know what kind of twitter spammers it attracts and I’m locked out of twitterfeed for some reason. But seriously, there’s no title that could better describe the lines of romance, true love, and intimacy that follow.
So without further ado, I give to you:
Sexy Haikus
Hey there, beautiful.
You get me hot and riled.
May I lick your feet?
You know what they say,
It’s not rape if you like it.
One way to find out.
I love you so much.
I mean this with all my heart.
Psych! We’re breaking up.
We’d talk for hours,
I thought I’d get to see her.
Friggin’ Chris Hansen.
A strap-on? Really?
Wait, what are you doing wi-
HOLY CRAP, FEELINGS!
What shall we do, love?
Baby, the night is so young.
Let’s break out the Risk.
I met her last night,
She was way too drunk to judge.
Sexy times ahoy!
“My nose. Your panties.”
“What? Was it something I said?”
No one understands.
What? No protection?
Wait a minute… Don’t worry,
I’ve got the Glad Wrap.
My my, she looks nice.
I’ll woo her with courtesy.
“Please take off your pants?”
The Haikus are done.
Seriously, they’re over.
I hope you’re aroused.
According to @yomcat . . .
I shouldn’t be nice anymore. Quoth he, “You’ve lost the magic touch.” So no more of that! What kind of person would I be if I didn’t pander to my maths-obsessed readers from New Zealand? Tell ya what, here’s a sucks grab bag!
- Auckland
- Texting
- Graduation Ceremonies
- Australia
- Jonas Brothers
- Vuze Customer Support
- Slow couriers
- First years
- Wolfram|Alpha
Pander pander pander. I am your slave monkey, you crazy kiwi.
</SARCASM>
The thing I’m selling…
HEY! Do you enjoy documentaries? Do you enjoy documentaries about the early days of the personal computer? Do you like said films that feature interviews with luminaries such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Balmer, and several other important people? Do you enjoy watching these sort of documentaries in VHS format? Do you know why I’m asking all these questions?
Man, I’ve just hyped this up so much even I can hardly believe that everything I just said is completely true about what I’m selling! This ain’t no Craigslist.
That’s right! You, yes, YOU!, could be the proud owner of the 3 VHS Collector’s Box Set of the public television documentary, Triumph of the Nerds. Cue the pictures!
Triumph of the Nerds!
And now from this angle!
And now this one!
Holy crap another angle oh my goodness oh my goodness!
And if that didn't convince you...
I haven’t set a price yet but some googling suggests maybe around $20 US or something? Not sure about shipping yet either, but we can work something out. The tapes are in great quality, not perfect, but it’s from 1996, okay? If you’re interested, email me at my name (drew) at my domain (ddq5.com).
UPDATE: It’s now for sale on ebay.
