Champion without a Cause
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Champion without a Cause" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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02:07 pm
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BitN1
So, its running behind schedule slightly, but bask in the first ever screenshot of this seasons entry, Bump in the Night. Why did I wait this long? well, this is (genuinely) the first point I actually got a zombie on screen...
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11:24 am
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scribblenauts
Is quite good, although the ui is as annoying as people say. I do like the particularly literal approach it takes to checking whether you have solved the puzzle or not.
examples:
1. kitten is on top of house, owner next to house. Reunite kitten with owner.
cwoac solution: summon lighter. ignite house*. Cat leaps off house in fear. success
2. park is dirty. remove litter and flies from park.
cwoac solution #1: summon nuke, activate nuke. failed - character got nuked
cwoac solution #2: summon hazmat suit. wear suit, summon nuke, activate nuke. success
3. knock bottles off of stand (think fairground attraction). no guns /cheating allowed.
cwoac solution #1: summon elephant failed - apparantly, if I am riding the elephant, that counts as cheating
cwoac solution #2: summon termites. Termites eat stand bottles are on. success
Not sure how long it could keep my attention, but it is technically impressive.
*actually, I was trying to ignite the stick of TNT i had summoned, but failed due to UI. On hte plus side, it turns out lighter was enough to the job by itself.
Tags: games
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12:22 pm
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Just when I thought anime plots were becoming boring.
They just start munging them together.
Enter YoungLad (tm) (I can't recall his actual name). He's haunted (buts its ok, shes his friend), and seeming stuck in the middle of a four way fight between:
. the mafia (led by a guy who can throw fireballs)
. the school council (who dress like the templars and have uzi's)
. the science club (which appears to be in to voodoo, cyborg enhancments and rocket launchers as well as chemistry)
. a shrine maiden (who appears to have something to do with mecha).
Its not going to end well, really. But would probably make a good setup for a syndicate wars style game.
On a side note, I had forgotten how funny fummufo was.
[EDIT:]
ok, so it would appear to be demons, not mages. Yup there are mecha, and a possible three-way religious war between the catholics, the anglicans and the calvinists(?) oh, and I have strong suspicions that there will be Ninjas.
Tags: anime
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01:12 pm
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rejected game ideas
Who needs snail racing when you could be playing the (turn based?) Zombie DDR!
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11:54 am
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todays handy 'nix command
rename 's/(.*) - (.*)\.(.*)/$2 - $1.$3/' *
What it does: takes a file which is split into two (or more chunks) by - , and 'rotates' it - ie. moves the last chunk to the beginning.
Related ones:
rename 's/, The/_____/' *; rename 's/^/The /' *_____*; rename 's/_____//' *
rename 's/, A/_____/' *; rename 's/^/A /' *_____*; rename 's/_____//' *
for the first chunk only, moves , A or , The to the beginning of the chunk (ie. turns 'Prince, The' into 'The Prince'
Note this only works on 'nixs with sed based rename - I know some distros of linux ship with a different rename...
Tags: geek
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01:59 pm
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cross-genres.
I don't know why, and I know it is a source of annoyance to PLV, but I do have a weakness in my musical taste (such as it is) for cross-genre covers, however the latest one I have encountered is actually reasonably good, probably since they aren't too far apart: Hayseed Dixie, a band which started out doing bluegrass covers of AC-DC (hence the name) but branched out into general rock (KISS, queen, etc). I'm not a huge fan of bluegrass, but its quite listenable to.
(fwiw, the other ones that come to mind are Richard Cheese (hard rock/metal/goth done lounge) and Ten masked men (cheese/pop done death metal)).
Tags: music
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09:23 am
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trailers.
1. go to youtube (or other video site of choice)
2. watch trailer for megashark vs giant octopus (no really).
3. be both shocked and awed that this is
A. Real
B. A film that came out this year
Tags: films
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11:04 pm
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pointless geekery at its finest.
A thread on PA whereby some guy attempts to put every game possible on a single timeline. With references.
Did you know that Star wars happened at roughly the same time as castlevania? (end of the 18th century). No? well you do now.
Tags: geek
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10:16 am
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4X space games
now this techtree
is what I call a techtree...
Tags: games, geek
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11:19 am
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more video
Good thing: So after some fiddling I have now discovered what you can and can't get away with on the psp (need to do some confirms though).
Bad thing: Handbrake can see subtitles in all files, but only supports burning them from dvd sources? I suspect this is an underlying limitation of ffmpeg, but still. MEH.
Tags: geek, video
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01:10 pm
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video encodes.
Meh, so I have experimented and reached the following conclusions:
- spu-medialib is not ready for use on the ps3 for linux mode playback.
- thanks to libswscale (I presume), ffmpeg is broken on ppc (at least on the ps3), even with altivec off. This means running handbrake / ffmpeg based conversion stuff under linux on the ps3 is also out.
combined with the original lemma:
- the slug is not fast enough to do video transcoding.
I am forced to conclude my hypothesis was correct:
- I need to keep the main server to run as at least a transcoding engine, if not a media server.
Additionally, why is there no decent list of exactly what the PSP will and won't support on encodes? I mean its not really that difficult, is it?
Tags: geek, video
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09:11 am
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Films
Been watching a lot of them lately. Partly because I had a book of blockbuster vouchers to use up, partly because PLV has been a bit under the weather, and partly because, well bic. These things go in waves.
The forbidden Kingdom
Jackie chan/Jet li at it again in a film that (barring superior sfx) you would swear was a late 80's movie. The whole thing is an entirely predictable romp that comes off as a blend of the karate kid, drunken master and any early 90's fantasy movie. Pure popcorn stuff, but scored well on the entertaining stakes.
The Spirit
Sin city all over again, but rather than dark comics, its lifted from a 50's style pulp comic. A weak opening, but it did improve somewhat as it went on. Probably one for lepi (among others) as the director did seem to have a thing for seeing how many slightly too small costumes he could get scarlett johansson into.
max payne
Somewhat surprisingly, I think this is now probably the best film-of-the-game I've seen. PLV (who hadn't played the game) approved of it as a perfectly acceptable action film. It kept within reach of the games' plot and featured a lot of the scenes and shooting styles of the games (which were fairly cinematic to start with, which probably helped).
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
ok, so its better than episode 1-3. Mr. Lucas clearly watched the mummy trilogy before making this and decided that the direction they had headed in was the right one, and he should one-up them. Its not so much jumping the shark as realising that he left his hat behind, jumping back then whip-swinging across again. Another one in the 'Tosh, but enjoyable tosh' pile.
Tags: films, reviews
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08:13 am
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toys
So, as a result of various ramblings, I decided to pick up a Gameboy Micro on the cheap.
After a bit of digging around on ebay (where they all seemed to be either a. quite a bit or b. garish pink), I struck upon cex, who were offering a 'gameboy micro, discounted' for something in the ballpark of ten pounds, a figure I thought rather reasonable.
So, not expecting a response, I emailed them on friday lunch time asking two simple questions:
1. what colour was it, and
2. what condition was it in (i.e. why was it 'discounted')
Given my usual experience with these guys I did not hold out much hope. However, not an hour later I got back a reply saying it was 'black / silver' and was 'without box, some wear'. Sorted thought I, truely I have misjudged them, and thus the debit card was waved around mid friday afternoon.
Saturday morning a parcel arrives addressed to me. Clearly I am even more impressed and pleased at the service. Whereupon I am somewhat flummoxed when I open the package to discover.
a. it was green
b. it had been shipped in its box.
So, they managed to promptly answer my queries (and ship the object) and yet get the answers completely wrong. Nice one.
Tags: geek
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10:43 am
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Too much coding.
Its perhaps worrying but I was just now seriously thinking I could use another screen for doing my work on.
And I currently have 4 ...
Tags: geek
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11:51 am
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linux download rate limiting.
can be quite a pain. All I wanted to do was limit a box so other machines on the network could use it ok (shockingly it was pulling from a remote box that could completely max it all out).
( If you are not sufficiently geeky, you probably do not want to read more )
Tags: code, geek
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10:55 am
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random, but cool
Who needs a ds?
Tags: geek, link, programming
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01:03 pm
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new (net)books
So, the thing finally arrived (woo!). After much faffing to find appropriate devices to perform an image of the machine before first use (now done), and several hours of fiddle to get OSX installed, followed by an attack of xslimmer so I could install the sdks (10.5.6+iphonesdk+X11 leaves me with ~ 3gb free from 16 after running xslimmer).
Nice:
all just working (yay).
noise: its passive + ssd so there is none
the charger: its quite small, like a phone charger
performance: seems snappy so far. even the iphone simulator jumps up and is responsive.
sticker: I went for the 'sticker 1 black' lid option - its got a yellowish tinge with a complicated RnR themed mash of stuff on it - its quite pretty
Not so nice:
the keyboard is a bit on the wee side. On reflection this is probably because I have been spoilt by PLV's netbook's one.
the screen is a bit on the wee side resolution wise. On reflection this is probably because I have been spoilt by PLV's netbook's one.
There is a fix for the good-of-seeing, which basically involves fiddling with the OSX's 3d pipeline, so everything gets given a scaling factor (0.8 is apparantly the one, as that then gives you 750 on the vertical, which is probably close enough to 768 for most purposes). Not sure if I will go for that though.
Tags: geek
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12:22 pm
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Japan gets the coolest stuff pt X in an ongoing series
Ok, its only a case, but still:
oiled leather ds case
Tags: ds, geek
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10:53 am
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woo
Interesting weekend, if tired for most of it. Attended crazy-persons logan's run party. Ate, drank, was merry, discussed geeky things.
Dell have finally finished the terribly taxing task of assembling my netbook upgrades the full procedure:
1. remove a screw + cover
2. remove existing ram
3. remove existing HDD
4. insert new ram
5. insert new HDD
6. replace screw + cover
7. check it posts (probably optional)
8. slap a sticker on it
Time to complete: 8 days. Meh.
Still, it should arrive this week sometime (apparantly).
Tags: wibble
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12:36 pm
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wooo!
my code SIGABRTS in calloc. Thats not even supposed to be possible.
[yes, I know its almost certainly heap corruption somewhere due to an oversized memcpy, but still]
[Yup, it was.]
Tags: geek
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