Lots of things, some awesome, some not
I have nothing to do!
Yes, that's right, I'm on a one-week break from class. I've spent my time pretty much doing nothing - 'cept catching up on sleep, and playing games. I would love to do something productive, like some writing, but I keep stalling before I even begin. It's mildly irritating. So, yes, this has been a pretty lame holiday thus far, due to everyone else I know in NZ still being horrendously busy with university - as their year is just about to wrap up.
Anyhow, let's look at some things that I've been up to of late.
First-off, and most important of all:
The Protomen: Act II - The Father of Death
NEW PROTOMEN CD. It finally arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I've been listening to it a lot since then. It's a step up from their previous CD in terms of audio quality - whereas the previous one had a bit of a garage-band sound to it, this one sounds every bit professional. In terms of how fantastic the songs are. Well. They're fantastic. It doesn't quite have as stand-out songs as their previous CD, but as a whole, it's a incredible piece of work, and superior to the previous one.
In terms of its narrative, it acts as a prequel to The Protomen's first CD - detailing the rise of Dr. Wily, and the fall of Dr. Light. It culminates in Dr. Light's resolve to keep up the fight, and build Protoman, which segues into the first CD. One trait of the album, which helps emphasise the progression of the narrative, is that the musical style changes from a acoustic guitar-laden, Western-sounding theme at the beginning, to a high-tech, synthesiser-based rock opera sound in the middle, which faintly bleeds into the more harsh, electric-guitar driven sound of their first CD by the end of the album.
In other words, it's awesome. If you're interested in it at all, you should have a listen to the first track: here.
Team Fortress 2
Another thing that has been keeping me busy and entertained, is my clan (Ju1cy), and its involvement in various competitive ladders and tournaments. We do fairly well, though consistency tends to be an issue - we often have people not able to show, due to real life commitments or internet issues, so even though we kind of have a core team of players, we don't get to play together as a solid group as often as we would like. Our last scrim was hindered drastically by our Ventrilo server throwing a hissy-fit a couple of minutes after the game began, cutting our communication to near-zero. The final score was an ugly 4-1. Our single point came during the few minutes when our Ventrilo server decided that it would work, before cutting out again. Shows how important communication is for solid teamwork.
Still, we have a bunch of fun, and mayhaps soon one of our members will cut together an e-peen boosting frag vid that we can show off to people. Good times, good times.
Death Note
After a discussion with Tim about anime, he convinced me that I needed to watch Death Note with great expediency. He was right, of course. I know I'm late to the bandwagon on this, but it's a fantastic anime, even if the second half doesn't quite measure up to the first. I'm always keen for stories that involve intelligent megalomaniacs trying to take over the world. Especially with the astounding amounts of Xanatos Gambits that go down.
Pool Game
So, for MDS, we had to code up a game of pool (8-ball), for the culmination of our maths section. Everybody in the class hated this project. Coding the game itself was a simple task, it was just a matter of endlessly fiddling with the collision detection mechanics to try get it working right.
I underestimated the amount of work this task would take, and kinda left a lot to the last minute (as in, a lot), which meant that last Thursday night I got all of thirty minutes of sleep. Good times, good times.
I got it into a working state by the time we had to submit it, so I'm not too bothered about it. Will be glad so long as I scrape a pass. There's only one obvious bug in my code that I can think of. It's pretty obvious - the balls sometime clip into the cushions, and zoom along them, popping back onto the table at one of the pockets, and traveling at a ridiculous velocity. It's rather amusing to see, but not quite realistic.
Counter-Strike: Source - Jailbreak
Something I was only just introduced to a couple of days ago, jailbreak mode for CS:S is a bunch of maps which have the terrorists acting as prisoners, and the counter-terrorists as prison wardens. It's pretty crazy. It involves the CT's ordering the T's around, and getting them to do silly activities, while trying to keep them under control. The T's follow along, so they don't get shot, and try to stage a rebellion at any chance they can get.
Basically, I imagine someone looked at the Stanford Prison Experiment, and said: "That would be lots of fun in Counter-Strike!"
And, well, it kinda is. The CT's are forbidden from just randomly shooting prisoners (freekilling), as there are admins on the server at pretty much all times, who will either kick you, or make you a T. Instead of being prison wardens, the CT's are more like.. well... kindergarten organisers, if you armed all kindergarteners with a knife and a thirst for blood.
The usual path of things will go something like this:
1. Cells are opened, T's are ordered to stand on a line for a gun check. (Some of the cells have pistols in them). Any T's who are moving during the gun check, or disobey orders, or essentially do anything to merit it, are shot. This isn't so much out of: "Hehe, killing prisoners is fun", but more: "Need to cull the numbers, otherwise it's too unmanageable to play games."
(Most of the times I've been on, there have been around 20-40 T's, and 5-11 CT's)
2. Once gun check is over, games are played until the T's are whittled down to a single man - all losers are shot.
Games tend to be one of the following: races, trivia, Simon Says, tell a story/sing a song, or an activity that has been coded into the map. (Soccer, diving, dodgeball, castle battles, basketball, boxing, water polo, etc).
Yep. Kindergarteners. With knives. And some of the worst attitudes you'll see outside of an actual prison (we are talking about CS:S players here).
3. Once there's one T left, he can challenge the remaining CT's to various duels - Knife Fight, Shot for Shot (take turns shooting at the other person), or Deagle Toss (throw your gun as far as you can. The person who throws the furthest wins).
Yeah. It's crazy. But often hilarious. The best of both worlds. If both worlds also involved racial epithets and nude sprays.
List of Interesting Links:
Hilarious rap song by CCP (the company who makes EVE Online). Icelandic rap ftw.
Two (one, and two) interesting articles about the largest mall in the world. It's in China, and nigh-deserted.
First person on the moon could've been a woman? I am disappoint.
Steampunk-ish web series? Might wanna keep an eye on this.
Also, as xkcd pointed out: Toy Story is older than my brother. Very weird and scary.
Yes, that's right, I'm on a one-week break from class. I've spent my time pretty much doing nothing - 'cept catching up on sleep, and playing games. I would love to do something productive, like some writing, but I keep stalling before I even begin. It's mildly irritating. So, yes, this has been a pretty lame holiday thus far, due to everyone else I know in NZ still being horrendously busy with university - as their year is just about to wrap up.
Anyhow, let's look at some things that I've been up to of late.
First-off, and most important of all:
The Protomen: Act II - The Father of Death
NEW PROTOMEN CD. It finally arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I've been listening to it a lot since then. It's a step up from their previous CD in terms of audio quality - whereas the previous one had a bit of a garage-band sound to it, this one sounds every bit professional. In terms of how fantastic the songs are. Well. They're fantastic. It doesn't quite have as stand-out songs as their previous CD, but as a whole, it's a incredible piece of work, and superior to the previous one.
In terms of its narrative, it acts as a prequel to The Protomen's first CD - detailing the rise of Dr. Wily, and the fall of Dr. Light. It culminates in Dr. Light's resolve to keep up the fight, and build Protoman, which segues into the first CD. One trait of the album, which helps emphasise the progression of the narrative, is that the musical style changes from a acoustic guitar-laden, Western-sounding theme at the beginning, to a high-tech, synthesiser-based rock opera sound in the middle, which faintly bleeds into the more harsh, electric-guitar driven sound of their first CD by the end of the album.
In other words, it's awesome. If you're interested in it at all, you should have a listen to the first track: here.
Team Fortress 2
Another thing that has been keeping me busy and entertained, is my clan (Ju1cy), and its involvement in various competitive ladders and tournaments. We do fairly well, though consistency tends to be an issue - we often have people not able to show, due to real life commitments or internet issues, so even though we kind of have a core team of players, we don't get to play together as a solid group as often as we would like. Our last scrim was hindered drastically by our Ventrilo server throwing a hissy-fit a couple of minutes after the game began, cutting our communication to near-zero. The final score was an ugly 4-1. Our single point came during the few minutes when our Ventrilo server decided that it would work, before cutting out again. Shows how important communication is for solid teamwork.
Still, we have a bunch of fun, and mayhaps soon one of our members will cut together an e-peen boosting frag vid that we can show off to people. Good times, good times.
Death Note
After a discussion with Tim about anime, he convinced me that I needed to watch Death Note with great expediency. He was right, of course. I know I'm late to the bandwagon on this, but it's a fantastic anime, even if the second half doesn't quite measure up to the first. I'm always keen for stories that involve intelligent megalomaniacs trying to take over the world. Especially with the astounding amounts of Xanatos Gambits that go down.
Pool Game
So, for MDS, we had to code up a game of pool (8-ball), for the culmination of our maths section. Everybody in the class hated this project. Coding the game itself was a simple task, it was just a matter of endlessly fiddling with the collision detection mechanics to try get it working right.
I underestimated the amount of work this task would take, and kinda left a lot to the last minute (as in, a lot), which meant that last Thursday night I got all of thirty minutes of sleep. Good times, good times.
I got it into a working state by the time we had to submit it, so I'm not too bothered about it. Will be glad so long as I scrape a pass. There's only one obvious bug in my code that I can think of. It's pretty obvious - the balls sometime clip into the cushions, and zoom along them, popping back onto the table at one of the pockets, and traveling at a ridiculous velocity. It's rather amusing to see, but not quite realistic.
Counter-Strike: Source - Jailbreak
Something I was only just introduced to a couple of days ago, jailbreak mode for CS:S is a bunch of maps which have the terrorists acting as prisoners, and the counter-terrorists as prison wardens. It's pretty crazy. It involves the CT's ordering the T's around, and getting them to do silly activities, while trying to keep them under control. The T's follow along, so they don't get shot, and try to stage a rebellion at any chance they can get.
Basically, I imagine someone looked at the Stanford Prison Experiment, and said: "That would be lots of fun in Counter-Strike!"
And, well, it kinda is. The CT's are forbidden from just randomly shooting prisoners (freekilling), as there are admins on the server at pretty much all times, who will either kick you, or make you a T. Instead of being prison wardens, the CT's are more like.. well... kindergarten organisers, if you armed all kindergarteners with a knife and a thirst for blood.
The usual path of things will go something like this:
1. Cells are opened, T's are ordered to stand on a line for a gun check. (Some of the cells have pistols in them). Any T's who are moving during the gun check, or disobey orders, or essentially do anything to merit it, are shot. This isn't so much out of: "Hehe, killing prisoners is fun", but more: "Need to cull the numbers, otherwise it's too unmanageable to play games."
(Most of the times I've been on, there have been around 20-40 T's, and 5-11 CT's)
2. Once gun check is over, games are played until the T's are whittled down to a single man - all losers are shot.
Games tend to be one of the following: races, trivia, Simon Says, tell a story/sing a song, or an activity that has been coded into the map. (Soccer, diving, dodgeball, castle battles, basketball, boxing, water polo, etc).
Yep. Kindergarteners. With knives. And some of the worst attitudes you'll see outside of an actual prison (we are talking about CS:S players here).
3. Once there's one T left, he can challenge the remaining CT's to various duels - Knife Fight, Shot for Shot (take turns shooting at the other person), or Deagle Toss (throw your gun as far as you can. The person who throws the furthest wins).
Yeah. It's crazy. But often hilarious. The best of both worlds. If both worlds also involved racial epithets and nude sprays.
List of Interesting Links:
Hilarious rap song by CCP (the company who makes EVE Online). Icelandic rap ftw.
Two (one, and two) interesting articles about the largest mall in the world. It's in China, and nigh-deserted.
First person on the moon could've been a woman? I am disappoint.
Steampunk-ish web series? Might wanna keep an eye on this.
Also, as xkcd pointed out: Toy Story is older than my brother. Very weird and scary.